Big Wall ethics

Search
Go

Discussion Topic

Return to Forum List
This thread has been locked
Messages 121 - 136 of total 136 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
Mimi

Trad climber
Seattle
Aug 17, 2006 - 11:41pm PT
And then there are those that scratch themselves to the point of bleeding. What about them?
dudethathangsaround

Social climber
parking lots around the world
Aug 18, 2006 - 12:04am PT
I think it is becoming very clear about what happened back in 1982...
madbolter1

Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
Aug 18, 2006 - 12:10am PT
Roger, I really like your "case law" model. There are many levels on which it seems to fit. Good stuff, IMO. Maybe a productive approach to this whole thing.

I think there are some interesting implications that arise from it, and you've probably thought of a bunch yourself.

More to say later. Thanks.

Werner, hard to know how to respond.... You've called me many names and posted many speculations about my mental state and character. John has flat-out called me an as#@&%e (although he has since returned to a reasonable approach). Mimi... well, then there's Mimi. And so on. I think the most productive thing you can do at this point is to start a new thread (and this really should have happened right from the first). Call it something like "Madbolter1 is an as#@&%e," and there you guys can just vent with your various sprays (this will be a thread that Mimi can absolutely dominate, BTW). That will be a whole thread devoted to the frothing at the mouth that has been interspersed throughout these other threads. It will hopefully provide the catharsis some of you need, and that way the rest of us who are actually trying to carry on productive conversations will know which thread to avoid. How about that?
Maysho

climber
Truckee, CA
Aug 18, 2006 - 12:19am PT
Oh man, this is getting totally tedious,
I now regret having shared my perspective from the FA of ZM, if you are going to harp over and over again about "bashing" the rock vs. tapping a drill to avoid the more relevant points, there is no more to say. BTW we were plenty good at climbing loose rock, diorite can form as hard mush that will powder out when you try put anything in, such were the blocks I described removing. (I can't believe I am now defending a 25 year old classic aid climb!). We earned the respect of our community and our peers by doing a good job on a good route. You got treated badly, I am sorry for you. Maybe now someone will climb your line, and you will get some respect for the hard hooking. I am not going up there because it does not look like a good climb to me.

Good Night.

Peter
Mimi

Trad climber
Seattle
Aug 18, 2006 - 12:33am PT
PM, I'm sure most of us toiling with this controversy really appreciate you sharing your experiences about those classic routes. I certainly did.

And Dick, I mean Richard. None of your pitiful posts are safe from ridicule. Get used to it.
bringmedeath

climber
la la land
Aug 18, 2006 - 12:40am PT
This is such a pile of bullshit!
madbolter1

Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
Aug 18, 2006 - 03:05am PT
I had crafted a lengthy post, thinking that with some people here some clarity could emerge, and, after all, ethics and such is something I actually know something about. I could respond to Werner. I could respond to Mimi. I could respond to Peter. I could discuss the (really good) "case law" model that Roger suggested....

Then I realized that such a post indicated that I continued to really care; yet after reading the most recent posts from the vociferous, suddenly I realized that I just don't any more. This whole thing is an exercise in futility. There is literally nothing I can say, not even this very paragraph, that will not be intentionally misunderstood, and I'm just tired of it. Call even this "whining," I don't care.

There. I just deleted more than an hour's work. It's for the best.

Mimi, you're so right! I'm finally convinced. Ridicule, name-calling, and character-assassination are what you have to offer (you are not alone in "offering" it), and I've got better things to do with my time and energy than put up with any more of it. You've got nothing of value to offer me, and you clearly think that I've got nothing of value to offer you.

Many of you have tried to be decent, honest, and reasonable, and I'm grateful for that (John, I do appreciate what you were trying to do with this thread); but the "signal to noise ratio" here just isn't worth it.

Have fun, all. I'm off.
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Aug 18, 2006 - 03:11am PT
You can go on insisting that intent turns a 1/160th of a gram grain into a 10 pound flake, whether enhancements must be done with one hand tied behind your back rather than two-handed, or simply continue gerbilling around an epistemological priori vs. posteriori mobius strip, but here at the end of a voluminous litany I simply find it incredible it is still impossible to discern anyone's binary position relative to two dirt-simple, dumb-as-a-stump questions:

a) Should the apron be climbed?

b) Could any one of you climb it in significantly better style, or with a smaller "hole" count, given the exact same technology?


I've always known things were harder in the Valley than our simple S.I. hollers - I just never knew quite how hard.

I'm out of here as well...

[ Mark and Richard - if you're in PDX with some free time to kill give me a shout and we can hit Beacon. Would climb with either of you any time (as I would most of the folks in this thread.) ]

golsen

Social climber
kennewick, wa
Aug 18, 2006 - 05:12am PT
I am with you healyje, those questions remain unanswered. Seems kind of hard for anyone to bitch too much about it unless they climb the route or are opposed to climbing that particular piece of stone. Seems to be one or the other would clear up some things.

I dont know what Mark and Richard did to piss Mimi off...You sure you didnt kill her pet poodle with a dropped sh#t bag? Or maybe you hit her?
elcapfool

Big Wall climber
hiding in plain sight
Aug 18, 2006 - 08:57am PT
Is it true?
Is it finally over?
Did we win?


