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Two days in an underwater cave running out of oxygen

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Re: Two days in an underwater cave running out of oxygen

#171

Post by nine_k »

aasarava wrote: post #44
j9461701 wrote: post #33

I might be speaking out of line, but taking on these kinds of risks with young children at home seems kind of selfish. The fact that he went back into the same cave that nearly killed him only a month later...almost as if to say: "I would rather my kids grow up without a Dad than live without my adrenaline fix" I am neither a father or a cave diver though, so I might be missing a piece of the puzzle. Would either gro…

Or maybe what he's saying is, "I would rather my kids learn that they should explore and enjoy the world, rather than never take any big risks." There are a lot of parents in the world. Once you start judging them (for actions other than abuse and neglect), you very quickly realize how limiting that is. Do we need to look down upon astronauts who have children? What about pilots? People who travel for work for days o…

There's also the mundane question of money. Unless you're already rich, raising a child alone is hard in many counts already; having your income halved does not help.

Re: Two days in an underwater cave running out of oxygen

#172

Post by laumars »

pragone wrote: post #166
rdtsc wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the choice of having a father at home or have one dead in cave but famous for exploring cool places I don't think it's hard to guess what most children would pick. > The good news is that once you become a father, you'll get to decide (possibly with a partner) what the acceptable level of risk is for you and your family. That's a obvious. What I think is being questioned is if they made a good decision. In othe…

> Given the choice of having a father at home or have one dead in cave but famous for exploring cool places I don't think it's hard to guess what most children would pick. In all seriousness, I do have a hard time guessing which one most children would pick. I can see reasonable arguments made on either side. Personally, I think it would be far more inspiring to have a father who died pursuing his passion, then one w…

Depends on the kid, their age and their relationship with their father. I don't think there is any right generalized answer.

With my kids I know they would rather have me around, but they are young so I'm already "superman" to them. Who knows how our relationship will change as they grow older.

Re: Two days in an underwater cave running out of oxygen

#173

Post by gpawl »

aasarava wrote: post #44
j9461701 wrote: post #33

I might be speaking out of line, but taking on these kinds of risks with young children at home seems kind of selfish. The fact that he went back into the same cave that nearly killed him only a month later...almost as if to say: "I would rather my kids grow up without a Dad than live without my adrenaline fix" I am neither a father or a cave diver though, so I might be missing a piece of the puzzle. Would either gro…

Or maybe what he's saying is, "I would rather my kids learn that they should explore and enjoy the world, rather than never take any big risks." There are a lot of parents in the world. Once you start judging them (for actions other than abuse and neglect), you very quickly realize how limiting that is. Do we need to look down upon astronauts who have children? What about pilots? People who travel for work for days o…

Dying at your hobby is #1 form of neglect, partly mitigated only if you've set up quite an insurance payout.

Re: Two days in an underwater cave running out of oxygen

#174

Post by gpawl »

nvahalik wrote: post #57
Chris2048 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rather than never take any big risks With kids at home? specifically ?! There are ways to enjoy life, or take "risks", that do not involve mortal danger. > Do we need to look down upon astronauts who have children? What about pilots? .. Someone who commutes .. in a car that has a poor safety rating? Are those as dangerous? If so, then yes, I think so. > People who travel for work for days or weeks at a time? People…

> There are ways to enjoy life, or take "risks", that do not involve mortal danger. Depends on how you look at it. We are fragile creatures and the world is a fairly dangerous place. People die every day driving cars, riding bikes, going for walks—doing things far more mundane than cave-diving.

what are the actual measured chances of dying at these various activities?

Re: Two days in an underwater cave running out of oxygen

#175

Post by gpawl »

eric_h wrote: post #96
Chris2048 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that was an example, not a proposal to an official risk limit. But maybe - you'd need a proper analysis of the relative risk. Isn't that done with cars/driving? All sorts of vehicle legislation may be driven (npi) by driving incident data / risk analysis. > Taking a specific incident and combining it with "that sounds dangerous" I'm not. I think it sounds dangerous before this specific incident. But you are rig…

> a meaningful, proper analysis would be appropriate Maybe you should just base it on what a given repetitive activity does to your life insurance premiums.

http://www.insuranceclarity.com/life/life-insurance-extreme-...

