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### Prologue I
Regression?
You mean when you fall off a cliff, get into a traffic accident, or die from an electric shock, only to open your eyes
and find yourself back in the past?
You open your eyes and you're an elementary school student. Or maybe a middle school student? Or even a newborn baby?
So what?
What are you going to do about it?
You know the entire future, so your life is going to be a complete success. Game over! Woohoo!!
Is that what you think? That's freaking hilarious.
You still don't understand that even if you know the future, you're completely screwed unless you start putting in the
effort all over again from the beginning?
Honestly, those of you who are dissatisfied with your current lives and spend every day complaining about your
circumstances, let me ask you something.
Did you really not know the future? Really?
You must have known it all, right? It's the future your parents and teachers told you about until their mouths went dry.
Haven't you ever heard the definite information that unless you study hard and get into a prestigious university, your
life won't amount to much?
Didn't you know that if you got a job with one of those prestigious professional titles, you'd make good money and
beautiful women would be lining up around you?
Weren't you told that whatever you do, you have to work hard and do your best?
You knew it all!
And yet you didn't study and just fooled around, did you?
You played games at PC bangs, hung out with a bunch of equally stupid idiots, wandered around doing pointless things.
Don't you remember?
You think that if you went back to the past, you'd study your ass off and get into a top university, right?
Still, always, absolutely freaking hilarious.
You'll end up playing even more. Why? Because you already know everything. You know the multiplication tables, you know
all the English vocabulary, and you understand the concepts of atoms and molecules, so you'll probably look like a
genius.
But here's the thing. That only works until elementary school.
Once you enter middle school, you start learning equations, geometry, statistics, and Korean history. English vocabulary
starts getting harder too, and in ethics and social studies, terms like human rights, democracy, forms of government,
and cultural diversity start popping up everywhere, giving you a headache. Studying is a habit, too. Do you really think
you'll suddenly be good at studying when you've never done it before?
The moment you look at a book, you'll get sleepy. You'll want to play games on your smartphone, and you'll be dying to
go to a PC bang and level up. So you'll really regress. In other words, you'll repeat the same thing you did in the
past, wasting your time fooling around and doing nothing useful.
You want to deny that?
Then here's a problem.
The ratio of the number of students in two middle school classes is m:n, and the relative frequencies of the students in
the reading club are a and b, respectively. Express the relative frequency of the total number of reading club students
among the total number of students in both classes using a, b, m, and n.
This is a first-year middle school math problem.
So? Starting to understand, even a little, that even if you regress, nothing will suddenly become easy to solve unless
you study hard?
If you can look at this problem and solve it in an instant, you're someone who worked hard enough that you don't need to
regress. Just keep living as diligently as you are now. I guarantee your future won't be bad.
Ah~ Speaking politely is annoying. From now on, I'll just talk casually.
Samsung Electronics' stock price was less than 10,000 won in the 1980s, but now it's well over a million won. That's
more than a hundredfold increase.
During President Roh Tae-woo's term, there was all that talk about new towns, and land prices in the Seoul metropolitan
area skyrocketed. During President Kim Young-sam's term, the IMF crisis hit, and the dollar went above 2,000 won.
Companies that were once IT ventures, such as NHN, NCSoft, and Nexon, have become enormous corporations today. When
smartphones appeared, Apple, which had been worth only one dollar, became the world's leading company, and SNS services
like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram became huge successes.
You already know all of that, right?
So what?
You think that if you went back to the past, you'd use this knowledge to make a fortune?
Not a chance. You'd only know about it. That's all. Just like how you knew that a decent future would unfold if you
studied hard.
If you went back to the past, you'd have to make an effort to use the future you know about to turn your life around,
but you wouldn't do it anyway. Humans don't change that easily. You didn't even study when studying was that simple, so
what the hell makes you think you'd put in the effort? You'd just sit around drinking and rambling about things you
know. Acting as if you're some great person.
You think you'd diligently save your allowance, buy Samsung Electronics stock, create Lineage before NCSoft was even
founded, create Naver before it existed, and strike it rich?
You absolutely wouldn't be able to do it.
When your parents gave you allowance, you were supposed to save it little by little and buy Samsung Electronics stock,
but instead of saving it, you'd be busy spending it. You'd go to a PC bang and play KartRider, right? Just like you did
back then. You think you wouldn't smoke the cigarettes you're smoking now if you were reborn? You'd probably start
smoking from elementary school.
You know all the founders of those IT companies mentioned above graduated from Seoul National University, right? Having
the Seoul National University name behind them meant that even when they talked about unfamiliar things like MMORPGs and
portals back then, they could attract investment and gather talented people.
The actual owner of today's hugely successful KakaoTalk, Chairman Kim Beom-su, also came from Samsung and was the
president of Naver's Hangame and a co-CEO of NHN.
The first blockbuster game on KakaoTalk, Anipang, also came through Chairman Kim Beom-su's connections.
You think you can invest in companies like these during their early days and make a fortune through stocks?
If you weren't part of those connections, they probably wouldn't even let you join as an investor.
Those people play in their own league, after all.
So. What should you do?
Write all of this down.
6, 30, 38, 39, 40, 43
Memorize these numbers. Then you can make a killing in life without even putting in any effort. Of course, to turn your
life around in one shot, you'd have to regress. In other words, you'd have to be reborn. Ah, and keep in mind that if
you went back to 2004, those numbers would be useless.
Still, isn't regressing easier than turning your current life around? Statistically speaking.