It is awkward for me to argue that adults have the right to smoke marijuana. Whenever I make this argument, I suspect that people think that my arguments constitute a thin and self-serving façade for my own personal desire to smoke marijuana.

I have never smoked marijuana, though, and have never desired to do so, even though I worked as a rock musician in the 70’s. I don’t know why I have never desired to use marijuana or any other street drug. Maybe it’s because I fear the loss of “control”—life is already a bit out of control, it seems. Perhaps I have been cowed by the existence of criminal laws prohibiting possession even possession of small amounts. Nor do I smoke or drink. I try to find my personal high through things like talking with friends, exercising and by exploring ideas.

When discussing the potential legalization of drugs, personal prejudice and flimsy anecdotes have a way of driving the conversation. That’s why I wanted to say a few things about my own attitudes toward marijuana before preceding.

This topic of the illegality of marijuana arose at a gathering of acquaintances yesterday. For those opposed to legalizing marijuana I suspect that their main argument was that marijuana use is morally wrong. In “mixed company” (involving people for and against criminalization of marijuana), this moralistic argument is left unarticulated, however, because it is a rare day when a simple claim that something is “immoral” convinces anyone of anything. In such gatherings, then, “health” arguments often serve as proxies for this unspoken bigger battle. For instance, in my experience, conservatives embellish the health risks of marijuana to justify their moral concerns in the same way that they embellish the health risks of abortion (the claim is that “abortion increases the risk of cancer”) to justify their moral concerns in that area.

What’s ironic is that so many people who oppose the legalization of marijuana based on “health” arguments would NEVER refer to the much more serious health concerns pertaining to tobacco and alcohol to argue for criminalization of tobacco or alcohol. So it’s not really about heath issues, right? In fact, many of the people who want to keep marijuana criminalized personally use tobacco and alcohol (including using alcohol to an excess) as do many of their friends and family members. We wouldn’t want to make criminals out of my good friend Bob or my Aunt Mary, would we?

Conservatives hammer the “health” issues to attempt to drive a clear wedge between marijuana and those legal mind-altering drugs. They argue that marijuana is dramatically different than legal drugs and that this difference justifies turning users into criminals. I find it interesting that conservatives use this same tactic to concoct a wedge between human animals and all of the other animals in an effort to find a special place for humans, in an effort to lambaste scientific findings based on biological evolution.

I do want to engage in one more digression . . . . It is astounding to me that conservative churches raise huge alarms regarding the use of illegal drugs but often say nothing about legal mind-altering drugs. Consider this quote by Tim Wu:

Over the last two decades, the pharmaceutical industry has developed a full set of substitutes for just about every illegal narcotic we have.

It would seem, then that obedience to authority is a big factor in why many conservatives oppose drugs. Obedience is one of the well-documented pillars of conservative morality. Haidt’s approach dovetails with George Lakoff’s conclusions that the government metaphorically serves as a “strict father” to conservatives. This invites a chicken and egg issue. Is marijuana “bad” because the government says that it’s bad, or is it just “bad” and the government just recognizes this “truth?” The bottom line is that the government is certainly on board that marijuana is “bad,” and Wu/Haidt/Lakoff have given us reason to suspect that conservatives latch onto that government position to justify their own moral views. I suspect that this is exactly what is happening with regard to marijuana. The anti-marijuana folks are holding themselves up by their own bootstraps.

Now, back to my gathering of acquaintances. During our conversation, I heard from a proud conservative that marijuana should remain illegal because it is a gateway drug. However, tobacco has been well documented as a better gateway drug. I didn’t hear any of the anti-marijuana folks say anything about criminalizing that famous gateway drug, tobacco, so I was not convinced that this gateway “reason” to keep marijuana criminalized was genuine.

At the gathering, I also heard an argument that was new to me. I heard that people shouldn’t smoke because smoking marijuana “causes cancer.” Read the rest of this entry »

If you’d like your young daughter to be the next Dream Girl USA, take a look at this photo essay published by the St. Louis Riverfront Times. The National Little Miss Dream Girl Pageant gave this photographer wide access to many aspects of the pageant.

These photos contained in the slide shows tell it all: exploited children, numerous frumpy mothers, most mothers with bizarre values, absent fathers, and a sponsoring organization that works hard to over-sexualize little girls.  It’s a story that has been told repeatedly, yet many people keep supporting this sort of activity.

