If you go back a few decades, many of the people who are today considered diving legends were very much into setting records. Sheck Exley was just one of them. His book Caverns Measureless to Man details the progress of his many depth records, starting with depths that many people reading this will have surpassed. Of course, it does not mention in the record setting attempt on which he died. In the earliest days of the the National Speleological Society-Cave Diving Section, a section of each issue of the newsletter was devoted to cave diving records of all sorts, and Exley's name figured prominently in those records. Guess who the editor of that newsletter was?
Other big names, including the founders of several of today's agencies, pursued those records. They actually served some purpose. Much of what we know today about safe deep diving and safe cave diving came from those people and those attempts.
Today we live in a very different world. The latest issue of the NSS-CDS newsletter arrived at my home yesterday, and there is not a hint of interest in records within it. When a relative beginning tech diver recently decided to set a new depth record, and the coming attempt was announced on ScubaBoard, nearly everyone who had an opinion begged him to reconsider, telling him not only that he was probably gong to die but also that pursuing such a record was just plain stupid and served no purpose. When he did indeed die on that dive, it was not seen as a heroic attempt (the way most people regard Exley's dives) but rather as a foolish waste of human life.
