DIR: God's gift to diving or Hell spawn?

[fire_diver]

I'm just glad that we don't see that level of attitude too often. Thankfully we have DIR folk here that are level-headed and remember where they started in the SCUBA hobby.

FD

 

[Meng_Tze]

While I am not taking sides either way, if you see the dates you can tell this is old news. I realize your post is about the source, so its relevant to your point.

My assessment is that too often the DIR philosophy gets dismissed because of the DIR philosopher. Also, too often, this philosopher is a recent "fundies" graduate (or provisional graduate) who now "knows it all" rather than a GUE instructor or someone with years of DIR experience.

That being said, arrogance is pervasive in the diving community.....I have seen egotistical <insert agency name here> divers but its just easier to pin the DIR label on the DIR newbies....and yes, I know GI3 is not a DIR newbie.

Funny how practicioners of DIR become 'philosophers' when a lot don't even think, just do what they are told. They don't know why they do it, just that they 'do it right' since they were told to do it right....

(no offense Otter)

 

[Thalassamania]

He is George Irvine, and he is one-of-a-kind for sure

Not really, he's just the most extreme case. Irvine needed to build a competent and cohesive team for WKKP and did so. WKKP's accomplishments and safety record speak for themselves.

Irvine, in my opinion, overused tried and true, well documented concepts (see: Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment; Muzafer Sherif, O. J. Harvey, B. Jack White, William R. Hood, Carolyn W. Sherif [1954/1961]) and fell into a trap of hyper-amplification of In-Group vs. Out-Group attitudes, especially those that involved mistaken judgmental indices of performance estimates.

The cause of this hyper-amplification is unknown, I suspect it stemmed from the intersection of a new media (the internet) Irvine's personality type and an extremely challenging and dangerous undertaking which featured highly definable (and thus demonstrable) goals (e.g. penetration distance and survival). This, coupled with a lack of organizational checks and ballances, would tend to produce a positive feedback loop forcing the members of Irvine's immediate circle to become ever-increasingly insular or be excluded and similarly effecting his surrounding "fringe" group, who would either be excluded or become more and more dogmatically supportive. This is often seen with charismatic leaders that have no counterballance within their organization.

"Doing It Right" should have been as just another piece of diving bumph, like "Teaching the World to Dive." Sheer puffery and nothing more, but it really pissed people off with its sneering in-group/out-group undertone of, "you're doing it wrong, you STROKE!"

And that's really too bad, because HOG and DIR have a great deal to offer which gets overlooked by many who are put off by the rhetoric. After all, being a thinking diver is, at the core, a DIR value. Frankly Irvine had his failings and so do we all. His were more public and obvious than most, but at least he did something and built something of lasting value, unlike most of his critics (or ardent supporters).

 

[roakey]

They don't know why they do it, just that they 'do it right' since they were told to do it right....

Actually any good DIR diver can tell you EXACTLY why they do what they do. And we welcome discourse on why some way may be better, but be prepared to defend your position with something concrete. But, despite this openness, some people can only attack what they don't understand with insults. Oh well, if you don't have something you believe in, you might as well denigrate those who do; there's little else you can do.

Roak

 

[Otter]

Funny how practicioners of DIR become 'philosophers' when a lot don't even think, just do what they are told. They don't know why they do it, just that they 'do it right' since they were told to do it right....

(no offense Otter)

Agreed....my sense is that true DIR divers are thinking divers first.....

 

[fire_diver]

Actually any good DIR diver can tell you EXACTLY why they do what they do. And we welcome discourse on why some way may be better, but be prepared to defend your position with something concrete. But, despite this openness, some people can only attack what they don't understand with insults. Oh well, if you don't have something you believe in, you might as well denigrate those who do; there's little else you can do.
Roak

Now wait a minute. Thats EXACTLY what GI3 and friends are doing in the link I posted.

Only a blithering idiot would own something like this, and having one is like wearing a T-shirt that says, "I have no clue".

We are really sick of going over the same stupidity, and sick of hearing hardheaded strokes insist this dangerous bull**** is a good idea. We can not always be expected to remember all of the stupid mistakes of the past that we have long ago forgotten.

I hear Tom Mount now teaches butt lighting and proper lighting. Tom, is this like sticking your dog's nose in his own **** when he schmoos the rug? Maybe I should teach the rookies in my office how to calculate a bond yield with their fingers or dial the phone with their feet. Maybe I could have them practice reading yesterday's paper or talk into the wrong end of the phone.

Get serious - you are dead wrong on this bull****, and your insistence on perpetuating something you learned from a bunch of half-wit red necks is appalling. Get over it.

