Asymmetrical Information

OK, Mr. Greenpants. What sport is more destructive?

"golf courses are to open space what ketchup is to vegetables" wherein ketchup is the concentrated essence of vegetable.

I, it should be noted, tried golf one time. Couldn't make it past the windmill. Decided that altho others enjoy it, the game isn't for me.

Golfers are crazy.

That photo is from three years ago when there were really huge grass fires east of San Diego. Yes, that golf course really was about to burn down. (Fortunately, the firefighters saved it.)

Monster truck competitions or any indoor motorsports (consider the lung and brain damage). Any sport played or endorsed by North Korea's fearless leader. I'm sure there's more, but I'm 'not thinking about it'.

Are you aware that many of your local golf courses (for instance a nearby one in Skilman) use local septic to treat the fairways?

Yeah, but notice that the wind is blowing away from the course.

I started golf 3-4 years ago, and am just beginning to learn how to swing a golf club. At my age, I'm not sure there is still such a thing as muscle memory--I end up making the same mistakes over and over again.

But there is not much in life better than taking a nice walk outdoors and whacking at a little round ball every once in a while. It provides a little direction and purpose to the walk. And golf courses are usually pretty nice places.

Now if only I could get my play down to match my handicap! (Handicaps don't go higher than 36.4 but my "real" handicap is around 50.)

By the way, I feel silly that I fell for Mr. Orangepants shifting the burden of proof.

Even if the fire had swept toward the golf course, the course itself would not have burned easily. Grass on golf courses is watered heavily, even during droughts. Indeed, the sprinklers could be activated as a fire approached.

Grenade fishing is more destructive, but only if it's done right.

I admit to a bias, as golf is the one sport for which I seem to have some inherent ability.

Anyone whose politics incorporate personal responsibility in some form has to favor golf to one degree or another. It's the only sport that expects you to turn yourself in when you violate the rules. Let's try that in the NFL -- failure to turn yourself in if the pass was possibly incomplete is a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty... :^)

I'll stick with Twain's "A good walk spoiled."

I could stand a few LESS golf courses here in the semiarid Front Range of Colorado. Local septic is still water removed from a waterway, and in most of THIS half of the states, a waterway is an exception, not the rule.

The only real problem with the lazy man's sport of golf, is that there are so many publicly funded golf courses out there. A very small percent of the population plays the game, yet a huge chunk of public land and a lot of money to maintain it get taken from all of us.

I've always thought gold was a dumb sport. Not for me.

But golf courses do serve one useful purpose. They're used on toxic waste sites, after they've been reasonably cleaned up. It's way too expensive to get all of the toxic waste out -- and where do you put it? In another land fill? You don't want little kids there afterwards. They do dumb things like eat dirt. So you put a golf course there. No little kids. No one growing vegetables.

Try this Google search for examples.

I think that golf is our most destructive sport.

I think the "destructive" part was referring to its effect on the brain cells of those who play.

"Contrary to populate belief, golf is not a waste of time. The transforming of city dumps, vacant lots, and civic eyesores into beautiful greens and fairways more than justifies the existence of the game."

- "How to Play Golf", starring Goofy (1944)

A Golf course is a waste of a perfectly good rifle range.

All that aside, a lot of people enjoy it and it is a sport you can play for your whole life and never master.

I'm perhaps the worst golfer in the world, but for my profession its a "must-do" sport, in terms of client contact, contact with felow professionals etc, so I suffer through (the mobile drink cart helps).

Golf was created by Cthulhu. Case closed.

I detest golf - or, as it is more correctly known, "cartball" - because is symbolizes the complete laziness of the American population. For the majority of men over age 30 or so, a weekly round of cartball constitutes a rugged exercise session. It is rapidly killing off most other forms of participatory sports for adults. Check around almost any suburban community and you'll find a number of sports leagues for children but virtually nothing for adults - they're all playing cartball :(((

Golf is not the only sport that is self-officiated. How about ultimate frisbee - a sport where one might actually get some exercise?

Agreed that there's a sad lack of places for adults to engage in particiaptory sports.

I guess I might start here - I'm not sure it's a sport at all. Activity, game...

I despise 'cartball' myself. The game was meant to be played on foot. And carrying your bag 18 holes, and playing at a fast clip (neither of which is done much here) actually can be decent exercise.

I agree that golf is a dumb "sport" (and that's from someone who lives in part of the world where people pay actual money to watch curling).