I find it somewhat ironic this discussion is ending the same way my attempt ended. The same feelings return...
I could go on, but for what? There is nothing to be gained or fun here. This isn't what I thought it would be. I can't believe people actually enjoy this crap. I think I'm going to vomit...

I learned two valueable lessons in all this:
Be brief
Be funny

'cuz you can still be a jackass, and not tweak people too hard.

Oh, and to never use the Caps Lock key...
WBraun

climber
Aug 18, 2006 - 12:16pm PT
Hahahah

Madman the bolter1, you're such a fragile bird.

When I said: "Pioneers just do what it takes, the rest follow along and scratch their balls wondering ........."

That was actually praise for you as you are the pioneer for your WOS. But you couldn't see it because you are so pitifully blinded by you're own delusion. What do care what I say anyways? It's just another fools opinion. If it doesn't meet your criteria than just skip over it. But you can't.

We are so bound, shackle and chain to our runaway minds.

Like I told you before, you need help, the kind that money can't buy.

I'm glad I take that help that money can't buy ............
bringmedeath

climber
la la land
Aug 18, 2006 - 10:26pm PT
Werner, is that nice? Help money can't buy... WTF??? I will say... CLIMBING ISN'T LIFE and all this bitching and crying over "ethics" is f*#king lame! If your climbing is what you base your life on, why even live? Why not base it on how you treat those around you. Many of you seem to walk through this world not trying to better anyones day but your own. I read this stuff and just hope I never end up sounding like this. Are you guys really happy and having fun anymore. Or are you just a fake person on the internet? I climb because it is something that is fun and gets you outside in spots fewer people visit.

I will do what I want because if... If I never tell anyone... how is it wrong? Just like, if a tree falls and nobody is around, did it really make a sound???

bringmedeath

climber
la la land
Aug 19, 2006 - 11:04am PT
Oh well Mimi...
'Pass the Pitons' Pete

Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
Aug 19, 2006 - 05:06pm PT
a) Should the apron be climbed?

Why the hell not? Pretty much everything else has been.

b) Could any one of you climb it in significantly better style, or with a smaller "hole" count, given the exact same technology?

Not bloody likely, by my observation.
Teth

climber
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Aug 22, 2006 - 11:44am PT
Man, this whole conversation fell to the talus!

Richard, what does the word “ethics” mean? You have been fairly clear on what it is not, but I am left with no idea of how you define “ethics”. No wonder this conversation has fallen apart. You have hacked the foundation out from under the discussion and left no firm structure to build anew! I consider myself a fairly deep thinker, when I put the time into it, so if I had a framework to work with I might be able to add something to a discussion on ethics, but you have left me with no such framework. That’s not fair!

As to the rules of climbing not being ethics, I was thinking about this over the weekend and realized that we should probably call these rules “best practice”. Best Practice is the current buzzword describing the set of practices which are considered best within a profession. My wife works in child mental health and “best practice” in her profession mostly refers to how to deal with a kid without messing him/her up worse than they already are. Best Practice encompasses the practices that leading experts in the field think are best and the majority agree on. I think “best” refers to the best compromise between many conflicting concerns. Best Practices change over time as technology, paradigms of thinking, societal moral expectations and various other variables change. “Climbing best practice” seems like a reasonable substitute for the term “climbing ethics”.

I feel I am on shaky ground bringing ethics back into this, but I think that “best practice” can sometimes be a balancing of conflicting ethics. For instance, if you are in charge of a rescue operation to save an injured climber and conditions are dangerous, then you have a conflict of ethics. On the one hand it is not ethical to leave the climber to die, while on the other hand it is not ethical to put your crew’s lives in danger to rescue the climber. “Best practice” would be a set of rules regarding what was acceptable risk, so that accepted best practice would help you decide between the conflicting ethics. In the end you are the one who makes the call, but having established best practice makes it easier to make the decision in the heat of the moment, and easier to explain that decision to others after.

“Climbing Best Practice” would be the most accepted compromise between the many conflicting ethical, stylistic, ideal, logistical, technological, financial, aesthetic, etc. issues effecting climbing. (Yes, I realize now that ethics is only one of those categories.) Since Best Practice is a compromise between concerns which are not static or constant, best practice itself will change constantly over time. On the up side, people might be less likely to sh!t on other peoples gear over best practice (best compromise), than when it was called ethics.

Teth Cleveland
Agent provocateur

climber
Sin City
Aug 22, 2006 - 09:58pm PT
Here a tentative definition.

Climbing ethics: collection of more or less random values, judgements and how-to rules pertainig to the use of a given zone of rock formations. Further characterisitics:

 introdution: by consensus among influential members of a given climbing community (sometimes with the help of drugs like coffeine, weed, alcohol etc);

 scope: local to worldwide. Routinely exported to the Third World by expeditionary undertakings;

 timeliness: evolving, typically generationwise.

 consequences in case of non-compliance: none to social exclusion, abuse or violence in extreme cases.

 enforcement organs: none to self-constituted militias.

Messages 121 - 136 of total 136 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
Return to Forum List
 
Our Guidebooks
spacerCheck 'em out!
SuperTopo Guidebooks

guidebook icon
Try a free sample topo!

 
SuperTopo on the Web

Recent Route Beta