Helicopter Nudism — July 26th, 2007

According to legend, in the 11th Century A.D., a sweaty-palmed Norwegian king stood nervously in the face of his enemy. He massaged in his hand a pair of dice while whispering a hopeful prayer. At issue was the possession of an island. The enemy had rolled an impossible-to-beat twelve and the Norwegian king needed a miracle to win the dispute.

He threw the dice.

According to familial lore, in the 21st Century A.D., a sweaty-palmed cousin of mine stood anxiously in front of an attractive young lady selling tickets to a helicopter ride in Las Vegas. He massaged in his hand a few crisp twenty-dollar bills while murmuring a hopeful prayer. At issue was whether or not the "Strip Helicopter Rides" sign meant what he thought it meant. We knew it didn't and he needed a miracle to win the bet.

He asked the question.

Whether attempting to end wars off the Scandinavian Peninsula or seeking not-so-cheap thrills in the City of Sin, we face choices in our lives every day. Sometimes these choices have little potential consequence—chunky vs. plain, for instance. Sometimes these choices have great potential consequences—making a risky lane change, for example. In some cases we get to think about our choices for a while, while others are made in the blink of an eye.

Eventually, we take a chance.

Or do we? It surprises me how frequently I find people assuming that 90% of life is a roll of the dice, a game of pure chance, and a simple giving-over to fate. Sure, some things in life are simple chance. But these things are far, far fewer than we tend to believe. If you're bellied-up to the Craps table at the casino, you're taking a chance. If you're bellied-up to the local bar thinking about driving home, you're not.

I'll elaborate, anecdotally.

In June of this year I got the opportunity to jump from an old bi-plane. Obviously, the choice I had to make was whether or not to jump from the historic, open-cockpit plane. Many people labeled me "crazy" and asked how I "could take such a chance." My answer to them was simple, "It isn't chance."

Chance exists only in situations where there are multiple possible outcomes, each of which has a roughly equivalent probability of occurrence—rolling a perfect die, for example. As soon as the circumstances are modified to change the relative probabilities of the various outcomes, chance disappears. Influence takes over.

For instance, if you weight one side of a die, the likelihood of the opposite side facing up increases. There is no longer an equal opportunity for all sides to assume the face-up position. The weighting causes a propensity for one side to appear face up more frequently than the others. Chance begins to fade.

Further, shaping a die in a particular way can give its thrower more influence over its behavior. Dice with rounded corners behave "less randomly" than dice with perfect 90-degree angles. Therefore, a skilled dice thrower with rounded dice can influence which sides face up more frequently. Chance slips away even more.

So when presented the opportunity to jump from the old bi-plane (and did I mention that it would be flying upside-down at the time?), I wasn't deciding whether or not to take a chance. Instead, I was engaging an opportunity to weight the dice and round their corners.

First, I knew I'd be jumping from a lower-than-usual altitude. So, to weight the dice in my favor, I thoroughly inspected my equipment to minimize the chance that I'd have to deal with a low-altitude emergency. Then I rounded the corners of the dice a bit by packing my parachute to open a little more quickly than usual. This makes for an uncomfortable opening, but this way, if an emergency did occur, I'd have more time and altitude to deal with it.

Second, I knew that I'd be flying in an open-cockpit aircraft. If my parachute opened prematurely while I was riding in, or climbing out of, the airplane, the result could be fatal for the pilot and me. Therefore, during my gear inspection, I shortened my parachute's closing loop to a ridiculously short length. This made it more difficult to pack the parachute, but it weighted the dice significantly in favor of the pilot and me.

Third, knowing that I'd be jumping from an inverted airplane, and knowing that it may take some time to climb out of the cockpit properly, I figured I'd have less control over where I'd be when I got out of the airplane. Hence, I'd have less control over where I would land. To weight the dice and shape their corners, I spent some extra time studying the wind and reviewing my alternate landing areas.

Once I was comfortable that I could get exactly the dice throw I wanted, I made the decision to jump. Mind you, I wasn't certain I'd get the dice throw I wanted, but I was comfortable with the odds I'd created for myself.

The pilot and I took off.

So how did our Norwegian king fare? It is said that as he rolled his dice, one of them split in half. When everything came to rest, facing up were a six, a six, and a one. He'd rolled thirteen.

How did my intrepid cousin fare with the strip helicopter ride? The lovely woman selling tickets informed my cousin that, in fact, she would not be getting naked in the helicopter. It wasn't the kind of strip helicopter ride he was hoping for. It was a helicopter ride up and down the Las Vegas strip. He decided not to take the ride.

You win some, you lose some.

So why do I think that driving home drunk is not taking a chance? Simple. If you drive drunk, you are choosing to throw dice that are heavily weighted against you. And the edges of those dice aren't sharp. The various possible outcomes are not equally likely. It isn't chance; it's stupidity, with profound potential consequences.

Obviously, little of life is pure chance. And that's why it perplexes me that people so frequently say things like "it's up to chance" or "it's a roll of the dice." This is a defense mechanism. By saying something is left up to chance, we transfer responsibility for the outcome. If things go well, we can still congratulate ourselves. If things go poorly, we can quickly say it wasn't "part of god's plan", "it wasn't in the cards", or some other blame-transfering statement.

I hope you believe that life is not a simple roll of the dice. It's not pure chance. Lived properly, life is weighted dice, with rounded corners, well thrown.

You have the ability to put the odds in your favor. If you're spinning the roulette wheel of life, put a little glue in the bottom of Red 7, bet the farm, and nudge the ball. You may never get 100% odds in your favor. Then again, would you want them? Nothing certain in life ever pleases so much as something worth taking a risk on.

As for me and my biplane jump... Watch the video. I'm still here and I have more funny dice to throw.

Now if I could just convince a cutie to go helicopter skiing with me...

~ topher

References:

A Game of Chance Invented By God, CNN.com, 11 November, 2002.
Dice, Answers.com, 24 July, 2007