Need a little help (Survey) for an academic essay on the morality of free soloing

^^^
5, including drunk drivers ...

Mark Dalen wrote: ^^^
5, including drunk drivers ...

And using Dyneema. Ha!

John Byrnes wrote:

Noah, 

If I understand this correctly, you were assigned to write a survey and the results are irrelevant?  

In that case, it's quite likely your instructor is trying (I hope so) to teach you something deeper than how to write a survey, and have you come to that knowledge yourself.   That "morality" was the assigned topic is key.  The subject of morality is long, wide, deep, multi-colored, shiny, dull, personal, social, culturally varied and contaminated with laws and prejudice.   A 5-minute survey can not even start to define even a narrow slice.    Maybe that's the assignment -- to have you realize that.

Well I wouldn't say the results are irrelevent but they definitely are for the sake of the class... This was for English class...

I personally am interested in the results though!

I want to learn more, explore what people think and such.

The "results" as in "numbers coming out of the survey" are not relevant to me because, as it's been said, the survey is inaccurate and incomplete.
I am more interested in the different perspectives people have of free soloing.

I have sooooo many questions I'd just love to ask everyone and to dive deeper into this but this was not the point of the survey. This thread could be quite interesting if people discussed the issue at hand...

Start a thread and ask your questions. There's no guarantee people will stick to the topic but you'd likely get plenty of discussion. You can also search the forum for similar discussions that have already happened.

Serious question, not trying to be a jerk here, did your teacher give you any instruction on survey design before giving you this assignment?

Em Cos wrote: Start a thread and ask your questions. There's no guarantee people will stick to the topic but you'd likely get plenty of discussion. You can also search the forum for similar discussions that have already happened.

Serious question, not trying to be a jerk here, did your teacher give you any instruction on survey design before giving you this assignment?

Absolutely none... it was mostly a shot in the dark...

If people need questions to start discussions, here are a few:

Do you think free soloing is represented in a responsible manner in the media?
Should the media remain neutral, encourage the practice or discourage it?
How do you see our sport evolving now that there is a clear gap in mentorship?

Anything else relevant...

Noah Boudreau-Richard wrote:

Absolutely none... it was mostly a shot in the dark...

If people need questions to start discussions, here are a few:

Do you think free soloing is represented in a responsible manner in the media?
Should the media remain neutral, encourage the practice or discourage it?
How do you see our sport evolving now that there is a clear gap in mentorship?

Anything else relevant...

Alpinism will likely continue to cut away excess time and stuff while simultaneously increasing the technical standard undertaken by roped teams and by soloists. What it already does...

Noah Boudreau-Richard wrote: 

Do you think free soloing is represented in a responsible manner in the media?

Can we get a more difficult question?     This is too easy.  Watch Vertical Limit or Cliffhanger.

Should the media remain neutral, encourage the practice or discourage it?

The media are for-profit operations; never forget that.   They will do whatever will make them more money, and they can do a "180" at any time.

How do you see our sport evolving now that there is a clear gap in mentorship?

Hee hee.  This question is a perfect example of what I wrote earlier.    The sport is evolving from many different factors.   I could argue that MP is a reasonable facsimile of a human mentor, and that mentoring is therefore reaching more people than ever before.

John Byrnes wrote: Can we get a more difficult question?     This is too easy.  Watch Vertical Limit or Cliffhanger.
The media are for-profit operations; never forget that.   They will do whatever will make them more money, and they can do a "180" at any time.
Hee hee.  This question is a perfect example of what I wrote earlier.    The sport is evolving from many different factors.   I could argue that MP is a reasonable facsimile of a human mentor, and that mentoring is therefore reaching more people than ever before.

I do agree that the media are currently build on a company model rather than an public information model.

