What if you do “want to be rich, famous, and demented and dead at 40?”

I see from this National Post article that the nanny state-ers are at it again, trying to bring professional hockey into the nerf-universe they would like all of us to inhabit. The article quotes neurologist, Dr. Rajendra Kale as saying, “One question I’d like to ask hockey players is, ‘Do you want to be rich, famous and demented and dead at 40?’ It’s not that it’s going to happen to everybody, but there’s a good chance that would happen. Is that what they want?”

Really,  50% of all professional hockey players die as gibbering invalids at age 40? Or is it 30%? Or 5%? How low does the probability have to be in order for it count as a ‘good chance’? 

The reason I ask is that there seems to be an awful lot of news items about aging NHL stars. Rocket Richard died at age 78 (from cancer). Gordie Howe (age 82), Jean Beliveau (age 80), Bobby Hull (age 72), Dave Keon (age 71) and Guy Lafleur (age 60) are all still with us; none of them seem to be suffering from dementia or Parkinson’s, and all of them played in the era of no helmets.

But even if Dr. Kale were right and the rate of dying by 40 from dementia really is significant, does it follow that the only rational response to his question is no?

Life is about the tradeoffs between benefits and risk. The nanny state-ers like to assume that people would automatically choose safety over every other thing, like, say, significant life accomplishment. But for a 17 year old kid from small town Ontario with an IQ of 89 but a supernatural ability at hockey, the choice may well be between being rich and famous and demented and dead at 40, or poor and obscure and mowed down by a cement mixer at age 40 while coming home from night shift at the shoelace factory.

Every choice we make has potential risks and rewards, with crucial information about many of the relevant conditional probabilities unavailable to us at the time we have to decide. So why is the seemingly safest course of action automatically the only rational option? Kale does not say.

And putting hockey superstars and other ubermench aside, is the safest choice even the most common choice selected by us regular folk? 

Perhaps less often than Dr. Kale thinks. While at university I held a summer job at an Ontario Hydro power plant. One fitter I worked with told me that when a reactor overhaul was in progress at the Pickering Nuclear Power Plant, it was common practice for the fitters and other workers to surreptitiously leave their Atomic Energy of Canada supplied dosimeter just outside the airlock so that their overtime wouldn’t be maxed out by their radiation dosage. When facing a choice between a couple hundred bucks next week or an incrementally increased risk of cancer 30 years from now, these guys chose the former. Are they wrong to do so? Were those men insane?

Explorer Ernest Shackleton famously put out this ad for his ill-fated Antarctic expedition:

"Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter Cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success."

Were the 5,000 men (and “three sporty girls”) who responded to his ad crazy, or were they being heroic? The public at the time overwhelmingly believed the latter (and still do). What about our soldiers who volunteer for combat in Afghanistan? The risk of death or dismemberment in a typical combat tour is far higher than that faced by any professional athlete, at much smaller remuneration than a professional athlete. Is Dr. Kale saying that Canadian soldiers are not heroic, just merely nuts?

What Dr. Kale and his control-freak friends need to understand is that risks are inherent in life, and they are but one factor going into the decisions we make. On this point, I think Helen Keller put it best:

 “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.”

Comments

[Ken Moore]

Well put.

[don morris]

Let's see, 20 years as a sports superstar,with all the accompanying benefits,or fifty years of drudgery,followed by all the aches and pains and illnesses of old age,just before dying in obscurity?

Hm, which to choose....

I'll take "Tiger Woods girlfriends" and a million bucks,Alex.

As to the guys trading safety for a few extra bucks,I've seen it many times in industries I've worked in,construction and logging. Young men have an inherent belief in their invincibility and immortality.

I've seen them take senseless risks, not just for money,but to appear "macho" to their friends,who usually cheer on their behaviour.

Dr.Kale has done an interesting study. That's what he DOES,and he does it well.I just hope his feelings won't be hurt when little attention is paid to his work.

I agree,Ms. Keller said it very well.

[Sean M]

Lefty, nanny Statists won't be happy until we're all pussies and wimps. If the lefty wussy brigade wants to change the Canadian identity and turn our game into American college hockey then just do it, and save us the constant whining. If I was running hockey i would make the pussies that play the game today take off the body armour, make everyone use wooden sticks, make goalie gear smaller, and bring back the red line. The shoulder pads and elbow pads used by hockey players today are obscene. oh, yeah... i would get rid of the instigator rule too! I just wish lefty social engineers would get a life and stop pussifying the Canadian identity.