For my final column as your Devil’s Advocate, I’d like to make a point so counter-intuitive it goes against the double helix twisting the strings that control your decisions. Your genes don’t usually lead you wrong, but the world is changing faster than evolution can adapt to it.
Believe me when I say this: You need to start sleeping with math geeks.
Humans have been around for more than a thousand centuries, but this “civilization” thing is roughly 100 centuries old.Knowing how to throw a spear was necessary for survival on the savannah, so it became essential for attracting mates. Today, almost everyone can learn to chunk spears, and everyone finds physical prowess attractive. The Olympics shower status and sex on exceptional spear-chunkers even though modern spear-chunking helps no one survive.In pre-history, probability theory didn’t help our ancestors find dinner. Today, one could use Newtonian physics to predict where a chunked spear would land, but it was easier and quicker to just practice until the subconscious committed it to muscle memory. What modern math nerds we have are weird, evolutionary experiments that happened to work out — mutant dinosaurs born covered in feathers who somehow learned to fly.Today, we live in a world ruled by quants. Math geeks at Goldman-Sachs make billions on smart bets. Newtonian physics steers destructive missiles across continents. Forecasters literally predict the future.Math rules the world in the same way muscle used to, but our evolutionary attraction mechanisms, mine included, are too busy oohing and ahhing over shoulder and hip widths to be turned on by a geek who memorized the Gamma Function.That’s fine by me. The more uncommon my skill set, the more I’m paid.But imagine what the world will be like in 100 centuries.Today’s mathematicians hone their skills on the fringes of society, unsure of their value and nervously shuffling from problem to problem. In the future, they will stride in confidence through the utopia numbers build. Cowboys will carry graphing calculators in holsters. Mathletes will be treated like gods, and numerophobes will be treated like gingers.If you want your genes to last — and your genes have only lasted so far because they want to last — you need to start mixing them with whatever math geeks you can find.Screen your partners. At your first date, ask them if they’ve ever purchased a lottery ticket. When the bill comes, ask him or her how large the tip should be. If the first answer is a yes or the second answer comes after more than a five-second pause, let that one go.If they answer “only when the expected value exceeds zero” and to the nearest penny, then make love to them. Make love with reckless abandon. Make love as though your very survival depends on it. In the long, genetic view, it does.If you’ve already snared a nerd into your love life, you’re one of the lucky few, but if you settled for a non-quant husband, find a suitor who looks like him and pray your provider never takes a paternity test.There aren’t enough geeks to go around, and you might miss out on your piece of the action.Worst-case scenario: Your partner writes you a derivative text message about he “wants to lie tangent to your curves.”Best-case scenario: Your genius progeny rule the future.I hope you take my advice before it’s too late.And I even more sincerely hope my girlfriend doesn’t read this column.Daniel Morgan is a 22-year old economics senior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter@TDR_dmorgan.—————Contact Daniel Morgan at [email protected]