But it is a great excuse to get together with a few buddies on a sunny Saturday afternoon to hang out outside and have a few beer. Twain's "good walk spoiled" was obviously in the days before drink carts. You can't think of golf as a sport. It's like pool or bridge - something to keep you occupied during breaks in the conversation and between sips - only outdoors.

If people want to consider cartball a non-athletic diversion like cards or pool, that's fine, unfortunately for all too many American men it's their _only_ form of even remotely physical activity. I've been a member of a busy gym in a densely populated suburban area for over three years, and I'd have to say that at least 90% of the male members look to be under age 30, usually well under (the women seem to be a little older). Participatory sports activities for adults are almost nonexistent, except for one or two softball leagues which mainly draw men in their early 20's, and the sight of an over-30 man jogging or bicycling is about as common as a sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker.
I'm not saying that cartball is solely or even primarily responsible for all this sedentary behavoir, but I do believe that it contributes to the mindset in which physical activity is a bothersome thing to be avoided whenever possible.

Peter, why are you wasting your time complaining about an activity that you say contributes to the lack of exercize in post-30 males? Who cares what you think? If post-30 males want to exercize at a gym, they will, they don't need your borderline social policy bs. If you want to worry/complain about something, do it about your own life. Or are you to perfect?

The success of golf is no mystery. The sport has several unique attributes which no other sport comes close to duplicating.

(1) Players of different skill levels can play together. Since golf pits the player first against the green and only secondarily against other players, a simply manipulation of the scoring system lets players of different skill levels compete. In head-to-head sports, the more skilled player always dominates the game making it boring for everyone.

(2) Golf can be played by people over 35 without serious risk of injury.

(3) Golf is one of the few sports where men and women can play together.

I don't play golf but if people want to get rid of it they should invent a new sport that replicates golf's unique social aspects. Until that happens, golf is here to stay.

I had a friendly argument one time with another guy about whether the Dutch (my ethnic ancestry) or the Scots (his) were the most miserly. I cited the phrase "going Dutch" as proof for my side.

His response was, "Who else besides the Scots would invent a game where you hit a ball and then chase after it yourself because you're too cheap to buy another one?"

Hah! Now we're getting somewhere, Mr. Den Beste. I am both Dutch and Scots. Perhaps my objection to golf -- I admit, I haven't really plumbed my feelings on this, I just threw the anti-golf slam out there -- is that it is so damned expensive!

Golf is billiards played outdoors, on a forty acre table with all kinds of stuff in the way of your shot . . . the best game ever.

cb -
The laziness of the American male population, of which the explosive growth of cartball is good evidence, does not _directly_ affect me, except to the extent that it takes away any opportunities that might exist for me to participate in organized sports activities. But speaking as an over-30 male who has to be careful about exercise and diet to avoid becoming overweight, it nonetheless annoys the s*** out of me to see American men turning into a bunch of total couch potatoes. Just because I want to better myself, I have to work very hard at the gym while most men my age think nothing of spending five minutes circling the parking lot at Home Depot to find a close-in parking space. It bothers me that I have to worry about whether it's okay to have pizza once a week when most men my age are shoveling slop down their yaps at the all-you-can-eat buffet. It's totally unfair, and cartball is loaded with symbolism.

Participatory sports activities for adults are almost nonexistent...

I find this discussion of cartball fascinating. I'm an overweight almost 50 year old male; I get out on the ice on average twice a week to play hockey (very poorly) and took part in about 20 organized runs last year, the longest being a half-marathon. Mind you, I'm slow and I'm still overweight. But I bet I'd be a lot more overweight if I played golf instead of hockey.

Walking a round of golf carrying ones own clubs burns 1200-1500 cal. New golf clubs are often located on rehabbed industrial sites. A Much better pastime than sitting and surfing the internet in your new exurban home on most accounts!

Shannon - every argument you have there applies just as well to bowling. Golf is the "emperor's clothes" sport: participants tend to get rhapsodic about what is, essentially, a ludicrous waste of time, space and public money. Why don't we have publicly subsidized bowling alleys? Because rich folks - the ones with access to the "right" levels of government power - don't play the game.

And, besides, "If it can't kill you, it ain't a sport."

email is human readable - aloud

The only sport more destructive than golf is Russian Roulette using semi-automatic pistols.