*** By the way, whoever is the moron of the century that is teaching people to put brass rings with brass clips around tanks necks needs to be shot on sight -how stupid are these guys? ***

this is again the trademark of the stroke, as only a stroke would worry about turning them off rather than being able to turn them on, and a dented metal knob don't turn. If you can not reach your valves, see "Doing It Right" for how to rig your harness properly. If you are a fat slob, horribly crippled, or just an uncoordinated stroke , or Jaba the Crea (inventor of the "slobwinder" - for huge fat slobs who insist on wearing the wrong drysuit and so can not reach their valves), see Option Number One (Don't Dive).

Since only stroke would stuff a hose, you are implicitly violating Rule Number One by diving with this person. Anyone who teaches a diver this stupidity should be shot. Notice it is the same people who viciously pushed the square light, and whose total gear configuration is a monument to sloppy thinking.

Hose stuffing is not "personal preference", it is personal Ignorance.

Is this the "welcome discourse on why some way may be better" that you speak of?

FD

 

[Otter]

Actually any good DIR diver can tell you EXACTLY why they do what they do. And we welcome discourse on why some way may be better, but be prepared to defend your position with something concrete. But, despite this openness, some people can only attack what they don't understand with insults.

Agreed, but it happens both ways. (e.g. strokes vs. kool-aid drinkers).

Oh well, if you don't have something you believe in, you might as well denigrate those who do; there's little else you can do.

Roak

Disagree....you can learn and change. Thankfully, diving isn't a caste system where you are either born DIR or not. I (as well as others) have migrated towards DIR philosophies after starting out like most of us -- with no clue. Only those whose 'attitudes' are such as to preclude them learning will resort to personal attacks.

 

[Otter]

Now wait a minute. Thats EXACTLY what GI3 and friends are doing in the link I posted.

Is this the "welcome discourse on why some way may be better" that you speak of?

FD

Don't judge DIR by what one or two may say/do. Having read ( I don't know either personally) post by the more 'opinionated' and qualified DIR folks, I think they are at an extreme (just like there are in any area).

A positive spin on them would be that they have simply grown tired and frustrated answering the same questions over and over only to have the responses refuted with inaccurate data, twisted logic, or outright lies.

A negative spin would be that these are egotistical manaical (sp?) jerks.

We all know of people who have different personalities on the net vs in person, so I will leave it to those who know them personally......I suspect the answer is somewhere in the middle.

 

[roakey]

Agreed, but it happens both ways. (e.g. strokes vs. kool-aid drinkers).

Yhea, but what do we have here? A ten year old quote and a snide comment that DIR folks don't know why they do what they do. 10 years ago the DIR folks were firing the first shots (the 10 year old qutoe makes that point). Five years ago it was about 50/50. Nowadays it's almost always (not everytime, but most of the time) the DIR folks that see the first shot sailing past their bow...

Disagree....you can learn and change. [stuff about DIR -- ro] Only those whose 'attitudes' are such as to preclude them learning will resort to personal attacks.

Agree and agree, but the interveaning comment about DIR and a caste system had nothing to do with my point. The point was that most folks who slam ANY system, not just DIR and not just in diving without offering an alternative really don't have sound reasoning behind "their" alternative. If they did, they'd engage in a rational discussion, rather than just insulting the "other" way.

So my comment, though in this case about someone badmouthing DIR, is about the person's mode of discussion, or, more correctly, lack thereof.

Roak

 

[fire_diver]

Don't judge DIR by what one or two may say/do. Having read ( I don't know either personally) post by the more 'opinionated' and qualified DIR folks, I think they are at an extreme (just like there are in any area).

I'm not condeming DIR. I think it has a lot great ideas and well thought out planning. However, there is NEVER only one way to do something. I also think that many of the positives of DIR have come from it's later students. I read that entire page I posted. I do not see intelligence or thinking in any of it. I see denegration, lies, and self-contradictions. Look at the the rant about the "twist-on" lights for example.

"When it floods, it shorts out in salt water" - DUH! so will all electronic, Lets flood a canister and see what happens.
"It is not focusable" - neither are most lights sold today
"It puts out a blob of light rather than a beam" - this is complete and utter nonsense
" It is very heavy" - and canisters aren't?
"It uses the useless type of light bulb" - wow, don't even know where to begin with that one
"Only a blithering idiot would own something like this" - see last statement.

So if this is a taste of the reasoning that went into the original configuration used, then it would seem that luck, more than anything kept the team alive.

Keep in mind, that this was posted as a historical look back. The original concepts may have been much more solid than the founding father, and much more thought seems to have gone into gear choices. I do stand by my statement that there is never a single way. Everything is a tradeoff.

FD