The Titanic, the Titan and the Teat

A Titanic twit? The question is rude, but how rude do you have to be to send yourself and four others to a premature death by being arrogantly reckless? 'Rude' does not cover it. Stockton Rush III piloted the Titan submersible that imploded, killing all five on board. He has been regarded as a prime candidate for a Darwin Award that commemorates “those individuals who ensure the long-term survival of our species by removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic fashion.” Yet whatever Rush was, he was emphatically not an idiot. Nor was he a breast (a ruder term for twit also carries this connotation). He was far too intelligent and too confident to be either. He had the same kind of disposition that led to the sinking of the Titanic and, as we will see, when played out in a very different context, has led to the demise of many hundreds of thousands annually and continues to do so up to the present. The disposition has serious consequences indeed. What is behind it and how can we be lead out of the morass?