”What are the chances? That a lapsed luck philosopher meets an unluckiness magnet on Tinder and falls for her? That she falls for him?” For New York magazine, Eric Boodman explores the complex nature of luck through the life trajectories of a sociologist prone to misfortune, Holly Davis, and her husband (and luck scholar), Lee John Whittington. Is luck real? It’s a tough question, but Boodman tackles it in this intriguing piece.
We live in an era of boundless data, an empiricist’s fantasy. Apps count our steps and track our breaths. Websites watch our scrolls and clicks. Scientists trace the viruses and chemicals that get flushed with our urine and feces. We recognize the structural forces at play in our lives, the long tail of history and policy swishing around in the everyday. Our world should be at its most analyzable, explicable — but still it can feel like sorcery. That a hurricane’s path was plotted by satellite and dropsonde, radar and big-data modeling doesn’t dull the eeriness of one house destroyed and its neighbor still standing.
More picks from Intelligencer
The Next Drug Epidemic Is Blue-Raspberry Flavored
“How Galaxy Gas became synonymous with the country’s burgeoning addiction to gas.”
The Rise of the Climate Anti-Hero
“Soup on a van Gogh may be more strategic than it seems.”
What I Learned From Destroying Myself at the NYC Marathon
“It is best experienced with open ears, open eyes, and, yeah, I’ll say it: an open heart.”
The Return of Ta-Nehisi Coates
“A decade after ‘The Case for Reparations,’ he is ready to take on Israel, Palestine, and the American media.”
The Feud Tearing the Paleontology World Apart
“Two paleontologists have turned on each other, each claiming to have found new evidence about the worst day on Earth.”
Andrew Huberman’s Mechanisms of Control
“The private and public seductions of the world’s biggest pop neuroscientist.”
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