Lessons from Jurassic Park

Newsletter 2024-12-19

Everything I need to know, I learned from Jurassic Park. It’s a shame I didn’t realize the value of those educational resources before I wasted half my life in school. This week, I rewatched the first two films in the series. I’ve seen the other seven hundred sequels at least once. These are the most important lessons I took away from them, shared in no particular order. Jurassic Park didn’t teach me how to make lists by ascending importance.

It’s never too late to bring up the past.

Perhaps you and a loved one had a big fight a decade ago over something important, like politics or the best kind of cheese. You might think it’s time to let bygones be bygones. WRONG. If Jurassic Park scientists can bring back problems from sixty-five million years ago, you can bring back problems from within your lifetime. This holiday, start that fight all over again, but this time was supporting evidence. That evidence will, of course, be a big chunk of cheese you throw at their head. It’s their own fault for not fully appreciating the glory of Gouda.

The world needs more problems.

Wars. Pandemics. TV series with cliffhanger endings that get canceled after one season. You might have thought there were already enough things wrong with the world. The scientists of Jurassic Park knew better. That’s why, in the early nineties, they added dinosaurs to the mix. It wasn’t enough to worry that climate change might ruin the world for your children. Now you also have to worry that they might get eaten by raptors. Consequently, dinosaurs prefer it warm, so a climate disaster for you is a climate opportunity for them. Try to be more open-minded.

Getting sued isn’t all that bad.

Many people are afraid to do anything because we live in such a litigious society. Making coffee that’s too hot or a slide that’s too fast could get you sued. Uptight parents don’t appreciate it when you accelerate their children to the speed of light. My idea for a Hadron Collider-themed playground was doomed from the start. At least that’s what I thought before rewatching Jurassic Park. Now I know that lawsuits are a myth. A lawyer got eaten off a toilet by a T-Rex. Afterwards, there were ten more iterations of that same theme park. You’d think that even one dead lawyer would mean endless lawsuits followed by bankruptcy. Apparently the park’s lawyers were better than the lawyers for the dead lawyer’s family. There’s one other possible explanation. The lawyer in the first Jurassic Park wears shorts with his suit jacket. Such a fashion abomination exempts him from the protections afforded by the Constitution. If you plan to attend a dinosaur park and you’d like your family to receive compensation in the extremely likely event of your death, please make sure to dress sensibly.

Nothing can stop a good idea, not even electric fences.