r/interestingasfuck • u/ThugLeeVoguee • 1d ago

The implosion of the Titan submarine (OceanGate) was so rapid that the pain wasn't even registered by the brain. They didn't feel anything at all. Utterly instantaneous.

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u/henrytm82 1d ago

His dad guilted him

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u/Complete_Invite_9022 1d ago

Genuinely, is there proof of this?

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u/henrytm82 1d ago edited 23h ago

His aunt confirmed it. His dad begged him to come with him for Father's day

Edit: there's an account from his mother, a few comments down, that refutes this. I'll leave this here for context.

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u/stonkfrobinhood 1d ago

Really had to force his kids hand to not just do something extremely dangerous but in equipment using experimental material for the application. From a CEO who boasted about breaking away from guidelines and regulations.

I can’t I just can’t. One thing choosing that path for yourself (idiotic) and a totally different level of asswholeness to then convince someone else who doesn’t want to into taking on that risk. And let alone your own kid who you are biologically engineered to protect and be more careful with.

Fuck that guy

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u/PlanetTourist 1d ago

It wasn’t experimental, it was failed.

People knew why it would fail, and how, and knew you couldn’t predict when. So they didn’t use it.

This murderer said “yeah, but I know better than everyone else”.

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u/ThePowerOfStories 23h ago

Even worse, if you read more about it, they built an acoustic system to try to predict when it would fail, and the guy in charge then fired the people responsible because the system kept coming back with the answer “Real Soon Now”.

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u/selfresqprincess 22h ago

He also had the thing stored in Newfoundland where it was exposed to freezing temperatures. I’m surprised that thing had as many dives as it did.

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u/reddog323 14h ago

Yep. On top of things, they made that descent that day way too fast. Even properly constructed research subs tend to dive to sites that deep more gradually.

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u/IheartPickleSoda 20h ago

And even worse(r), literally none of the scaled down model pressure tests worked.

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u/Old_Collection1475 18h ago

And even with the acoustic system partially damaged Rush chose to turn it off entirely. Those hearings were insane.

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u/Dependent_Rain_4800 22h ago

Sounds more like murder suicide. He must have known on some level but went ahead anyway.

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u/Crossfire124 21h ago

Nah guys like that are high off their own farts and will just come up with a new explanation for strange noises. He had a failure on the controller before and he still kept using the damn thing

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u/Dependent_Rain_4800 21h ago

Guess it's then a result of not holding people accountable for their actions. So more like a systemic failure that allows this utter stupidity to happen.

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u/Hiraeth1968 10h ago

He couldn’t admit he was wrong about anything. Couldn’t hear the word “No.”

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u/Dependent_Rain_4800 9h ago

Narcissist.

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u/Klutzy_Tomatillo4253 4h ago

It's crazy because the acoustic monitoring system they designed seems to have been legitimately brilliant and incredibly simple / efficient. It worked, too! They just chose to ignore the warnings.

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u/mightytwin21 1d ago

"the company's value points say we prioritize safety so it will be fine"

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u/spoospoo43 23h ago

If ai remember the story, this guy said that safety rules were just there to stop him from doing something fun. I supposed briefly turning into a burst of incandescent plasma from the collapse of a cavitation bubble, briefly lighting up the ocean bottom like the world's stupidest flashbulb, is SOMEONE'S idea of fun.

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u/Character-Parfait-42 2m ago

My thought is that he was so used to laws being bendable because of his wealth and name that he didn’t even stop to consider that the laws of physics wouldn’t similarly bend for him.

He thought about getting around the regulations from a legal standpoint, but never considered that those regulations were literally written in blood by the past mistakes of navies around the world (military is almost always the first ones to advance such tech and test it out).

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u/Haldron-44 1d ago

Bingo. This was only going to end one way. Dude was a murderer. And the sad thing is if you have money, people will just let you do it.

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u/FS_Slacker 23h ago

The guy literally said safety standards hold back innovation.

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u/Haldron-44 22h ago

And also intense pressures. OSHA standards are written in blood.

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u/AdLocal1490 22h ago

Libertarians 💪🏻

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u/cognitive_dissent 18h ago

thats 100% of ceos

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u/Man_of_Ice 19h ago

This may be semantic, but I don't think so. Murder requires intent to kill.

This...the man has his ego so big, head so far up his own ass, so high on his own supply, he thought that he was right, every other expert, every engineer, every scientist, every technician, every diver, every submariner, every book, every test, every model was wrong and he, himself was right.

Dude was insane in the worst way, and the very poster child of hubris. He thought he had found an answer nobody was smart enough to see. Thought he knew better, and was just proving all the idiots wrong.

I base this on him being in the sub himself every single time. That's not "I want to kill you" thinking. That's "I cannot die" land.