This gets quite interesting when you look at the way we (here in Canada), have state medias like Radio Canada and Télé Québec. To me, these should be great sources of neutral well researched information but it turns out that most of their contect is aimed at entertainment... This brings the point of the credibility of the information delivered in the popular media... For example, when writting an essay and conducting a research, it is considered bad form to use forums and open sourced website like wikipedia because ''anyone can write there''... Now that is true but we must not forget that it is not because it's aired on nationnal television that is is true either, you have to reconsider and cross refference everything.

For the evolution of the sport and the mentorship gap, I think that, even though information might seem like it's super accessible, the pool of new climbers is outgrowing us.

Here is one exemple I like to reffer to:
I've been climbing for 8 years, started at the gym and moved on to the crag with a great mentor. He was mostly ''old school'', climbing trad climbs that were opened in such a way an retrobolted, using a camless rack (tricams ftw) and running the sh**t out of climbs.
I think that I learnt the right way, slow, with patience, with trial and error and with a mentor passing on tips and tricks.
Now I moved away and where I live a lot of people want to learn those climbing skills but when I say that they will have to put time into it they look at me funny, saying youtube will teach them evertying.
When I show them how to belay TR, they want to move on to lead belaying (with no practice). As soon as they get to the point where they can lead in the gym, they see my rack and wanna learn how to place protection.
While this thirst of learning is great, I don't beleive you can learn everything related to climbing in 5 minutes. There are just way too many things to consider.
I agree that you can learn a lot in the internet (especially if you do a lot of cross referencing and doubt everything) but what I think is most dangerous about that is that there is no good way of testing if 1. you learnt something that is accurate, 2. you fully understood what was thaught...

Anyways, just my vision on it!

Quick read from OR on the issue:
https://www.outdoorresearch.com/blog/article/climbings-growing-problem-the-mentorship-gap 

Robert Hall wrote:   
                                               
  Dear Noah Boudreau-Richard,  
  After reading the above comments I decided not to take the survey.  I suggest you read "The Last Blasphemy" (short story)  (I think by John Long) ...probably one of the best pieces ever written on the "moral" aspect of soloing, by one of the greatest climber-writers of all time.

One solos for one's-self; there is no morality except between the soloist and his/her "God".  

It's a great piece. However, the title is "The ONLY blasphemy. And yes, it's by John Long.

Noah Boudreau-Richard wrote:

I do agree that the media are currently build on a company model rather than an public information model.

This gets quite interesting when you look at the way we (here in Canada), have state medias like Radio Canada and Télé Québec. To me, these should be great sources of neutral well researched information but it turns out that most of their contect is aimed at entertainment... This brings the point of the credibility of the information delivered in the popular media... 

Exactly right.   And of course it breeds conspiracy theories because it really is true that if you control the information people are using to make decisions, you control the outcome of those decisions.  It might be only the choice of which soap to buy, or more dangerous what president to vote for...

For the evolution of the sport and the mentorship gap, I think that, even though information might seem like it's super accessible, the pool of new climbers is outgrowing us.

Here is one exemple I like to reffer to:
I've been climbing for 8 years, started at the gym and moved on to the crag with a great mentor. He was mostly ''old school'', climbing trad climbs that were opened in such a way an retrobolted, using a camless rack (tricams ftw) and running the sh**t out of climbs.
I think that I learnt the right way, slow, with patience, with trial and error and with a mentor passing on tips and tricks.

Maybe, maybe not.  I've been climbing for 38 years.  There were no gyms back then.  I took an all day lesson, bought a rope and rack, and went and led a 5-pitch 5.5 with my GF the next weekend.  So one can learn about placing gear in a situation where you're not likely to fall.   What other choice did we have back then?  I found a mentor in about two months, but even he was still learning.  

But as you say, what we have now are lots of people who climb pretty hard in the gym, and think they can do the same grade outside placing their own gear.  I say, let Darwin sort it out.

I am new to this place.  I'm also much more of a gym-rat than anything.