For a comment on the sexualization of young girls, see this previous post.

Paul Slansky is frustrated that conservatives have captured the American Flag as their symbol.

The emblem of the country’s highest aspirations was mindlessly ceded to the holier-than-thou zealots who used it as a bludgeon against the less fanatical.

Here’s Slansky’s solution: Progressives should take the American Flag back by displaying it ourselves. He argues that when everyone starts wearing the flag, it will be neutralized, a la The Sneetches.

Barack Obama, who earlier took some flack for his empty lapel, is on the cover of the latest Rolling Stone with flag pin gleaming. We should follow his lead. Everyone who’s voting for Obama — and especially those who are public figures (i.e. Keith Olbermann, Jack Cafferty, Rachel Maddow) must immediately procure a flag pin and not be seen without it before November 5th. If you can’t do it with pride, do it as an act of subversion.

I understand Slansky’s frustration. I feel it myself. I often feel like a stranger in my own country, especially when xenophobes parade around while waving my flag. I understand Slansky’s strategy too, and it just might work. But there are a some principles that much bigger than the American Flag.

One of those principles is that we shouldn’t give in to thugs by agreeing we must display cheap little flags to be patriotic. Being compelled to wear those little flag pins is the first step on a slippery slope toward abject stupidity. Look, here’s a photo of Abraham Lincoln not wearing a flag pin. Here are several photos of Ronald Reagan not wearing a flag pin. Here’s a painting of George Washington not wearing a flag pin. I don’t hear any conservatives hyper-ventilating out there. Therefore, this issues of patriotism is not really about the flag. If it were, conservatives would have dug up the remains of those dead Presidents and added little plastic flags to those remains.

The flag is merely a symptom of a much bigger problem. The real problem is that too many Americans are becoming simple-minded. Americans need to start focusing on things that are truly important. Let’s show our fellow citizens some real respect by challenging them to look past those little plastic flag pins. If progressives start wearing little flag pins, then conservatives will each wear two of them, which will launch an arms race of faux patriotism. Where will it end? Fifty foot flags waving in every conservative’s front yard? Now that’s some real patriotism, eh?

Displaying the image of the American flag is not important except to simpletons and thugs. If we have learned anything over the past few years, isn’t it that wearing the flag is a cheap and therefore unreliable display of patriotism? Haven’t we seen that unpatriotic people (those who have turned the Constitution on its head for the past seven years) can easily wear a flag while damaging the United States? It’s easier for thugs and simpletons to spy on their fellow citizens or to waterboard their perceived enemies while wearing little flag pins than it would be for them to really honor the Constitution.

Isn’t this also what Zahavi’s work has clearly demonstrated, that signals are not reliable unless expensive? Shouldn’t we be paying much more attention to expensive signals of patriotism? Shouldn’t we be looking for those who honor the Constitution through their sustained intelligent efforts, especially when it isn’t convenient for them to do so? Working hard to abide by the principles of the Constitution would be a reliable signal of patriotism. Such reliable displays (e.g., taking steps to stop torture and to return control of the public airwaves to the public) leave the multitudes of modern day fake patriots in the dust. People wearing little flag pins is the functional equivalent of turtles wearing little signs on their shells that say “I’m fast.”

If some wizard stole every image of the American flag, we could still have a great country. We could even change the flag into something else (e.g., a triangular cloth flag emblazoned with the image of the moon) and we could still have a great country.

“Where did that old stars and stripes go?” someone might then ask.

“We changed it into a triangle-shaped flag with picture of the moon,” we might respond. “We found that the traditional American Flag was turning into a mere fetish for too many fake patriots. We’ve got a new flag now and we’re striving to make the United States even better than it was before. For example, we have publicly financed our elections to almost eliminate the corrupt influence of corporate money on politics.”

“But you couldn’t possibly be a real American –you don’t even wear a flag pin.”

“Actually, we focus on our democracy rather than our flag.”

The American Flag is only a symbol of all the things that many of us collectively strive to be. The American Flag is only important because we’ve agreed that it represents certain things. To think otherwise–that the American flag is something intrinsically important–is to commit the sin of reification. People who reify symbols are fundamentalists. Let’s not be fundamentalists.

