# Zap! You're lucky, but around you is ill-fortune. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 8, 2016, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/zap-youre-lucky-but-around-you-is-ill-fortune/756858 "2016-06-08T19:48:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/zap-youre-lucky-but-around-you-is-ill-fortune/756858/1 "2016-06-08T19:48:15Z")
Gift or curse? You decide. The FSM stretches its noodly appendage and you become extremely lucky, but only with regards to self-preservation. You won’t win the lottery every week (though you might well win something if you’re deep in debt) but you will never accidentally electrocute yourself, tumours will turn out to be non-cancerous, you’ll stop yourself in time from saying the wrong thing, and the like. This good fortune extends to your family when they’re near you. But around you exists an aura of ill fortune. For example, a car that would have run you over manages to stop in time, but the seatbelt in the car fails and the passenger is seriously injured. So, gift or curse? And how do you cope? ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/zap-youre-lucky-but-around-you-is-ill-fortune/756858/2 "2016-06-08T20:13:08Z")
I was 100% curse until you mentioned that my family enjoys my good luck as well. Does the effect still happen if nobody is around (i.e. if I’m out hiking and the nearest person is 20 miles away, will they suffer)? Is the effect mitigated based on the number of people around (i.e. if I’m a crowded stadium, I’ll be protected from a falling light fixture but 1000 people get beer spilled on them, or am I saved from the light fixture and the 20 people next to me die, or is it I’m saved, the guy behind me dies, and everyone else is unaffected?) Can I make use of the effect intentionally, like picking a bar fight with a 250lb bodybuilder, who will slip on some errant cocktail napkin and get knocked out, or will the luck fade if I do something truly stupid? In general I wouldn’t want my good fortune to come at other’s expense, but at the same time if this is some cosmic rebalancing of the scales I don’t want to trade my son’s life for some rando out of a sense of fairness. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/zap-youre-lucky-but-around-you-is-ill-fortune/756858/3 "2016-06-08T20:25:25Z")
Fuck the people outside of my halo! ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/zap-youre-lucky-but-around-you-is-ill-fortune/756858/4 "2016-06-08T20:58:02Z")
The [Teela Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teela_Brown) effect. Preternaturally lucky, in the “survival of the fittest sense”. But horrible bad luck for those around here, because “good things” happened to her often at the expense of those around her. Also, it’s Darwinian good luck: at one stage in her life, she conceives and delivers a child (propagation of her genome), and then against her will becomes [a human Protector](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pak_Protector) to protect her offspring. It arose because she was the result of hundreds of years of lottery-based reproduction rights: through half-a-dozen generations of humans born because their parents won a luck-based lottery, luck became a natural selector, and her luck was the most refined and effective ever. Probability pretty much took a hike when it involved her health and well-being, but tended to take revenge on those around her. Thanks, but no thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/zap-youre-lucky-but-around-you-is-ill-fortune/756858/5 "2016-06-08T22:56:12Z")
> [@yellowjacketcoder](#): > > Is the effect mitigated based on the number of people around (i.e. if I’m a crowded stadium, I’ll be protected from a falling light fixture but 1000 people get beer spilled on them, or am I saved from the light fixture and the 20 people next to me die, or is it I’m saved, the guy behind me dies, and everyone else is unaffected?) Most likely the last, but you never know. > [@](#): > > Can I make use of the effect intentionally, like picking a bar fight with a 250lb bodybuilder, who will slip on some errant cocktail napkin and get knocked out, or will the luck fade if I do something truly stupid? In that case the luck would likely be you getting backhanded to the floor and him returning to his drink rather than you getting beaten to a bloody pulp. The bartender might lose her job for allowing a fight.