I don't free solo.  I don't think it would be safe to do so.
-------------------
OTOH;  I really LIKED the idea of the Survey.  Perhaps this questions has been talked to death (idk).  but some of the criticisms of your survey seem off to me.

for example; one person wants to you to distinquish between a celebrated athlete like Alex Honold and the average climber (whoever THAT is; here in my portion of Pennsylvania there is very few rock climbers).

why?

doesn't it logically follow that there more and more climbers as we descend the ratings ladder from Alex to some kind of 'typical' climber.

surely Some of the Least talented gumbies and n00bs are risking death with every trip. OTOH how to do we draw a line.  Gumbies have died; but then, so too have experts.

there's is something about the urge to risk your life that I don't understand.
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what I would like to Know MOST if with all these guys that go without ropes; how many of you feel that you are reasonably safe (without some freak 7magnitude earthquake)... and how many of you feel that you are surely Knowingly risking your life; but that excites you.

so Idk.  to the OP, there is a topic here I find interesting.  and like you I was looking forward to a little more discussion of it.

but if MP doesnt' want to talk about it.  well I guess its the communities right to do so.

in that case, if I was the OP and this was for a university Class my advice would be to specifically reach out to more talkative Mpers.  and when you do that- to share what you learn about free-soloing with me at least.  I'm curious.

jason oliphant wrote: I am new to this place.  I'm also much more of a gym-rat than anything.

I don't free solo.  I don't think it would be safe to do so.
-------------------
OTOH;  I really LIKED the idea of the Survey.  Perhaps this questions has been talked to death (idk).  but some of the criticisms of your survey seem off to me.

for example; one person wants to you to distinquish between a celebrated athlete like Alex Honold and the average climber (whoever THAT is; here in my portion of Pennsylvania there is very few rock climbers).

why?

doesn't it logically follow that there more and more climbers as we descend the ratings ladder from Alex to some kind of 'typical' climber.

surely Some of the Least talented gumbies and n00bs are risking death with every trip. OTOH how to do we draw a line.  Gumbies have died; but then, so too have experts.

there's is something about the urge to risk your life that I don't understand.
---------------------
what I would like to Know MOST if with all these guys that go without ropes; how many of you feel that you are reasonably safe (without some freak 7magnitude earthquake)... and how many of you feel that you are surely Knowingly risking your life; but that excites you.

so Idk.  to the OP, there is a topic here I find interesting.  and like you I was looking forward to a little more discussion of it.

but if MP doesnt' want to talk about it.  well I guess its the communities right to do so.

in that case, if I was the OP and this was for a university Class my advice would be to specifically reach out to more talkative Mpers.  and when you do that- to share what you learn about free-soloing with me at least.  I'm curious.

10/10 would read bad troll again

amariuswrote:

• What level of climbing expertise - size of the group has no relevance on the level of expertise
  
   "Intermediate" is not spelled right

Quotation marks? Is English your first language?

Robert Hallwrote:    
                                               
  Dear Noah Boudreau-Richard,  
  After reading the above comments I decided not to take the survey.  I suggest you read "The Last Blasphemy" (short story)  (I think by John Long) ...probably one of the best pieces ever written on the "moral" aspect of soloing, by one of the greatest climber-writers of all time.

One solos for one's-self; there is no morality except between the soloist and his/her "God".  

He writes well and it is a good place to start. The morality thing sounds peachy but I might ask the witnesses and folks who scrape up the bodies off the ground about the morality. 

Henry Mosley wrote:

What is highlighted in the media is only a small part of an athlete's life, and usually you see a picture of an already established person. Yes, difficulties are usually described, but it's usually not that common. Everyone loves to share successes, but where do people go when they lose?

I think the OP's class in 2018 is completed at this point.

M Mwrote:

He writes well and it is a good place to start. The morality thing sounds peachy but I might ask the witnesses and folks who scrape up the bodies off the ground about the morality. 

Free Soloist of a different breed.