Incompetent And Unaware: We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know

[Kharon]

Kharon, that is indeed a very conservative attitude but risk perception and acceptance are very much at a personal level.

Your comment about solo vs team diving is interesting because it significantly changes how you go about incident prevention and problem resolution.

A team is always more effective than a solo diver, ... The problem is that we are rarely taught how to be an effective team member, or how to communicate effectively, or a number of other situations. Therefore people have a bad experience and think that solo is safer than team diving.

As you can tell, I am very passionate about this subject. The world is not black and white like lawyers want us to believe, and the context and environment are incredibly important when it comes to looking at decision making.

Yep, Yep, Nope - eh maybe Yep with qualification, and me too.

1st: Yep, it's personal and I am very conservative. I intend to enjoy diving for many more years. Can't do that if I'm dead.

2nd: Solo does indeed change the paradigm re. prevention and resolution. You must be prepared to deal with anything on your own - or else die - which I am not prepared to do easily.

3rd: A team can be more effective, but your statement of the problem is spot on. Ain't many people that qualify. I no longer have access to any team person, that I can trust completely, diving at home, and certainly not on trips. On the boat dives I have taken I have been totally appalled at what the DM's allowed. Numbers of those people were putting my life at risk with being drunk/hungover, leaking regs, non-functional BC's, abysmal skills, totally lacking in situational awarness, and just doing really stupid stuff.

And finally, I am passionate as well - about continuing to live. I love diving and I will suffer no muppets that could possibly kill me because of their own lack of skill or plain stupidity. I will never allow myself the attitude that I can depend on anyone in the water beside myself. If I get myself killed, so be it. At least a muppet didn't do me in.

 

[Grumpy Fish]

+++1 on this - it's this type of diver that is a danger to everyone in the water with them and one of the reasons I feel far safer diving solo.

And thanks for the clarification. I was put off by the title. Guess I'll go back and read the whole article. I only scanned the first few sentences - my bad.

A few minutes later:

OK - read the whole article. Good stuff and it gave me insight into why I do things the way I do. Some examples (but not exhaustive): no one but me touches my equipment, if someone "helps" me gearing up I break everything down and start over, my log sheet has a place for any errors and for gear needing attention, I dive very conservatively, and I rigidly follow my "rules":

1. You are always diving solo no matter how many divers are in the water, or how many buddies you have, or how much experience they have or what you discussed during the dive plan.
   
   
2. It is always absolutely necessary to take at least one bearing before every dive.
   
   
3. If you forget something non-trivial during gear up that dive is aborted. If you aren’t focused enough to gear up perfectly you aren’t focused enough to dive solo or otherwise.
   
   
4. If you forget something non-trivial during gear up on two dives the diving day is over. Two mistakes in one day means you are way off and need a time out.
   
   
5. If you make a non-trivial judgment error on a dive at least the next dive is skipped. You need to think about it.
   
   
6. If you make two non-trivial judgment errors in a days diving the next days dives are skipped. You really need to think about it. Note: non-trivial includes pretty much everything more serious than mistaking a coronet fish for a trumpet fish.

Number 2 is particularly amusing. I have been on dives where yo9u are so far of shore that all you see is the horizon. What are you taking a bearing on then? hope?

if you have no team you can rely on perhaps you should go about forming one around you. You seem to have a pretty high opinion of your own skill ( which in itself, in diving can be very dangerous) so perhaps you should for a team of similarly minded divers and train them to your standard.

Personally I train very hard and pick my buddies diligently making sure that are all my equals or better ( usually the latter as I am always trying to learn something from every dive), you sir, are exactly the sort of diver I would always gracefully decline from partnering up with.

 

[the other lincoln]

links to the articles seem to be broken

 

[T.K.]

Try here Incompetent And Unaware: We Don't Know What We Don't Know...

 

[Akimbo]

links to the articles seem to be broken

Unfortunately all our articles were lost during the September 2021 upgrade due to software compatibility issues. It would outstanding if @GLOC would repost and I can move it to the new Articles Forum.

 

[wnissen]

Unfortunately all our articles were lost during the September 2021 upgrade due to software compatibility issues. It would outstanding if @GLOC would repost and I can move it to the new Articles Forum.

The text (not the images, which were hosted on Dropbox but now 404) is here on archive.org:

Incompetent and Unaware: We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know - ScubaBoard

The simple premise is that we don’t know what we don’t know. Even worse, we don’t know that we don’t know!! This double hit in competency was highlighted by a couple of social researchers Dunning and Kruger when they undertook a series of experiments to assess what their subjects thought of...

web.archive.org

 

[Celt]

I think divers overestimate the amount of competency and awareness needed in recreational diving, it’s just a hobby. For a lot of people getting through the day takes more.

 

[the other lincoln]

I think divers overestimate the amount of competency and awareness needed in recreational diving, it’s just a hobby. For a lot of people getting through the day takes more.

Are you sure about that? When was the last time you dove with an instant buddy at a family vacation spot?

Out side of general aviation, I don't know of another recreation that have a forum section dedicated to accidents and deaths. People I know directly, not through the internet , have died in both hobbies.

 

[Celt]

Are you sure about that? When was the last time you dove with an instant buddy at a family vacation spot?

Out side of general aviation, I don't know of another recreation that have a forum section dedicated to accidents and deaths. People I know directly, not through the internet , have died in both hobbies.

Never, I’d spot a poor diver coming a mile off, I won’t get in a car with a drunk driver either. That doesn’t take a lot of competence and awareness.