But the part about money, you are 100% spot on. And also that it was 100% going to end this way no matter what.

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u/Haldron-44 19h ago

Yeah, that is probably a better way to put it. But anyone "on the ground" who says a dissenting opinion, it is always, motherfucking always better to bring in a higher level of expertesies to tell you why it is wrong, or why it could work. And from the rollout and documentaries on Rush it lays bare someone who would fire their way to a consensus. I get that "innovators" sometimes need to be cowboys, but at a certain threshold it is a good idea to listen to a pro. His concept was flawed at inception, and more folks need to realize that if the base is poor, the upper parts won't magically fix it. Physics cares little for your innovation

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u/powercow 22h ago

And if he followed proper science procedure, when you are sure everyone else is wrong. None of this would have happened.

Its not horrible to think all scientists are wrong about a thing. Its horrible to put peoples lives on the line, rather than actually test the thing properly and safely.

you want to prove carbon fiber works for subs, send it down 100 times with no people. if it survives, cut it open and look for damage.

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u/ebonyseraphim 23h ago

This is a great articulation of a common and massive issue with how engineering interacts with capitalism through corporate power structures; especially without regulation.

Engineers can often articulate that something will fail, and when it fails it will be extremely bad, but can’t prove exactly when it will fails. Another false challenge is saying the engineer(s) cannot say exactly how the failure will occur — just that it will he “bad.” Quietly that person is easily disregarded as not capable or good enough compared to an engineer who just says “oh, we can do it. Let’s make our money!” Usually the reality is that there is a solution that the complaining engineer brought up, or would bring up, but they’ve already been told they cannot afford to do it: time or money, or whatever circumstances.

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u/Mission_Access_210 23h ago

Yeah but if you watch the documentary they are literally testing the small test model version of this device and it was constantly failing every time they tried, with catastrophic failures. They literally had the answer but because they wanted to keep going and Stockton wanted to keep his dream alive, he just fired everybody and went full charge ahead so that's what happens. There are a lot of toxic companies out there like this too. It's not the only one.

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u/ebonyseraphim 23h ago

I agree. The complaining engineer who knows that the failure will come (in production) usually knows of a time — essentially a prior real test — things failed already. The problem is how easy it is for the money motivated to say“oh, we’re addressing that concern by doing ____” and it’s not like the complaining engineer is likely to already know everything or feel empowered to cut through the stupidity and yell “none of that saves the disaster!” Well before that threshold, management will have communicated cleverly and in so many ways that they need to cave, and if they don’t the extreme action is literally just removing the person from any position of influence or being heard on the matter and then that person’s paycheck is in jeopardy. Nothing more effective to get “peaceful” compliance in today’s world than controlling capital itself.

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u/Future_Section5976 23h ago

Use to work for a engineering company, nothing like this tho, The boss however thought he knew better than anyone, he would constantly by shitty trucks and then spend money and cheapest options possible,

One such time he brought a big truck and a second hand hi ab that had a remote, he was , did combined the two as he thought it would be cheaper, oh it was , but the truck had to be reinforced and the Hiab had to be serviced, Then came the problems, he tried to get the young guy to sign off on it , he said no , the Forman showed up, he also said no and then the boss showed up , i later learnt he had yelled and insulted both (he had a rep for doing it) the boss told him it wouldn't be certified unless he did what was asked , he even tried taking it somewhere else but the other guy was the only one and had called everyone else to tell them not to ,

It cost my boss 3 times as much as just buying a secondhand one , he thought he could do it cheaper and he was right , it just wasn't safe or up to code , he would do these things alot , and after being asked to do something I seemed not safe , and being made to feel like I shouldn't care about my safety I made sure myself and others were safe , I later quit and the guy lost heaps and got done by osh.

It does happen everywhere, greed is a powerful thing.

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u/Mission_Access_210 20h ago

Thanks for speaking out about it. We live in a world where the systems are in place to silence people and discourage you from doing that and everything is rigged against you so I appreciate your testimonial

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u/Future_Section5976 19h ago

Oh mate , the stories of just that place I could tell would easily fill a book

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u/lexkixass 10h ago

Maybe you should write one :)

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u/Hiraeth1968 10h ago

Looking at you, Boeing….

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u/HERR_WINKLAAAAA 14h ago

He didnt just "know better" he actively fired every engineer who mentioned the issue.

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u/espy3277768 1d ago

I agree with you. I think that he knew it would fail and was just going to die so he would never face any consequences.

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u/Zuwxiv 23h ago

There's some documentaries about it. OceanGate was under financial stress.

I don't think Stockton Rush was trying to die, although we'll never really know the truth of that. My personal opinion is that he saw OceanGate as his dream and legacy. He recognized the signs of danger, but he knew he didn't have the resources to fix them. The only path to success was the sub being fine, so he just... hoped that was the case.

