My Daughter and I Had the Talk -- About Diminishing Returns

INT. KITCHEN — AFTERNOON

Cluttered, chaotic kitchen in vintage, ground-level condo nestled inside Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. Cold rain drizzles from a gray, overcast sky outside.

A father — haggard, harried, early forties — prepares a snack plate with sliced cheddar cheese, wheat crackers, green grapes, and a single Oreo cookie.

While lustily eyeing the spread, his almost seven-year-old daughter — curious, condescending, contemptuous — asks a perplexing, philosophical question.

DAUGHTER

(Deliberate)

Dad, why do people die?

FATHER

(Deliberate)

Ooh, that’s a tough one.

Well, the simple answer is because our bodies are not meant to last forever. Think of peoples’ bodies as kind of like machines — say cars or computers. Eventually, if you use a machine long enough, the parts wear out and stop working. When that happens to a person’s body, they die.

DAUGHTER

(Glumly)

That’s sad.

FATHER

(Displaying a rare glimpse of empathy)

It is sad when people die, but that’s part of the natural cycle of life. As people grow older and eventually die, they make room for new people to be born. Then those people eventually get old too, and when they die, they make room for the next generation of people to be born. And so on and so on.

Death is a natural, unavoidable part of life. Everybody dies one day — whether they want to or not — and that’s okay. The fact that people do ultimately die, and don’t live forever, is what makes our lives special. Finitude is what gives our lives meaning.

DAUGHTER

(Processing)

Oh, so you mean if somebody lived forever then their life wouldn’t be special?

FATHER

(Proud)

Exactly.

For example, if you lived forever, eventually each day would start to become a little bit less special than the last. As time marched on, and the days and weeks and months and years and decades and centuries accumulated, nothing about any day would ever feel special again.

You’d watch Frozen so many times, and eat pizza so many times, and read your favorite books so many times, and fall in love so many times, and watch the sunset so many times, that everything which makes life magical and amazing and breathtaking would become boring and arduous and perfunctory.

DAUGHTER

(Argumentative, just because)

I’d never get bored of watching Frozen!

FATHER

(Argumentative, due to misguided principles)

Oh yeah? Remember Toy Story 4? Because during the height of the pandemic you literally watched Toy Story 4 every day during my depression nap with your brother. After a while you got so sick of it you said you never wanted to watch it again.

Remember that?

When’s the last time you asked to watch Toy Story 4?

DAUGHTER

(Annoyed)

Okay, fine, whatever. You’re right — yeah, yeah, yeah.

FATHER

(Smugly)

Better get used to it.

(Didactic)

Anyway, in economics there’s an important concept called diminishing returns. In practical terms it means each time you do something you enjoy, you enjoy that thing a little bit less than the last time you did it.

Just look at Toy Story 4. You watched that movie so many times it ceased to be interesting or funny or exciting.

Or take that Oreo you just inhaled. You loved it, right? It was amazing. A miracle of food engineering from our friends at Nabisco.

If I gave you another Oreo right now you’d also love that one — but just a little bit less than the first one. Then, you’d love the third a little bit less than the second. The fourth a little bit less than the third — et cetera, et cetera — until eventually the value of the subsequent Oreo, or the marginal Oreo, dropped to zero.

And, if you can believe it, there’d come a point when you’d cease to enjoy Oreos altogether. In fact, you might even begin to despise them.

Which brings us back to mortality and the question of why people die.

From a purely economic standpoint, if you lived forever, every single day would eventually turn into an empty, meaningless slog, and life wouldn’t be special anymore.

Could you imagine that?

DAUGHTER

(Concerned)

No way! That sounds terrible.

FATHER

I know!

But can you believe that some people — namely moronic techno-libertarian douchebags in Silicon Valley — are spending tons of money trying to figure out how to live forever anyway?

DAUGHTER

(Incredulous)

Really?!

FATHER

Yep. Does that sound like a good idea to you?

DAUGHTER

En. Oh. No.

FATHER

What do you think would happen if those people figured out how to live forever?

DAUGHTER

They wouldn’t like their lives.

They wouldn’t even like chocolate! One day they’d be like: Yeesh, chocolate again?!

I just want to die already!!!

FATHER

That’s exactly right.

See, you’re already smarter than ninety-five percent of the twats who work in the tech sector.

Diminishing returns. It’s an important concept. Don’t forget it, okay?

DAUGHTER

(Excited)

Got it!

(Pensive)

And, um, Dad?

FATHER

Yes.

DAUGHTER

Can I have another Oreo?