I can think of a better way of approaching this problem of flag-waving Neocons than by playing their game. How about showing the Neocons (and the timid, the thugs and the simpletons) that we can run this country in a thoughtful and efficient way, in accordance with our proud history and our great Constitution, without pretending that we’re doing a better job simply by wearing plastic flag pins.

Actions speak louder than little flag pins and all thoughtful citizens already know this.

The ocean is now washing away the Alaskan village of 400 Inupiat villagers. According to story and these interviews by DemocracyNow’s Amy Goodman, the villagers have responded by filing suit against twenty Oil, gas and electric companies, accusing them of “conspiracy to mislead the public about the causes of global warming.”

How has financing the global warming deniers contributed to this damage?

Well, the denial movement has flourished, in part, because of the preoccupation of the media with balance and with controversy. And so, if you have 3,000 scientists working for years and producing a report that says our considered opinion is the climate is changing by this much, it’s changing this fast, it’s having these effects, and you have two or three so-called denialists or a few small think tanks, some of which were certainly funded by Exxon, saying the opposite, they get equal time. The deniers get equal time in the newspapers, on the television.

Another problem is that a denier can tell a lie in a single sentence that takes a scientist three paragraphs to rebut, but the scientist never gets the three paragraphs in the sound bite culture that our media represent. And so, the denialists, even though they are small in number, they have no credible arguments, very few of them have any scientific credentials, get attention out of all proportion to their credentials, the merit of their arguments, and that delays the generation of public understanding and political will to do the things we need to do to address this challenge. There are a lot of things we can do, but we have been delaying doing them, in part because the so-called skeptics, or more accurately deniers or denialists, have basically obscured reality for much of the public and indeed for many of our policymakers.

This suit is a landmark suit in that it is the first global warming damage suit based on a conspiracy by industry players to provide misinformation.

Should you live in the suburbs or in the city to keep your housing and transportation costs in check?  According to this interactive site developed by CNT and its collaborative partners, the Center for Transit Oriented Development, the answer is clear–live in the city.

The bright red color-codings you’ll find when you check the 2008 costs of transportation (versus the 2001 costs) will shock you.  None of it is surprising, really.  If you choose to own (and cool and heat) a big house 20 miles from from the city center, you’ll pay out of your nose for it.  You will likely have to pay more than 48% of your income for this privilege.  Unless you want to grow your own crops and weave your own clothes out there, rarely commuting to the city.

Thanks to Salon’s “Triumph of the Low-Carbon City Dweller” for this link.

About some things, Americans are incredibly stupid. For instance, I’ve kept an eye on science and religion related ignorance for years. 15% of Americans don’t know that the Earth revolves around the sun. Half of Americans can’t name Genesis as the first book in the Bible.

There are a lot more statistics where those came from. If you’d like to read a few dozen zingers, read Rick Shenkman’s article in Alternet, “Ignorant America: Just How Stupid Are We?” There are some real head-shakers in Shenkman’s article. Several might have you wondering whether we should require citizens to pass rudimentary intelligence tests in order to vote. Shenkman’s compilation of stupidity had me wondering this. I know that this is an extremely controversial idea based on the way it has been misused in the past. It is clear, though that huge numbers of people have no idea how their government is designed to work, who is running their government, the basic characteristics of the scientific method, the basic facts of the religions to which they cling, or rudimentary principles of geography, history or economics. Now really . . . should such a person vote? This question makes me squirm.

I’m not really suggesting that we should take official government action to keep people from voting based on their intelligence levels. On the other hand, reading Shenkman’s article makes me wonder whether our “Get out the vote” campaigns should be focused on getting people to vote only if they know something other than their favorite TV shows and sports stars. Rather than “get out the vote,” perhaps we should have “vote only if you’re informed” campaigns. Here’s one of Shenkman’s many statistics that especially got me thinking in this entirely unacceptable way:

In the election of 2004, one of the hot issues was gay marriage. But gauging public opinion on the subject was difficult. Asked in one national poll whether they supported a constitutional amendment allowing only marriages between a man and a woman, a majority said yes. But three questions later a majority also agreed that “defining marriage was not an important enough issue to be worth changing the Constitution.” The New York Times wryly summed up the results: Americans clearly favor amending the Constitution but not changing it.

