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Gary
Social climber
From A Buick 6
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May 21, 2015 - 07:21am PT
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What are the examples of this happening in the three disciplines just mentioned? I am not asking for a speculative argument, however well reasoned, but rather for concrete evidence to validate the notion that anyone has actually died trying to be someone they were not or from trying something they would not otherwise have tried without seeing the Honnold vids and so forth.
It's not a viral video, but there is an example in Hermann Buhl's Nanaga Parbat Pilgramage in the first chapter, or so, I believe. He and his friend were trying to emulate some climbers when his friend took the final fall.
It's all around us, Largo, you have to see that.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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May 21, 2015 - 07:24am PT
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Emulation is part of the learning process. Young children emulate their parents in countless ways.
Why this knashing of teeth over Clf Bar? Companies who use atheletes for marketing can and do makes changes pretty much whenever they wish. It's not as if these atheletes are checking into the office for a 9 to 5 work stint. They're there for image and it's the companies choice whether or not they present the right one.
If you as a consumer dont like a companies image vote with your pocketbook. I don't buy Clif Bars because I don't like the product.
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujò de la Playa y Perrito Ruby
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May 21, 2015 - 07:47am PT
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By way of analogy, why not take a look at automobile racing and sponsorship and the dread alcohol. The sample population is much larger.
Are there instances where folks throw down a few (or more than a few) drinks and emulate car racers. Yeah, I think so. I admit to having done it as a youth. Luckily, no crashes.
So, although you're not finding a lot of evidence of it in the three disciplines mentioned by Clif Bar, I'm sure it is happening.
Here's the aftermath of one that just occurred here in San Diego recently.
Two, and most likely three, dead medical students. One hospitalized DUI suspect.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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May 21, 2015 - 07:54am PT
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My wife won't let me buy Clif bars, especially if she will be downwind.
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WBraun
climber
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May 21, 2015 - 08:22am PT
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The people inside the box can't really support the people who are not inside the box.
Tooo scary for the people inside the box ......
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Moof
Big Wall climber
Orygun
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May 21, 2015 - 08:40am PT
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I'll pick a relatively safe example for a minute.
Years back a friend of mine shared his perspective on the early days of slacklining. He ran into Chongo off in the woods away from everyone playing with a strap just 2 feet off the ground, and had a chat and gave it a go. He didn't think much of it.
A few weeks later Chongo had things dialed and moves his setup prominently into Camp 4 for all to see. Only this time it is set up just above crotch level. Dude after dude comes by and see Chongo gracefully balancing on the thing, and they just have to have a go. Chongo gets to sit back and see dude after dude get nailed.
Slacklining has now become a sport all on its own.
Wingsuit flying looks really really cool too, but hurts worse than a nut shot if you screw up.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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May 21, 2015 - 08:44am PT
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Donini: . . . a nearly impossible task [to prove] . . . establishing a metric would be extremely difficult.
A very pragmatic evaluation.
An intelligent post by Chugash. Well-said.
I’ve taught ethics (at least in business schools), and I don’t think you can intellectualize such issues. You can’t really analyze them with cost-benefit analyses. You can’t simply say that people do stupid things. Nor saying that “stuff happens” is very enlightening.
What about working for an oil company? Running pharmaceutical testing in third world countries? Using animals to test cosmetics? Building gas-guzzling automobiles? Being a tenement owner in a slum area? Selling goods or services that people really aren’t very good for them (cigarettes, alcohol, foods loaded with chemicals made by Dow or Dupont)?
Ethics happens on two levels: One, it is something that a person comes to him or herself: what is the personal ethics that YOU believe in and live by? Two, ethics is something that a community establishes for itself implicitly or explicitly. Do your ethics synch up with your community’s?
In time, ethics becomes aesthetics (especially so in climbing). When either a community or a person no longer feels comfortable with its or his or her ethics, then they should move on.
Ethics is not something that *others* can determine for *others.* (That’s legality or morality.) What matters is what YOURS is and whether you are hanging out with people that you admire.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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May 21, 2015 - 08:53am PT
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Good post, Chugach.
Many fine points.
Like you said, it's in our DNA.
So what can we do? But plod on and give it our best.
Life is a balancing act. It's also a crap shoot.
At once a spectacle and a tragedy.
Good point by Sumner, too, I had similar thoughts.
.....
Perhaps after awhile the go-pro video should be posted to social media.
As a further contribution to any consideration of these things - insofar as that's the aim.
Knowing better is doing better. Right?