Lori: Yes, but Ultimate Frisbee requires one associate with filthy hippies, or at least the sort of people that went to Phish concerts, when such a thing still happened.

And who wants to do that?

Am I the only one here Peter is creeping out a bit? I mean, Peter, people do have the right to make their own dietary and exercise choices.

Michigander -
Good work, keep it up.

centrist -
Yes, a round of golf played walking and carrying one's clubs is fairly good exercise. Unfortunately, something like 80% of the total rounds of golf in the United States are actually cartball. More and more courses actually *require* the use of carts, as they earn extra revenues from cart rental fees and there's a belief (which may not always be true) that carts speed up play.

Bill -

Creeping anyone out is the last thing on my mind. Of course people have the right to do whatever they want in terms of diet and exercise, that should go without saying. On the other hand, as someone who's trying hard to change after years of being pudgy and out of shape, I have the right to be annoyed/dismayed with the way American male society is rapidly decending into couch-potatodom.

"Am I the only one here Peter is creeping out a bit?"

No. Well, maybe not creeping out exactly but there seems to be a depth of feeling there I don't quite get.

I'm not thrilled with the idea of my tax dollars going to support golf courses. At the same time, my son swims at a public pool, skates at a public rink and plays ball and soccer on public fields. Governments, at least municipal governments, seem to feel that providing and/or subsidizing leisure facilities is part of their mandate. That's a whole other debate.

I also don't imagine the golf detractors here think much better of private courses than they do of public ones.

I also want to add that where I live at least there are no shortages of team sports for adults to participate in (hockey, soccer, softball, volleyball) yet the golf courses are always full. The two can co-exist. And I doubt very much that closing all the local golf courses would result in a sudden upsurge in the number of people out jogging. Golf does not cause sedentary behaviour.

Golf was a conspiracy created by the Scots in the hope the English would take up the sport and be too consumed by it to bother the Scots.

The "sport" had the additional benefit of making the English look ridiculous while they played it.

Like Rex, I'm a relatively new golfer, taking up the sport after watching my niece play in Scotland as a 16 year old. She just won rookie of the year as a 19 year old on the LPGA tour. I'm 58 with bad knees, so golf is one of the few sports I can actually participate in. Walking the course, pulling my clubs on a cart, is great exercise for someone my age. On very hot days, I will rent a cart so I can still enjoy the game. Considering how much most people spend on cable TV and movies and going out to eat and vacations and going to pro sports games, golfing is not anywhere as expensive as I thought it would be. Golfing is not the elitist sport it used to be. And I see a lot more 70-80 year old golfers on golf courses than I see on ski slopes. (Another fine sport, but which really is more expensive than golfing unless you live near a ski area. I mean, golf courses are EVERYWHERE!)

That really is true about golf courses being incredibly common. (I'm consistenyly amazed about how many tiny Indiana towns have a nice golf course, private or public.) Additionally, they don't require that much space if you design the course right...

I'm not thrilled with the idea of my tax dollars going to support golf courses. At the same time, my son swims at a public pool, skates at a public rink and plays ball and soccer on public fields. Governments, at least municipal governments, seem to feel that providing and/or subsidizing leisure facilities is part of their mandate. That's a whole other debate.

A well-managed golf course will not only pay for itself, but usually generate surplus revenue. As others have noted, many are built on land that has little if any other revenue-generating use. If your city government is doing its job properly, the golf courses are covering their own expenses and subsidizing the public pools, rinks, and ball fields.

In our area, the city auditor discovered a few years back that the municipal golf courses were losing money. A consultant hired to look into the situation was quoted early on to the effect that "You can't lose money on a municipal golf course unless someone is robbing you blind." Sure enough, it soon became apparent that the manager -- a political crony hire -- was robbing the city blind. The crony was fired, a PGA pro was hired to run the operation, and the city courses are now subsidizing the rest of the park system...

This might be apocryphal, but Nick Faldo was asked if he would rather give up sex or golf, and he said sex, because he could always hit a few orgasmic 3-irons.

And that is one of the great appeals of the game, although I have not played in a couple of years: The pleasure of a well-struck shot. That intermittent reinforcement thing. And then there is the walking and the beauty of the surroundings and the social aspect that I enjoy elso.

Peter's creeping me out only slightly. I figure that if ex-smokers are famous for being self-righteous and preachy, it's no big suprise if ex-lardasses are the same way.

A well-managed golf course will not only pay for itself, but usually generate surplus revenue.

