What I asked: Under a Rawlsian *veil of ignorance — but optimizing for minimum opportunity cost of an arbitrary act of agency rather than Rawls’ justice-focused maximin — which society or era would one choose to be born into.

Answer: A present-day, high-freedom, high-GDP liberal democracy.

Rationale: since the act is unspecified, you want the position that minimizes opportunity cost regardless of what you end up trying to do — which favors general capability (rights, mobility, information, economic security) over betting on a historically “pivotal” moment that only pays off for specific high-leverage acts.

On reconsideration: held up because the veil also hides your position within the society — so a hinge-moment bet risks landing you not as the influential actor but as someone with no power at all, stacking a second bad draw on top of the first. High-capability societies have a much tighter floor, so they stay the lower-variance, lower-regret choice.

Implication: confirms time and space is a high percentage of one’s destiny.

*Mistyped as Neil of Ignorance; strikes me as a real good Culture Ship name.