OP is between "extra premium" and "cannot get coverage"

Re: Two days in an underwater cave running out of oxygen

#176

Post by gpawl »

pdonis wrote: post #158
Chris2048 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that severely limits who can be a soldier But that's an economic problem, isn't it? Maybe if children stopped working, we couldn't make enough matches? But unless we recognise the morally undesirable, why would we care to change anything? You can recognise something as morally undesirable, yet for some other reason unavoidable. There are many things that fall into that category. It's also a slippery slope - if some…

> that's an economic problem, isn't it? Only if you think the need of any society to be able to defend itself is an economic problem. > to what extent does America really need (a certain amount) of soldiers? That depends on what threats we expect to have to deal with. Also, if you argue that people with children should not be soldiers, you are taking out of the decision loop people who are likely to have a more restr…

the people who die in war aren't the people who decide to get into a war.

Re: Two days in an underwater cave running out of oxygen

#177

Post by gpawl »

Chris2048 wrote: post #78
harpiaharpyja wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not GP but I believe he is saying that unless we've been in an underwater cave the diver's perspective may be difficult for us to really appreciate. To us, continuing to dive seems like an unacceptable risk. To the diver, it seemingly is not. Along the same vein I believe GP then goes on to say that he does not feel that the diver's perspective is less valid just because he (the GP) doesn't understand it.

But what's the difference? Either it's risky, or it isn't? If the diver has good reason to think that it isn't, fair enough. But is that the case?

risk is easy to calculate. reward is not.

Re: Two days in an underwater cave running out of oxygen

#178

Post by mveety »

idlewords wrote: post #93
benzofuran wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the proper training and experience, this is an academically rewarding sport / hobby, and is quite safe - still less so than normal open water diving but not the death trap that it seems. The NSS-CDS ( http://nsscds.org ) keeps accident analysis articles on hand (only seems like older ones are available on the website right now, dead tree is still the boss in this arena) covering these. Similarly though, there's…

A similar trough exists in general aviation—accident rates are markedly higher for somewhat experienced pilots than for beginners. The consensus among pilots seems to be that you are most dangerous between the time you think you know what you're doing, and the time you survive your first big scare. There's probably a good lesson here for computer programmers...

I disagree here. You're dangerous until you know you know what you're doing. Having a bad scare might make you not repeat that situation, but you're still just as dumb after it as you were before (well, at least that's been true for me).

Re: Two days in an underwater cave running out of oxygen

#179

Post by gpawl »

seanc wrote: post #35
j9461701 wrote: post #33

I might be speaking out of line, but taking on these kinds of risks with young children at home seems kind of selfish. The fact that he went back into the same cave that nearly killed him only a month later...almost as if to say: "I would rather my kids grow up without a Dad than live without my adrenaline fix" I am neither a father or a cave diver though, so I might be missing a piece of the puzzle. Would either gro…

I am a father and I agree 100% IMO maaaaybe you could be married with no kids and do this ethically. But with kids? You're rolling the dice on a very important promise. I do struggle with what that line of thinking means for soldiers though.

the common marriage vows explicitly state death as the one justification for exiting vows, so married with no kids is definitively in the clear.

Re: Two days in an underwater cave running out of oxygen

#180

Post by gpawl »

seanc wrote: post #35
j9461701 wrote: post #33

I might be speaking out of line, but taking on these kinds of risks with young children at home seems kind of selfish. The fact that he went back into the same cave that nearly killed him only a month later...almost as if to say: "I would rather my kids grow up without a Dad than live without my adrenaline fix" I am neither a father or a cave diver though, so I might be missing a piece of the puzzle. Would either gro…

I am a father and I agree 100% IMO maaaaybe you could be married with no kids and do this ethically. But with kids? You're rolling the dice on a very important promise. I do struggle with what that line of thinking means for soldiers though.

the common marriage vows explicitly state death as the one justification for exiting vows, so married with no kids is definitively in the clear.
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