Near my home, the Warren Valley Golf Course operated by Wayne manages to lose money. From the April 6, 2004 Detroit News:

Wayne County, which owns the two courses at Warren Valley in Dearborn Heights and a third one at Inkster Valley in Inkster, has lost more than $3.3 million on golf since since 1998, according to a report by Auditor General Brendan Dunleavy. That figure doesn’t include the $11 million the county lent itself to build Inkster Valley or the $3.1 million that is still owed on the clubhouse at Warren Valley. County Executive Robert Ficano plans to seek private firms to manage the courses more profitably.

Don't forget the power of golf as a diagnostoscope. Once you knew that Mr Clinton cheated at golf, you knew that his administration would prove sordidly derelict of its duty, didn't you?

I subscribe to the golf is a disease school. I have a bad case.

Peter,

Fair enough point, and my apolgies for what in retrospect may have been an overly snarky comment. Thanks for responding with a great deal of civility. For what its worth, maybe you should feel relative pride in your improved status rather than annoyance with with others' bad habits???

Peter,

I don't think you're getting the point. I'm making an observation of your behavior. Certainly, you have the right to be annoyed or whatever you're feeling. As a golfer, quite frankly, I don't give a damn whether you like the game or not. The point is, just because you are working hard to get over your problems, doesn't mean it justifies you getting annoyed at others for not showing the same fortitude, or whatever self-righteous crap you got going on. It's childish emotions like yours that end up influencing public policy. Why can't you just live your life and quit wasting your energy on other's behavior, particularly those that don't have any impact on your life. I quit watching TV because I could feel my brain turning to mush, but I don't waste my emotional energy or try to infringe on others 'right' to watch TV. Live your life dude, and lay off the golfers, they are not the cause of your issues.

P.S. I am also over 30 and golf-cart and sex is the only exercize I get, and I weigh 180, 6 feet tall. I will refrain from getting personal, but I will say maybe you ought to back off the golfers and look in the mirror for your self-fulfillment.

Uhh... Yeah, what Bill said. He said it better. Wish I had waited a few.

Someone once said that golf is great because, like sex, you can enjoy it even if you're bad at it.

You really can tell a lot about the character of your companions on a golf course. In my experience, and Im 65 having played golf on and off since age 8 or 9, 99% of serious golfers don't cheat. If they cheat on the course, I call 'em on it, counting their strokes for them if they can't figure it out. Few of them EVER want to play or do business with me again, and that's just fine with me.

If you want to walk, let your cart mate ride and you walk. I'm too arthritic to carry my bag. Pulling a pull cart is unnatural. But I'm not too old to walk 18.

This thread reminds me a little of another one a while back over the pros and cons of boxing.

Inevitably, some people with strong opinions against an activity cast aspersions against those who inexplicably like said activity.

Can we blame the puritans for this?

So here's a few more suggested topics for the future that are guaranteed to bring out the holier than thee.....
1. Whether there's any reason to go up and down ski hills all day instead of just sipping hot cocoa in the lodge
2. Whether we should all drive automatic vs. stick shift
3. Whether you should be allowed to order your meat well-done in a fine restaurant
4. Whether people should be allowed to enjoy reality shows instead of reading more newspapers

One more serious note for Peter - as an immigrant to this country I'd say that it is hard to find a less lazy people than Americans.

gazzer,

"Order your meat well done"?

Gah, what kind of barbarian are you? Next thing you'll be opting the possibility of red wine with fish (and no, not salmon or shark).

LOL

One more comment and then I'll (probably) shut up. I understand where Peter is coming from. Just today, in the New York Times, there's an article about 800,000 cases of adult diabetes in the city of New York alone. Most cases of diabetes are the result of behavior: bad diet and not enough exercise.

Sure, we have a right to be fat lazy slobs if we want to. I repeat, I'm overweight. I'm guilty of some of the bad behavior. I ran on the treadmill but I ate pizza for dinner.

But it's a huge problem and getting worse.

IMHO, Golf isn't the problem. But golf and cartball in particular is a visible indicator of it.

Why can't you just live your life and quit wasting your energy on other's behavior, particularly those that don't have any impact on your life.

Overweight people drive up the cost of everything because they require additional accommodations. Some of these ways are obvious and noticably expensive, and others are very subtle.

Healthcare is one obvious way, including costs born directly by the public such as medicaid/medicare.

