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Peter, Tell me, please, just what exactly is keeping anyone from posting their wisdom on Techdiver? Harsh language? Dirty words? Or is it the perception that has grown on Techdiver over the last couple of years that divers who discuss their dives and their dive setups should be capable of defending that configuration when others start to pick it apart? It _is_ tough to do things a certain way because someone told you to and then have to actually _defend_ it! I agree, that sucks. Are DIR divers really mindless lemmings? Or are the personal preference folks? PP or DIR? Which makes you safer in the water? The DIR-heads as an online presence are obnoxious--that's a given. But so was that US Marine (British SAS, Navy Seal) drill sergeant that we all know and love. Why? Because modern combat is a highly structured, technical and unforgiving environment, with a great many opportunities for quick death or disability. Sound familiar? There are too many fat, out of shape, wanna-be techies doing dives that, so long as the "ideal" conditions persist, they'll be fine. But once the shit hits the diver, bad things start to happen very quickly and the stupid, the unprepared, the out-of-shape and the "whatever works" diver will learn--briefly--that maybe he/she was wrong . . . and then the big dirt nap. But we'll be left, along with that person's family, to sort it out. There will always be someone out there in CyberLand ready to defend the utility of any equipment configuration without regard for how he came to use it. What is apparent and obvious to anyone who cares to do the research, is that the DIR system works in a wide variety of situations and environments. That's not necessarily a proof, it's a record of success. The WKPP, despite their mouths, do the real talking with their diving accomplishments. If one wants to use a system that works, one could do worse than to emulate their rigs and techniques. Show me another group of divers doing it "their way" who can boast of similar accomplishment over such a long period of time and in such a harsh environment. Then, take at look at the gear differences and have a real discussion. Otherwise, the fact that "you haven't died yet" is hardly a ringing endorsement of what you use and how you dive. You give lip service to their "admittedly impressive" accomplishments, but you simply cannot ignore it as a factor in the discussion. The anti-DIRs logic is usually beyond the pale. I hope you are more stringent in your gear setup. In logical terms they: Appeal to the Gallery (DIR must be wrong 'cuz so many dive PP) Argue from Ignorance (PP is true because it can't be proved false) Ad Hominem attacks (DIRs are jerks, so their system must not be perfect) False Cause Fallacies (you haven't died yet by using your PP system) The fact is that it's difficult to actually prove that any system is the direct cause of success. But cave & tech diving became safer by applying logical rules to diving accidents. We can see what routinely causes accidents. We can see what divers involved in accidents are using that are not apparent direct causes of that accident, but that may be contributing. Finally, we can look at behaviors of divers who die and then we can come to some general conclusions about those behaviors and what they may indicate for other divers behaving similarly. All of these "tests" have lead directly or indirectly to much of what is called DIR. Read Exley's "Blueprint for Survival," the cavers Bible for Accident Analysis. I have yet to see an Exley emerge on the Mix & Wreck diver side where personal preference is practically a disease. More divers are dying in these environments than anywhere else. Surely there must be a cause that is traceable and that can result in safer diving practices instead of these hollow arguments about style that ultimately obfuscate the truth. If the PP Mixers & Wreckers were patrolling their own waters as fastidiously as the cavers once did (I have a feeling that things are getting as bad there), these accidents would be fewer. There was a time in the late 80s and early nineties for EIGHT YEARS when NO trained cave diver died diving in a cave. I could point that out to my family whenever they got antsy--no longer. Anyone techdiving today has a tough sell to family unless they're just plain lying. It's not just the explorers that are dying in tech diving, it's the student, the instructor, the average techdiver. There's no "safe" group to be in. Anyone can die at any time on any dive . . . and has. My personal feeling is that "popularized" training practices designed to get the max number of bodies in classes to create a paying, viable "tech" market has resulted in the death rate we now "enjoy." So long as divers are dying at this rate, I HOPE that Techdiver stays a rough-and-tumble, balls-out place to be and discussions of technical diving issues remain tense and important. The alternative: polite acceptance of high mortality rates while the training agencies and gear manufacturers grow and rake in the profits and instructors continue to lure in new divers with their macho-BS attitudes. That would be the "height of hypocrisy." The real reason that those who follow the DIR precepts are NOT lemmings, is that THEY don't die when they follow their DIR leaders into the sea. Later, JoeL > Subject: Making Asses >Thousands of gifted technical divers have given up on this list because the >Irvine-ites refuse to divorce their mudslinging from practical, helpful >information. You guys do not have all the answers and DIR--which, by your >own admission, is still evolving--is not the Manna from Heaven. > > Before y'all line up to flame me, pause for a moment (if this is possible) > and consider how much more valuable this list would be if contrasting > viewpoints were afforded the same respect that you seem to reserve > exclusively for your champion. Imagine the great divers who would regularly > be a part of such discussions. > > Sadly, this list is becoming nothing more than WKPP fans congrulating > themselves on their (admittedly impressive) accomplishments. We can do much > better than this. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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