…or the most economically viable, whichever is most interesting.

A young man in his mid-30s told me that getting tattoos is addictive.  Yes, it hurts but that’s part of the attraction.

A bus driver who takes a bus down a neighbourhood lane at 45-50 MPH in a posted 25 MPH zone is attracted to keeping a job and delivering students on time.

Both are risk takers.

Sitting here and typing sentences is risk-free.  How the words and sentences are arranged, then posted onto the Internet for reading on the World Wide Web of interfaces has a higher risk.

Hypertext transfer protocol.

How many of us pay attention to our methods of communication?

Are they pain-free? Risk-free?

• Shouting across the street to a neighbour.
• Tapping a code on a downspout to a friend in a flat three floors up.
• Spray-painting a message on a freeway bridge.
• Sending a letter in the mail.
• Satellite signals.
• Words “carved” in the foam of a head of beer.
• Written in ink on the back of a bus seat.
• Missiles launched across geopolitical borders.

Should the risks you take cost you more to participate in a society with low risk takers?

Fast/bad bus drivers, for instance — how many buses have recording devices that monitor not only the behaviour of the students but also the driving habits of the person behind the wheel, matching GPS data to posted speed limits to the speed of the bus at the time, stopping distance/slowing speed to intersections, how many times the driver has to take eyes off the road, etc.?

Do people with tattoos have a higher rate of communicable disease infection than non-tattooed people?  Higher rate of addiction to destructive behaviour?

Do bloggers take more or less risk than people who do not blog?

Is there a correlation between being a team player and survival of the fittest?

Can you be one and not the other, yet the most economically viable person on the planet?