Maybe?
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bixquite
Social climber
humboldt nation
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May 21, 2015 - 09:27am PT
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Nature, the cosmos, is ever expanding in self discovery, reaching into the dark nothingness
of non being with fingers like fractals decoding the algorithms of existence.
To separate our selves from the whole cosmos is a misconception of being. A bamboo plant
can't grow wrong, it just grows toward the light. Humans reach to grasp the great unknown
or bloom into the conscious universe through art, music, building, religion etc.
I believe it's encoded in the DNA fibers of the cosmos to reach for the sun.
Dean, Graham, Stanley and Scion as cosmic samurai continue to inspire the consciousness of what is possible to the thin line beyond which you really can't fake.
Fire on the mountain
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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May 21, 2015 - 09:37am PT
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MikeL, love yer posts, man. I've always thought that teaching ethics at a
business school must be like asking the head hunters who are heating up the
water for the soup du jour to "go easy on the MSG today." Does it even take
two hands to count the number of companies who have undertaken serious
changes based on 'ethics' that are not conflated with preaching to the choir?
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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May 21, 2015 - 09:39am PT
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The Clif Bar thing is somewhat different than the NOOB thing. Clif didn't want to be associated with activities perceived as exceptionally dangerous.
I don't think, for the most part that the activities that Dean, Alex, etc. are famous for are things most NOOBs would try. As someone said below, the fear factor and skill requirements are too high. No gumby is going to try to solo the Rostrum or Moonlight Buttress. Or try wingsuit proximity flying.
But gumbies always have and always will try stuff a little over their heads. Since time predating writing probably, much less Go Pros. And I'm not convinced Go-Pros have changed much in regard to that. Take away them and YouTube and you'll still have teens wanting to push the limits before they are ready. Almost all of us here did. And most of us got away with it.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - May 21, 2015 - 10:33am PT
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Interesting to read people's take on all of this.
For the record, I wasn't saying Cliff Bar backed out of their sponsorship fearing Honnold, Potter et al were being fatal role models to unwitting noobs - or to anyone. As stated by many others, they simply didn't feel right about underwriting what they felt were exceptionally dangerous activities. Whethere they did so on moral or business grounds in probably impossible to discern, and likely doesn't matter. But someone, somewhere probably felt that by association, if Cliff Bar were tied to fatal pursuits, the company image would suffer and the bottom line would plunge. That's just survival instincts there, I reckon.
My second point, and one I have been hearing for ages, is that people doing wild and sometimes unhinged acts exert a direct influence on the actions of others. This is the point that seems largely unfounded in plain fact. Yes, we are all enlivened by the idea of hitting like Babe Ruth, running like Bolt, climbing like Potter, but the idea that imagining doing so leads to our own demise is to me, an exaggeration that come out of a kind of advertising mentailty - that is, a company, or an individual, need only say or do somethng and the rest of the crowd - or at least the suggestable ones - will follow suite. Perhaps not nearly at the level of the pros, but at a personally fatal level just the same.
But is this really so? The people doing proximity flying, or soloing 5.13, have done such a lengthy run-up to the big time that while they must have influences, they are in my experience not motivated in small or large part by outside influences.
Another even more slippery issue is belief that the harder the free solo, the more dangerous it is. In fact, it seems that the harder the solo, the more careful and more proficient the soloist becomes, and consequently, few soloers die.
All interesting to ponder...
JL
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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May 21, 2015 - 10:38am PT
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I hope it isn't trite to observe that emulating role models is a well-engrained human behaviour, particularly among adolescents of all ages.
"Be like Mike" ----multi-million dollar ad campaign.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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May 21, 2015 - 10:49am PT
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Perhaps a better question is: How many of you out there have been duped or encouraged into doing dangerous shite that you never would have done otherwise save for trying to emulate your "heros?"
I was stupid enough to drink raw eggs after watching Rocky do it, in the Academy Award-winning film. On the other hand, even though I was blown away that Peter Croft soloed ROTC, I was smart enough to know that if I tried such a stunt I would surely get myself killed. Ultimately, I suppose I sympathize with the idea that responsiblilty should belong to the individual doing the act and it seems to me like a sorry excuse to blame our bad decisions on others who we are trying to emulate. I like this point of view because I think it assigns a certain respect to the individual and their ability to make a rational decision (or at least to go through the learning process in their own way). Of course this may be unrealistic: perhaps human beings are really more like dumb machines who go around copying any stupid thing that someone else does (and are better off being controlled as such).