Others are less obvious but do add a few pennies here and there. To name one, utility/service truck cherry-picker buckets have to be spec'd for about two times the passenger load as they were a couple decades ago, mainly to avoid discriminating against fatties when work on your telephone, television, and electrical lines comes due. To name another, seating in many entertainment and transportation venues has necessarily increased in size to accomodate wider girths, and since you cannot have "fatty" and "non-fatty" sections without getting sued, everyone pays for the same-size seat.

The net result is that in obesity (just as in smoking or many other decisions-of-privilege that careless people like to reframe as individual rights), a net cost is imposed upon society, so yeah, it DOES have an impact on everyone's life. Of course, whether that impact is large or small or worth debating in light of other broad-impact individual decisions and their respective scopes, is another topic entirely.

Anony-mouse,

Of course the ground you're treading on is a little dangerous. Can we say that, given higher incidences of AIDS in the gay community, we should act to discourage homosexuality (but encourage lesbianism)? Actuarially, married people have a host of superior characteristics to single people. Should we demand people marry? A great many social ills are ameliorated by regular church attendance. Perhaps we should consider revamping our understanding of the First Ammendment to take this into account (perhaps reaoning that we're not establishing a religion and its hardly interfering with free exercise thereof). At a certain point, a society that begins to expand its definition of "decision-of-privilege" sufficiently broadly begins to resemble a dystopia.

I've never golfed, but I like golf courses, at least in northern states. They are excellent places fro cross country skiing, especially for beginners.

And once - in Rochester, New York - I even skied on a golf course while a few people were golfing. The greens were open, but there were long stretches of snow beside them.

Those who worry about exercise may want to know that cross country is the top aerobic sport, even better, by a small margin, than swimming.

Bill and Anony-mouse,

What's going to be even more fun is when our knowledge of our genes becomes more refined. One day, some doctor will be able to drop a blood sample from a newborn into some machine that will be able to give him/her a complete statistical breakdown of that child's disease susceptibility, cognitive abilities, athletic abilities, and anything else somebody can think up. Heck, I'll bet it will be able to be done soon after conception, with gene altering tools available as well. I plan on waiting a couple of decades before I have kids, that way I can have Superman and Superwoman. Of course, I don't want to be included in insurance, as there is no need for me to pay for everyone else's risks. So there anony-mouse, you may be paying more now because of my overweight, cart golf driving ass now, but soon, if you want my kids in the insurance pool, your going to have to pay for whatever your vices are. Did you know that staring at computer screens makes you blind?

Those who worry about exercise may want to know that cross country is the top aerobic sport, even better, by a small margin, than swimming.

Running burns more calories than all other activities at comparable levels of exertion. It's also cheap and you can do it anywhere.

cb,

All the more reason to redouble my efforts on becoming a bloated plutocrat. I figure therapies focusing on living organisms will follow only a couple of years after the technology to create your superbabies comes around and I'll be able to turn myself into a trim, svelte, superplutocrat for the right price. :-)

Bill,

Excellent point! Where's my smokes and booze? I'm off to the golf course to play some cart-golf! :)

To name another, seating in many entertainment and transportation venues has necessarily increased in size to accomodate wider girths.

This is a benefit, not a cost. I doubt it's true anyway. I'll let you know the next time I'm crammed into a 767 like a sardine.

Bill - Anonymouse's comment aren't treading on dangerous ground. If someone wants to be morbidly obese - let them, they should just bear the cost of their decisions. The problem is that many people demand the right to be obese and have society bear the cost of their medical problems.

Most of your analogies miss the mark

"Can we say that, given higher incidences of AIDS in the gay community, we should act to discourage homosexuality?"

Well the anwser here is no but we should as a society discourage the behaviour that lead to the high incidence of AIDS - bareback sex in bathouses.

"Actuarially, married people have a host of superior characteristics to single people. Should we demand people marry?"

Well the answer here is not demand but rather encourage marriage whereever possible. Hence the repeal of the much vaunted marriage tax penalty. Gays should be encouraged to marry given the obvious societal benefits with respect to AIDs alone.

"A great many social ills are ameliorated by regular church attendance."

You are confusing correlation with causation here.

There's nothing wrong with structuring incentives for good behavior in a society. The problem is that you need to re-visit your incentives to make sure they don't have unintended consequences and that they are actually working. This requires that government be active and competent. This has been the problem with the current administration - they don't reward competence - they reward loyalty.