A naive but not unfamiliar position. Plenty of people drive on bald tires, or avoid going to the doctor - not because they think they're safe, but because they don't think they can afford the fix, or are afraid of what the diagnosis will mean. It's a foolish decision, but one we see to varying degrees almost every day.

Of course, when he's gambling with other peoples' lives, it becomes a fucked-up criminal act of negligence. Even if it wasn't about the money - and that's a generous assumption - "The only way to keep this going is to pack the sub with paying customers and hope for the best" is a monstrous position.

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u/espy3277768 10h ago

I likely watched some of the same ones. I don't think he wanted to necessarily, but he understood it was not tenable for sure.

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u/Hiraeth1968 10h ago

At the end of the documentary I watched, it said that had he not died, he would be criminally liable. Everyone signed waivers out the wazoo, but I hope the passengers’ families are still able to sue his widow.

I don’t know how much of his personal fortune was intermingled w OceanGate, but those families deserve every nickel of it.

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u/noXi0uz 7h ago

I mean, it did make multiple successful journeys to the titanic before the catastrophic failure

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u/clonedhuman 11h ago

I wish more wealthy people would do this sort of thing.

Right now, the most poisonous forces in U.S. society are all nepo babies.

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u/linusst 22h ago

Well, we have something they didn't have: Hindsight.

Before the catastrophic failure, they in fact had a 100% success rate and had like 40 or so successful dives. Let's be honest here, given the chance, a lot of us would have joined the ride.

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u/ZZartin 22h ago

A whole 40 successful dives?

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u/stonkfrobinhood 22h ago

If I was to endeavor into such a thing I would (under the premise that I have the resources these people had)

1) have my assistant do a deep dive into the company and vessel I would be literally trusting my life on.

2) deeper dive on not just the company but the CEOs life style and values. Then followed by the engineering personnel and if they have history of cutting corners.

3) not put the life of a child at mortal risk because of some stupid Chad experience.

None of those take hindsight and or resources to do. Any well adjusted adult and a responsible parent would do.

Stop giving morons excuses and start holding each other to a higher standard.

Using hindsight is reasonable in some circumstances but not this one not even close.

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u/linusst 22h ago

Maybe you would. But I'd argue most people wouldn't.

The CEO joining himself creates a lot of trust. It's natural to think "he must know best what his tech can do and he surely doesn't want to die either", and just do it.

You have no reason to suspect anything fishy is going on, there is not much easily accessible public information about the massive amount of flaws the company had either.

If you are fascinated by seeing the Titanic, you also WANT to believe it is safe. And it really is not hard to convince yourself when the CEO is happy to join and there have been multiple successful dives in the past. You simply don't have a reason to be very sceptical.

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u/stonkfrobinhood 21h ago

I’ll give you 352 quintillion gallons of water as a reason to be skeptical.

Much water mean heavy. Heavy mean crush. Maybe I research

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u/Practical-Ball1437 22h ago

The trip wasn't sold to customers as "extremely dangerous" or "experimental". I've seen the ads for it. They call it "safe", "extremely safe", "very safe", and "very well engineered", and if you pay them a quarter million dollars then you're a heroic explorer.

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u/stonkfrobinhood 21h ago

That’s why you use your head a little and not just believe the marketing.

Marketing is to sell you not advise you.

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u/StarSkald 5h ago

That line of thinking excuses the company from liability.

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u/Zuwxiv 1d ago

How much of that was public knowledge?

Don't get me wrong, "DIY submersible to insane depths" is not something I'd trust. But OceanGate had been doing Titanic tours for several years, and was constantly misrepresenting how safe and tested the submersible was.

I think we could understand why someone could be fooled into thinking it was safe, and why they might try to encourage their son to do something out of their comfort zone if it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

If my dad begged me to fly to Italy with him, and the plane crashed because a design defect, is it my dad's fault?

Besides, I don't think that article really suggests that the father "begged" or "guilted" his son to coming. It says the son was scared, "was eager to please his dad," who had an obsession with the Titanic since a young age. No part of the article even characterizes how the father spoke to his son.

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u/KiNgPiN8T3 1d ago

Personally, I remember watching Dr Ballards titanic dive videos in the 80’s/90’s. I remember seeing how substantial the subs were there so when I saw the ocean gate sub I was like. Oh. Kay… If anything, give me over engineered in that situation everytime. lol!

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u/NeedToVentCom 1d ago edited 1d ago

Everyone that knew even a tiny thing about submersibles, ocean exploring or physics, and OceanGate, had been saying that it was a disaster waiting to happen. As the name suggests carbon fiber is made of fibers. Yet this moron thought he could build a submarine out of it. A few minutes of due diligence googling by the dad, should have told him it was unsafe.

