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On 8/20/02 10:43 AM, "Deborah B Boehmke" <dboehmke@be*.ne*> wrote: > I agree Joel. This is really getting old. Deborah, Among the problems with technical diving or diving in general are that there are such stark issues of safety that are truly life and death. Those who are concerned with safety (and who isn't) have arrived at different solutions to these problems--some good, some not. Add to that the testosterone-laden nature of the activity, the macho posturing, the dive-god syndrome and the future Darwin award candidates who are destined for an early and ugly eternal dirt-nap and it's not surprising that we get the rhetoric that goes on here, present company included. But a real need exists to confront safety issues squarely and there are a lot of divers who think that there's a lot of "stupidity" out there that needs to be exposed (not indicating anyone specific here) and so we get a general and routine hosing down of the decks with testosterone that turns from arguments about dive procedures to personal and very petty, infantile, profanity-laced and pointless mud-wrestling that gets very boring, very fast. It'd be nice if those of us who have a need to exercise our insult glands could have a Smack Room where we could spank our favorite monkeys to our hearts' content -- there might even be a masochistic voyeur or two that wants to watch -- while the issues get discussed back here on Techdiver. You'll never have a discussion group like this without some fierce and sometimes very angry fights over procedures and technique, that's a given. But a bunch of divers politely sipping tea with their pinkies up and saying "pardon me old boy, but . . ." would be even MORE boring than the smack that gets run around here. Still, I have the sense that there are a lot of lurkers here who could add a lot that is useful if they didn't feel like every time they raised their collective head they had it handed to them. So it would be good to do without the personal battles and insults, which as you point out, are "getting old" and keep it about the diving, the methods and the gear, with the odd bit of humor and a few raised voices. I don't know how you expose mindless stupidity without using the words. But there will be plenty of fighting over these topics and if we can do without _most_ of the personal insults, that would be good too. A good on-the-subject argument between a lot of people is a good thing. It means that everyone's paying attention and no one is getting left out. I wish that more people would speak up, smack or no smack. JoeL -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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