BSD

"This requires that government be active and competent." Why not just wish for the tooth fairy to solve your problems?

Brian DeSpain,

"they should just bear the cost of their decisions."

Okie-dokey. Then I guess that if we can establish that an AIDS victim engaged in high-risk behaviors....screw 'em. Let them pay every last dime of their treatment.

Hey, we're finding out that soy may be related to breast cancer. Well, lets throw the damn vegans in with the AIDS patients.

Finally, with regard to church attendance, there's about as much a causitive relationship established with positive characteristics and church attendance as there was between smoking and lung cancer when litigation started. Perhaps we should just sic the trial lawyers on the damn "free-thinkers".

The point here is that any behavior can be defined as producing externalities, especially in the context of an activist state. Your faith in producing the right consequences via policy inevitably relies on your presumption that you know with certainty what good behavior is. Unfortunately, a lot of people will have views defining good behavior in ways you might find offensive. If your activist government can push Bubba to stick with the diet of your choice, why shouldn't Bubba's activist government push you into regular church attendance (hey, you'll be exposed to strong, healthy relationships, develop a strong support network within your community, yadda, yadda, yadda...)

Ok Bill You have defeated my straw men. Good job.

"Then I guess that if we can establish that an AIDS victim engaged in high-risk behaviors....screw 'em. Let them pay every last dime of their treatment."

Ah they do. Do you know the cost of a modern aids treatment? It's not free. Even if you have insurance, it's going to cost you an arm and part of your leg.

"Finally, with regard to church attendance, there's about as much a causitive relationship established with positive characteristics and church attendance as there was between smoking and lung cancer when litigation started. Perhaps we should just sic the trial lawyers on the damn "free-thinkers"."

Sorry but this simply isn't true. The problems with smoking where known for years. The going to church makes a better society isn't proven. It entirely possible that more good people are in church. Once again you are confusing correlation with causation.

"Your faith in producing the right consequences via policy inevitably relies on your presumption that you know with certainty what good behavior is."

Well yes society has to make certain choices about good and bad behavour. For example society has determined that randomly shooting people is bad and we have a whole set of policies designed to minimize it.

"Your faith in producing the right consequences via policy"

I have ZERO faith that policy will produce the right consequences. I guess you actually didn't read my post where I stated, "The problem is that you need to re-visit your incentives to make sure they don't have unintended consequences and that they are actually working." You need to do this consistently. It's hard work which is why a lot of governments don't do this well.

"If your activist government can push Bubba to stick with the diet of your choice, why shouldn't Bubba's activist government push you into regular church attendance"

First off I suggest you read the Constitution again. Freedom of religion pretty much guarantees that the goverment can't. I didn't say the government should "push" anyone to stick with the diet of my choice. I don't see anywhere in my post where I reccommend the government dictate anything. I merely recommended government can be used to reward positive behavour through incentives. How this got to be dictating behaviour I don't know.

This happens in the private sector all the time. For example the insurance industry rewards positive behaviour all the time. Try being a morbidly obese 40 year male who smokes and getting life insurance. You can get it but it will be expensive. Try being a 20 year old non smoking vegatarian and getting a life insurance policy. I guess we are discriminating against the fat man.

Markm - I see examples of good government all the time, it's usually on the local level. For example the city of Pasadena, CA (where I have a house) is exceptionally well run. Your tooth fairy argument isn't an argument at all but it reflects your personal bias. The current administration doesn't take the task of governing seriously, which is why the incredibly incompetent Mike Brown was made head of FEMA and why President Bush made a bunch of recess appointments of pure poltical hacks to important positions. You should Google this for more info.

Let's face facts folks. The libertarian dream that government should just go away isn't happening in our life times. I personally believe government should be small, well run and effective. I certainly don't think government can wave it's magic wand and fix anything. But it certainly doesn't need to be grossly incompetent.

Of course the ground you're treading on is a little dangerous.

Only if you ignore the last paragraph of that same post. The point is, activities with higher risks (costs) CAN be defined as affecting everyone, given our current socio-political structure and the various ways it will involuntarily distribute some of those costs to others. Point of fact. Again, which of those to define as critical and what to do about them, is a separate argument.

Meanwhile, I'm going to sit back and enjoy Brian Despain's takedown. I think he's currently up 5-2, but that's just a casual armchair analysis.

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