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I was just thinking yesterday how me and my three brothers wouldn’t exist if my Mom’s father hadn’t had a box fall on him in the back of a delivery truck, crush

I was just thinking yesterday how me and my three brothers wouldn’t exist if my Mom’s father hadn’t had a box fall on him in the back of a delivery truck, crushing his hip and making him have to move his family several states away to convalesce. Later my Mom would grow up there and meet my Dad. Nevermind the astronomical chances that the single sperm that made you achieved success and you aren’t some other version of your siblings. Life is weird and the chances any of us exist is so remote. Enjoy your beyond lotto win and that you were able to pop into existence in the universe at all! What a gift.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
Kind of puts a brake on the whole notion of time travel. I know "just world" is a fallacy, but thinking about ethics of such hypothetical temporal interventions, I have this strong sense that time travel is not possible in our universe because otherwise it would be too abhorrent a place.
- bena 2y ago
  It’s one of those weird paradoxical things. Yes, the chances of all that happening is astronomically small, but the chances that something happens is nearly 1. So, while that specific person may not have existed, it’s likely his mother would have had children, etc, etc. And it kind of ties into the general idea. Luck is favorable variance. So put yourself in situations where you can experience variance. Eventually, you will have something favorable happen to you. There’s a post on this site that gets linked about how success is like a carnival game. And it’s about how many chances you can afford. It’s also the mentality behind “fail fast and fail often”. Increase your exposure to variance and you increase your chances of success.