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u/Zuwxiv 1d ago

The percent of the population that "knows even a tiny thing about submersibles, ocean exploring, or physics" is nearly negligible.

You're not wrong - experts generally thought it was dangerous. But very, very few people were experts. I don't think it's entirely fair to judge people by how closely they followed the advice of esoteric experts.

The submersible had been doing Titanic tours for years, and the guy who owned the company was willing to be inside it. Without the benefit of hindsight, it was a relatively convincing facade.

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u/ZZartin 22h ago

No it's not, at some point these rich ass holes should have said why is this guy offering tours so much cheaper than the alternative?

It couldn't possible be because he's using cheap construction material and safety protocols?

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u/Zuwxiv 22h ago

No it's not, at some point these rich ass holes should have said why is this guy offering tours so much cheaper than the alternative?

It couldn't possible be because he's using cheap construction material and safety protocols?

You sound awfully confident. Maybe you should check:

  • Was OceanGate charging less than their competitors?
  • Were any other companies even offering commercial tours of the Titanic?

If you did a few seconds of Googling, you'd find that OceanGate was the only company doing private, commercial Titanic submersible tours. The travel company Blue Marble Private offered trips in 2018, but they literally partnered with OceanGate to do so.

I'm not defending OceanGate or Stockton here, it was a selfish act that got innocent people killed. But really... you should have a little better idea of something before you chip in.

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u/ZZartin 21h ago

Was OceanGate charging less than their competitors? Were any other companies even offering commercial tours of the Titanic?

There were no competitors because it wasn't commercially viable. Which like I said they should have figured out. IF they'd really wanted to they could have paid far more donating to some research group and gotten a tour for their effort.

But really... you should have a little better idea of something before you chip in.

YEah no shit you should have a better idea before you take a budget trip to the bottom of the ocean.

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u/Zuwxiv 21h ago

You can't donate to a research group, and get a tour in exchange. Then it's not a research group - it's a commercial submersible.

Here's the inside of a Mir submersible. Not exactly room for extra people. They normally had a pilot, a copilot/engineer, and then a researcher or filmmaker. You can't have a researcher and a commercial passenger. There just isn't enough room.

That's why the very few organizations that did research or filmmaking didn't do "commercial passengers."

It's clear you thought OceanGate was a "discount service" of something that usually cost more money. That's just not true - it was the only company offering that service commercially.

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u/Former_Warthog_6749 1d ago

Really this is just the difference between a Darwin award and an honorable mention for breaking qualification. (Endangering others)

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u/rh71el2 19h ago edited 19h ago

Without studying the dad's bio, I'll say this... you make it sound like the kid was tortured. Kids are forced to do things by parents they don't want to do all the time. Many because they feel they will end up liking the experience (you know if you have kids this has happened) or they will learn from it. This absolutely had catastrophic result, but if it went the other way, it would've been an experience of a lifetime. It sucked for all involved, but he wasn't tortured into doing it. Dad didn't know better. Dad was just being a dad like many who simply want to share experiences with their kids.

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u/camerabird 17h ago

If the activity in question is "going to the bottom of the ocean" and your kid is TERRIFIED, you shouldn't force them to do it on the grounds that they might like the experience or learn from it. This wasn't an everyday activity.

But maybe he only divulged these fears to his aunt and the dad didn't know how scared he was, who knows.

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u/Aggravating_Depth_33 16h ago

And he also wasn't technically "a kid" either. He was a legal adult. He could have said no.

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u/kae158 23h ago

Pretty sure he got fucked

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u/HERR_WINKLAAAAA 14h ago

It wasnt experimental, it was objectively the wrong material for the job.

Literaly not a single person who knows what carbon is is surprised by this. Materials like steel have the abillity of withstanding force up to a certain point without taking any damage or weakening.

Carbon does NOT. Literally EVERY time it gets used there will be tiny cracks forming, meaning the hull got weaker and weaker with every use.

Like im a complete fucking idiot and even i understand this super simple concept. Stockton Rush fired everyone who warned him about it. What a waste of a human life.

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u/Catnip_Farmer 1d ago

Some cultures value vanity over safety.

He wanted to be able to brag he brought his son along for something only the richest could buy, and that he was the best dad ever for having done so.

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u/Aggravating_Depth_33 16h ago

There is absolutely nothing to support this. The guy was simply obsessed with the Titanic and wanted his son to share his passion for it.

I don't understand why so many people are desperate to make one of the victims the villain in the piece when the actual villain was right next to him. 

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u/kechones 19h ago

Yeah, that kid was murdered by his dad. Your foremost job as a parent is to keep your kid alive. There was no reason whatsoever for that kid to be on that sub.

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u/Xennial_Dad 17h ago

Idiocy vs. fanatical, malignant suicidality.

Guess which one gets you a bigger dopamine kick.