Anyways, I'm not sure if this rant has much to do with the OP.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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May 21, 2015 - 10:59am PT
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Ethics happens on two levels: One, it is something that a person comes to him or herself: what is the personal ethics that YOU believe in and live by? Two, ethics is something that a community establishes for itself implicitly or explicitly. Do your ethics synch up with your community’s?
In time, ethics becomes aesthetics (especially so in climbing). When either a community or a person no longer feels comfortable with its or his or her ethics, then they should move on.
Ethics is not something that *others* can determine for *others.* (That’s legality or morality.) What matters is what YOURS is and whether you are hanging out with people that you admire.
Mike, intriguing post. Your last sentence, tho, doesn't quite address the issue of how the community establishes it's ethics, such as the climbing community. I think it is through discussions like this thread.
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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May 21, 2015 - 11:05am PT
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Thanks for your thoughts.
We're 49% nature and 51% nurture. Didn't you know? Science just proved it. No room for free will I guess. Man I love science! :-)
The nurture part - I think obviously our environment affects us. If we live in an environment that glorifies facing the danger of extreme sports, that's going to affect us and our beliefs and our behaviors. That's just how our brains work.
But we're not just affected by our environment, we also affect it. If we or Clif Bar glorifies this risky behavior (as our Adhd risk favoring adventurous brains have evolved to do) over say raising a healthy child (as our dna tells us to, and as we become unable to after falling to our deaths) then that's the 51% nurture that we and others are going to be responding to.
Sure go for it if that's your thing. But going for it affects all of us. That's the part that we don't really want to accept responsibility for. Our belief in ourselves as individuals doesn't want us to do that, because we'd have to give something of ourselves up.
With respect to the original question, I'd say this accident is an example. We both read a post by a friend who was pissed that they had chosen the line despite its risks, and felt that this flight was the badge of the alpha dog - wanting to exceed the risky adventure of others.
If we plant ice we're gonna harvest wind.
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splitclimber
climber
Sonoma County
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May 21, 2015 - 11:13am PT
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I've seen this emulation more in the backcountry ski and snowboard crowd especially with all of these amazing videos/films of ski/snowboard descents and maybe a false sense of security with avalanche gear and a not so honest assessment of one's ability.
The whole avalanche assessment and changing snow conditions seem to be a huge factor in people getting in over their heads. A changing medium can be much more dangerous and hard to assess than something like a rock climb or a BASE jump.
To simply answer John's question - I'd say TRUE.
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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May 21, 2015 - 11:22am PT
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Degaine wrote:
Here's a good report and analysis on accidents in the mountains:
http://www.petzl.com/fondation/foundation-accidentologie-livret_EN.pdf?v=1
droves of newbies are not getting knocked off in the mountains. My educated guess would be that in mountain sports (climbing, mountaineering, skiing steep enough terrain to avalanche, BASE, etc.) the fear and survival instinct kick in pretty early to dissuade any "copycats" from going to far.
The same doesn't go for advertising or glorifying slow-killers like smoking or overeating - habits people have historically "emulated" or copied in mass.
Excellent point Degaine.
Youth is inspired by great achievements, and the individuals Cliff Bar dumped have an impressive list. But Cliff Bar is free to market however they want.
Fear is something that all adventurers deal with. Maybe endeavoring to overcome those fears is part of the attraction. Climbing teaches us all a great deal about ourselves, risk management and our motivations.
"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all."
Helen Keller
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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May 21, 2015 - 11:40am PT
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Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.
Exactly. Set that as our baseline and then we and Clif bar glorify exposing ourselves to danger, the bigger the better. Because really wingsuiting through that notch is the only way to be truly alive.
And we buy it (according to science :-) at 51%. Like Tom Brady, it's more probable than not that we're cheaters in our human belief creation processes :-)
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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May 21, 2015 - 11:51am PT
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Another even more slippery issue is belief that the harder the free solo, the more dangerous it is. In fact, it seems that the harder the solo, the more careful and more proficient the soloist becomes, and consequently, few soloers die.
I'd like to see the evidence that supports that theory (taking into account the exponentially greater amount of times that easier routes gets soloed).
Are you sure that's not just your "speculation"?
I guess we all like to demand "evidence" to support statements that we don't find palatable, even when evidence may be extremely difficult or impossible to generate (we can't read people's minds; dead soloers don't typically leave notes explaining their motivation).
But when we like a statement, a little "common sense" seems just fine.
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