There is a remarkable story about an avid, amateur sailor who sailed the lakes of northern Michigan in the US from spring to autumn, for decades. Each winter he would spend the cold months in his workshop building a new boat. Every year, just as the sailing season wound down, he would invite his friends to an outdoor party on the shores of Lake Michigan. The featured event would be the destruction of the boat he had sailed that year. He would burn it to the ground, in a dramatic bonfire. The next day he would set about designing a new boat for the next season, incorporating all the best characteristics of his earlier models, plus new improvements gleaned from his experience and research.

New attendees at these lakeside events were frequently startled by the seeming violence of …