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After watching this thread and your own rants for the last week I can no longer resist jumping in, though I may regret it. I have been on the tech diver and cavers lists for 2-3 years now and cannot count the number of times I have seen this same issue come up. Another relative newbie decides to take offense at the Irvine style and, with righteous indignation, declares that George Irvine and all his WKPP toadies are unacceptable in polite, modern society. In all honesty, when I first subscribed I was somewhat offended by the verbal assaults I witnessed. However, in the short time that I have been on the lists there have been at least 5-6 divers in Florida and several times that number around the world that have died in "technical" dives. I think even Mr. Irvine's greatest detractors would admit that these divers would not have died if they had been diving with George (and following his rules). I think many would also agree that few of the divers would have died if they had just followed DIR standards (innate stupidity would probably have claimed one or two, regardless). Also during this time I have seen posts from George and company that were polite, rude, begging, pleading, threatening, cursing, you name it. I still see dive instructors teaching the same stupid nonsense every time I dive a Florida cave. I still see posts on the net, ads in dive magazines, etc. from instructors that want to teach me deep air diving. I could go on, but I trust you get the point. So what do you suggest, keep being polite? To steal a phrase from George, death is not polite. I hope you have never been required to do a body recovery, I know George has had to do several. Believe me, he does not gloat when another diver dies. While I personally do not use his style of communication, I might take a more aggressive attitude after pulling a few dead divers out of the water, divers that would probably still be alive if they or their instructors and dive partners had gotten the message. As you and others point out, the accomplishments of WKPP has given its members a position of some prominence and influence in the technical diving community. What they say is noticed by many but, unfortunately, their message is also ignored by many. Let me say here that I am not suggesting that you are certain to die if you breath your short hose, or mount a pony tank between your double tanks, or even if you dive double steel tanks in the ocean. But in a sport that is already pretty high risk it certainly makes sense to avoid compounding that risk and to adopt the safest techniques available. So, what would you recommend? The polite method has not worked, logic hasn't worked, a string of deaths has not worked. Perhaps ranting will not work either, but I can certainly understand why some might start losing patience and start ranting a bit. Well, it's late and this is giving me a headache. I'll go back to my own lurking and see if I have wasted my time proselytizing. Perhaps my polite style will save one of these hordes that you insist will be won over when the message is sugar coated. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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