84. Why Do We Find So Much Meaning in Meaningless Coincidences?
Listen to the original audio · Transcribed with NVIDIA Parakeet · Why times can differ in your player
Damned if you do and damned if you don't, Steven. I'm Angela Duckworth. I'm Steven Dubner. And you're listening to no stupid questions. Today on the show, why are humans so fascinated by coincidences? Are you my fifth grade English teacher? Have you ever seen us in the same place? The answer is no. Coincidence? I think not.
We have a really interesting email by somebody named Selvi. I'd like to read it to you. Please do. Hi, Stephen and Angela. Last night my husband and I finally decided that we should start watching the new season of Succession. Oh You're a succession fan, yes? I am. I have not watched a second of Succession. I'd recommend it. So after deciding this, Selby writes, I announced I would clean up the kitchen and then we would sit down to watch.
Of course, while cleaning up, I needed to listen to an episode of my favorite podcast, so I popped you guys on to entertain me while I cleaned. How do you feel about that, Angie, being uh accompaniment to dishwashing. Do you think that Selvi should be sitting at her desk and taking notes? I was flattered. Lo and behold, Selby writes, a mere five or so minutes into the podcast, you start to discuss succession. Oh my God. OMG. I was so surprised by this odd coincidence As if my decision to watch succession had somehow caused you to discuss it on the podcast. Obviously impossible and silly, but it made me wonder why we seem to think there is something so magical and special about coincidences. As I understand it, coincidences are pretty commonplace. For example, the birthday paradox says that in a room of 23 random people, there's a 50% chance two people will have the same birthday.
We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (28 minutes, 4,639 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.
No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 5 episodes for $3.49, and monthly plans are cheaper still.