What is stupidity? Early in his comprehensive article on the lack of comprehension, Shenkman designates the five types of stupidity:

First, is sheer ignorance: Ignorance of critical facts about important events in the news, and ignorance of how our government functions and who’s in charge. Second, is negligence: The disinclination to seek reliable sources of information about important news events. Third, is wooden-headedness, as the historian Barbara Tuchman defined it: The inclination to believe what we want to believe regardless of the facts. Fourth, is shortsightedness: The support of public policies that are mutually contradictory, or contrary to the country’s long-term interests. Fifth, and finally, is a broad category I call bone-headedness, for want of a better name: The susceptibility to meaningless phrases, stereotypes, irrational biases, and simplistic diagnoses and solutions that play on our hopes and fears.

Although the article at the top of this post, “Ignorant America,” is full of compelling statistics, it (like many articles documenting American stupidity) is also riddled with many questions that confuse trivia for knowledge. How important is it for most Americans to know the name of the Secretary of Defense? Isn’t it possible that someone can be rather up to speed about America’s military policies without actually knowing the name of the Secretary of Defense?

America is obsessed with trivia and it is not unusual for trivia to masquerade as something important for tests that purport to measure intelligence. Knowing lots and lots of facts, though, especially the inert facts common for trivia buffs, is not the same thing as being intelligent. If these two things (knowledge and facts) were equal, we would regularly have great insights and discoveries occurring as a result of Trivia Nights, yet I don’t believe that has yet happened even once.

The problem with many intelligence tests is that they only measure ability to recall bits of information rather than detecting true understanding, much less wisdom. For this reason, many of the questions used to illustrate how “stupid” we are resemble the same problems found in many formal “intelligence tests.” A thorough review of those problems with IQ tests can be found in Stephen Jay Gould’s Mismeasure of Man (1996).

I recognize that we all have our focus when it comes to understanding the world. Someone who is dedicated to one field of study might not know as much about other fields of study. It is also important to remember that all of us have huge gaps in information. If we have dedicated our lives to understanding nanotechnology, how much are we actually going to know about the history of classical music ? If you work as a professional athlete, should we really be expected to know all five of the specific legal rights granted by the First Amendment? (Did you know that one of those rights is the right to petition the government?). Having written this, I think it’s more likely that those who truly excel at a field tend to be rather well-rounded.

There’s probably more than a few people who would insist that the scientific method is the be-all and end-all of intelligence because of its insistence on proof. There is an uneasy truce between belief and proof, however. In the area of religion, belief is often said to be justified even in the absence of proof. But don’t forget that even very smart people find an irresistible urge to believe many things that they cannot prove.

Here’s another caveat for those who walk around wagging their fingers (like I do) at the large number of “stupid” Americans. Howard Gardner has put forth a strong argument that there were actually multiple intelligences. He holds that the concept of “general intelligence” is highly suspect and that there might not be such a thing as GI. There are those who are incredibly talented at reading the moods and motives of other people (he calls this interpersonal intelligence), but who don’t do well at mathematics. There are people who are terrifically talented in musical ways (e.g. Hillary Hahn), but might not be very good at biology (I’m not suggesting that Hillary on is not good at biology– because I am deeply infatuated with Hillary Hahn, I assume that she is excellent at everything she does!). Many of us do know some “absent-minded professors” who can talk for hours on esoterica such as Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative but who seem inept at coping in the real world on a day-to-day basis. In the category of super-intelligent, I would quickly place my plumber (who can talk knowledgeably about almost anything, it seems) and a carpenter who has done work at my house, who has a superhuman grasp of his profession. I can’t imagine being as good as he is at the many arts of transforming a house, even if I trained for 20 years at the foremost “carpenter school.” Read the rest of this entry »

In America, many Republican politicians, including presidential candidate John McCain, are using the recent spike in oil prices to call for increased domestic production, including opening wildlife refuges to oil drilling. In response, opponents are arguing that increased production will merely perpetuate America’s addiction to oil, worsening environmental damage and global warming. Unfortunately, both sides are missing the most important issue in this debate: the faster America drills itself dry, the sooner it will become 100% dependent on foreign sources for oil.

Wake up, America! If you think oil prices are high now, imagine what they will be when America has run out of oil and foreign suppliers have a monopoly on the supply.

