Is swagger dead? Has cockiness become outdated? Flip on the TV, there’s CNN’s Larry King chatting with Mick Jagger.

Yes, Larry King could make an interview with Jesus seem tedious.

“OK, Mr. ah, Christ, when you turn water into wine, what sort of wine is it? Chardonnay?”

But still. He asks Jagger, the lead singer of the Rolling Stones, probably the greatest rock band ever, to explain the last 48 years.

“How do you account . . . for the longevity of the Stones, as a success?” King drawls.

Jagger replies:

1. “The Stones are very lucky. You always need a lot of luck.”

2. “They were in the right place at the right time.”

3. “We work very hard.”

Then, in case this confuses anybody, Jagger summarizes:

“So you need all those things. You’ve got to be hardworking, on your game and be lucky.”

All no doubt true. But still, that’s the answer you’d expect from a high school football coach asked by a local public access cable channel to explain Friday night’s victory.

Mick Jagger? The guy doing that proud rooster strut across the stage while 100,000 fans go crazy? You’d think he’d snarl, “Well, we’re the best f—–’ band in the f—–’ world aren’t we? That might be a factor, eh Larry?”

Of course, time grinds us all to a uniform powder. The singer is 66, and it could be argued that his modest reply is refreshing. Maybe there are so many self-aggrandizing blowhards today that the cutting edge of hipness is to bow your head and thank providence for sending dozens of hit songs your way.

But still. It’s 2010. Mick Jagger is humble, and I’m not feeling so hot myself.

“No testimony,” David Hume wrote, “is sufficient to establish a miracle.”

What does he mean? Let’s say I tell you that I have seen the Hindu elephant god, Ganesh. I swear that Lord Ganesh appeared in my tomato garden, uttered his 108 names into my ear and placed his four hands upon my head in benediction.

Would you think:

A) Neil Steinberg is a professional journalist whose livelihood depends upon his ability to separate the real from the imagined, fact from fiction. He has always been honest with us in the past, ergo, the fantastic elephantine deity truly appeared in Northbrook.

Or:

B) The poor man has finally snapped. People lose their reason all the time. Mental illness is a problem affecting millions, and the appearance of pachydermal phantoms must be a delusion, no matter how heretofore reliable the source who is claiming the chimera is real.

Which would you choose — a violation of all known physical laws or an achingly common occurrence?

Mmmm. . . . I hope you chose “B.” Of course, I subtly stacked the deck by picking Ganesh — an obscure god for non-Hindus — for my vision, rather than, say, the Angel Gabriel or the Infant of Prague or some more mainstream holy manifestation which readers might be inclined to see placed into the here and now.This balancing of likely explanations — weighing the odds of Eastern divinities appearing in vegetable patches vs. the sudden derangement of longtime columnists, factoring in the wish-fulfillment bias, is a handy device to keep in your intellectual toolbox.

For instance, this week the media ballyhooed plans of one Robert Vicino, a former time-share condo salesman, whose California company, Vivos, is accepting deposits for “a comfortable, nuke-proof bunker under the Mojave Desert.”

For 10 percent of the $50,000 purchase price, you reserve a bunk in a subterranean shelter to be carved out of an old AT&T switching station. Vivos claims 60 people have made cash deposits.

“The facility is among several popping up across the country,” the Associated Press notes, “as fears of doomsday have been fueled recently by strong earthquakes, terrorism and predictions of the world’s end in 2012 when the ancient Mayan calendar is said to end.”

Earthquakes and terrorism are disasters that typically announce themselves by occurring — the fault shifts under you, the bomb on the train goes off. I don’t see how a $50,000 bed in the desert helps.

But don’t let me influence you. Take your $5,000 deposit, and with Hume’s logic in mind, place your bet:

A) The shelter will actually be built, then disaster will strike in such a manner that you have time to flee to your expensive underground bunker, where you’ll safely wait out whatever horrible chaos is unfolding everywhere else.

B) The whole thing is either a scam or a folly, the deposit money will be stolen or lost, and you’ll be worse off should disaster strike than had you had kept your cash on hand, or as a gold brick under the floorboards, or had you formed some other backup plan that doesn’t involve relocation to the Mojave.

Again, “B” is the obvious choice. It shocks me that 60 people in the world would bet $5,000 on A.

Then again, don’t forget the belief factor; many people try hard to convince themselves that the world is coming to an end, either because it adds drama to their otherwise mundane lives, or because they’re afraid anyway, and want to embrace a justification for how they already feel.

I need to be in on this scam. Look, if you’re using ancient Mayan prophecies as an investment guide, I’d be happy to sell you Mayan Doomsday Insurance — $10 million in gold, delivered to your home anywhere in the United States three business days after the world ends in 2012. All for a mere $50,000. Or $5,000. Or whatever you want to pay me. The peace of mind alone is worth the price.

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