Baseball is the most supremely boring sport in America. But…you never know, you might hit a homer! If they would throw the ball over the plate, you’d have a good chance. But they don’t. They want you to strike out. And statistically, that’s what is going to happen.
They used to teach calculus in school, but it proved to be somewhat divisive, so it fell out of the Common Core. I used to have a slide rule, but now I just let my phone get the answer. Let’s just consider for a moment, the old problem of a marsupial crossing the road. The marsupial is about 14” long, and scuttles along, in Texas, at about 14 feet per minute, with an occasional rest of 10 seconds to two minutes. He has 22 feet to go, and another 28” to allow for nose to tail clearance. For simplicity, we’ll consider any contact with a car to be a death blow. The cars are traveling in randomized groups, fewer at night, at speeds of 35mph to 100+, some going east, some west. For *DeathBlow, DirectionofTravel makes no difference. My phone says that’s about 588-10,208 feet per minute. The tires are about 8-10” wide, about 5-8’ apart. They’re in linear groups of 2, one pair to a lane. Will the marsupial die before he gets across? Calculus says yes, he will, about 96.4% of outcomes. But what color will the car be?
If you’re in the mortgage business, you will make about $280,000 per $100,000 of mortgages serviced, or about $180,000 profit over time. About 98.3% of the time, the money just rolls in, regular as clockwork. In thirty years, you’ll also be able to collect a few thousand in late payments, and pay for the company picnics. You’ll truly be shitting in high cotton. Your only worry will be that the good times will one day stop rolling. Who is going to stand in front of a freight train? Probably one of those 1.7% who didn’t send in his money this month. You will spare no effort to squash these peasants. You’ll buy insurance, you’ll hire attorneys, you’ll buy judges, you’ll buy Senators, maybe you’ll even buy the Attorney General himself.
But as statistically improbable as it may be that one of these peasants will step up to the plate and derail your train, over a period of time, it’s a dead certainty that it will happen. As sure as we have live marsupials running all over Texas. If you’re reading this – I’m the One.