The solution: curb domestic production and continue buying foreign oil. Yes, it might cost more in the short term, but this is cheap insurance for ensuring the existence of untapped domestic reserves. America already has the Strategic National Petroleum Reserve; leaving oil in the ground is simply another means of achieving the same thing: an emergency reserve. It’s the same reason why America has farm subsidies to help keep its farmers in business: to guarantee a domestic source of food, so America cannot be held hostage to feed its population. It should view its domestic oil reserves the same way.

Do any of you remember the Nick Smith of 30 months ago? Back then, Nick, based in Decatur, Illinois, designed a brand new site called Dangerous Intersection. At that time, DI was only the most recent of Nick’s accomplishments—he had already established himself as a graphic designer for music groups and entertainers, including Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mandy Moore, the Veronicas, Eric Clapton and Paris Hilton.

That was back then, of course, and some of you might be wondering, “Nick, what have you done lately?” The answer is not at all subtle. Today is the official launch date of Nick’s newest web project: PWN or DIE. What? Huh? PWN? Think of Funny or Die, and then change the content from comedy to video games.

PWN or Die is highly interactive forum where gamers gather to announce their accomplishments, to share strategy and to offer encouragement to other gamers. PWN or Die is a place where gamers may upload videos to illustrate their finest hours. According to today’s press release issued by the Or Die Network:

PwnorDie.com, a new website for gamers and enthusiasts of all levels and the latest venture from the Or Die Networks launched today, it was announced today by Dick Glover, CEO of the Or Die Networks.

“Given the tremendous impact of the video game industry on the web, the Or Die Networks would not be complete without a site dedicated to gaming,” said Glover. “Like Funny or Die, we have established a great destination for game enthusiasts of all levels and interests to be entertained and engaged on a daily basis. It is also a site where developers, manufacturers, bloggers and everyone else associated with gaming can find and break news, information, commentary and entertainment around and about their favorite gaming community,” he added.

Designed to pick up after users put the controller down, Pwn or Die is the ultimate “hub” of gaming videos for the casual user who enjoys the classics like Super Mario Bros., Tetris, or PacMan to the hardcore gamer entranced in World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, or Halo. From user generated videos to videos featuring the best gamers to methods and tips on how to excel in games to celebrities and their involvement and love of video games — Pwn or Die is designed to entertain and engage the game enthusiast in everyone.

The site also features content from the major game companies like Rockstar Games, Electronic Arts, THQ and Activision, as well as gaming sites like NextGenWalkthroughs.com. In addition, Roberty Bowling (aka FourZeroTwo of Infinity Ward, makers of Call of Duty 4), will have a personal video blog on Pwn or Die as well as pieces from Infinity Ward showcasing the COD4 game and their upcoming releases. Pwn or Die will have crews covering major gaming events, showcasing some of the best gamers and gaming companies in the world.

Pwn or Die is the brainchild of Nick Smith, an entertainment industry graphic designer who is most importantly an avid “gamer” and ultimate fan. In addition to the signature Or Die Network attributes such as a voting system and a rich embedded video player, Pwn or Die also features a point system which will reward users for interacting with the site and a state-of-the-art video player designed specifically for the ultimate gaming fan.

Truly, this is a site that is jammed full of valuable information for gamers, as well as those who like to see what the gamers are up to.

Congratulations, Nick!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then here are about ten thousands words’ worth of photos for you. A few months ago, I bought a small camera that I try to take everywhere I go. The plan was to make myself look more careful at the world around me, which I actually do when I’m thinking of taking photographs.

It’s been a week where I’ve seen all kinds of unusual things. These days, life is thick with memorable images. Take a look and maybe you’ll agree. For starters here a baby giraffe and his mother (at the St. Louis Zoo). It’s really hard to believe that this huge animal is only about 10 days old.

Quick! What colors are zebras? Wrong! They are brown and white all over. Here is a sample of zebra fur up close, thanks to one of the volunteer educators at the zoo.

Here’s a photograph of my cousin. Really.

Rats? Almost. This is a capybara, the world’s largest rodent. I learned about capybaras by watching “The Tick,” the cartoon superhero. The Tick adopted a capybara as a pet and named him “Speak.”

And speaking of pets, have you seen the latest in treats for your dog? I took this photo in my local grocerey store. This new product is called Frosty Paws, a frozen ice-cream like substance made largely out of wheat and soy. Only $4 per box. Let’s see . . . what else do dogs supposedly need? I wonder what desperately hungry people would think of this.

The floods are still around in St. Louis. I took this photo from an airplane flying over St. Charles County. Lots of farmland is under water.

Tonight, while one of my daughters and I were cycling through Tower Grove Park (in south St. Louis), we happened to run across some civil war re-enactors. This cannon is not original equipment–it is a replica, because these fellows like to actually fire them.  They “work” as an artillery unit–about six soldiers operated a single cannon.  During the civil war, the soldiers who operated the cannons were often highly educated guys (unlike the soldiers who fought in the infantry). This particular type of cannon comes with a sight that works well enough that an expert artillerymen could nail a carriage from 1/4 mile away.

This is a piece of stone that was being thrown away by a local granite and marble kitchen shop (I was told that it is slate). I salvaged it because I thought the colors were striking. I hung it on my office wall on Friday. People come by and take a look because they wonder what I’m doing with the Ten Commandments hanging on my wall. I didn’t shape the stone at all, however. That’s a “natural” Ten Commandments shape (in a take-home-stone-that-a-merchant-is about-to-throw-away sort of way).

And yes, there are still lots of people covering their cars with bumper stickers.

Finally, my family’s refrigerator broke today and a neighbor kindly let us put some of our food into his extra freezer in his basement. I couldn’t help noticing all the butter. Hey, Joe, WTF, man! I wondered whether he was stocking up for End Times or whether he just (really really) loves butter. He says it’s the latter. Now I know what people do with those extra refrigerators in their basements.

I hope you enjoyed the little show.

In an article entitled “The Crowd Within,” The Economist has commented on some recent work that has expanded on the earlier and well-publicized counter-intuitive findings of James Surowiecki, author of “The Wisdom of Crowds” (2005). Surowiecki found that the aggregated guesses of non-experts were often startlingly accurate. The averaged guesses of non-expert crowds were often more accurate than detailed predictions by individual experts.  Here’s a more detailed description of Surowiecki’s surprising findings.

That’s where this new research comes in:

That problem solving becomes easier when more minds are put to the task is no more than common sense. But the phenomenon goes further than that. Ask two people to answer a question like “how many windows are there on a London double-decker bus” and average their answers. Their combined guesses will usually be more accurate than if just one person had been asked. Ask a crowd, rather than a pair, and the average is often very close to the truth. The phenomenon was called “the wisdom of crowds” by James Surowiecki, a columnist for the New Yorker who wrote a book about it. Now a pair of psychologists have found an intriguing corollary. They have discovered that two guesses made by the same person at different times are also better than one.

It appears that having a single person wait for awhile and then make a second guess tends to create a situation where that person’s mind is wiped relatively clean of the first guess, so that the second guess can be somewhat independent of the first, such that averaging the two guesses together allows a phenomenon similar to that of having two people make independent guesses.

The above summary of the finding that there can be “intelligent crowds” residing in a single person’s mind reminded me of a thought that that has repeated occurred to me. I have long suspected that religion is driven by social needs, not dogmatic and certainly not intellectual. Why is it, then, that so many scientists don’t feel compelled to follow a religion or to adopt religious beliefs? My speculation is that scientists follow the crowds in their own heads, so that they are immune to the charm of real life external crowds. They thus don’t feel the need to be joiners or to espouse beliefs for the sake of pleasing crowds. Why? Scientists excel at being self-critical. They need to be self-critical or else they will be horribly embarrassed (or even have their careers destroyed) when some other scientist comes along and disproves their favorite theory.

Good scientists have the courage and skills necessary to test their own theories by attacking them inside of their own heads. They brutally challenge their own ideas to an extent that would horrify many people. The best way to get to the best idea is to cultivate lots of voices and perspectives (again, scientists excel at doing this in their own heads). The skeptics’ strategy is thus that one shouldn’t muzzle the voices in one’s own head. It’s not wise to adopt “group think” in one’s own mind, to impatiently homogenize one’s own mental narrative. Instead, good thinkers allow the voices in their heads to have free reign, at least until objective findings (especially those based on experiments) silence some or all of the alternative viewpoints. This has been my own version of “The Crowd Within.” When done well, it is an exhausting endeavor, but potentially rewarding. This way of thinking is not for the faint of mind.