Negative entry vs Using a downline

[The Chairman]

Now I think it has gone full circle, with non-DIR's attacking DIR, and dog-pilling.

Do you see this as a learned response or instinctual like a shark?

 

[Steve_C]

dog-pilling.

Cannot get the image out of my mind of a diver holding the jaw of another diver and shoving a big pill down their throat to rid them of parasites. :cool2:

 

[Kevrumbo]

It is better to debate a question without settlement, rather than to settle on a question without debating it.

The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.

Joseph Jourbert

Now go diving people . . . Use whatever applies negative entry or downline.

 

[nimoh]

Now go diving people . . . Use whatever applies negative entry or downline.

perhaps we can compromise and use a 50' downline for 100' dives

 

[maniago]

perhaps we can compromise

How boring. I was just getting my popcorn ready for another round of SB's Keystone Cops....

 

[Kevrumbo]

perhaps we can compromise and use a 50' downline for 100' dives

LOL --actually that is a compromise, wherever applicable as well. Go down the anchor line, and then at the end of your bottom time, unhook the anchor and drift on deco with the boat above.

 

[boulderjohn]

If I could give one piece of advice in debates like this, it is that you lose credibility when you try to persuade by vilifying the opponent or by exaggerating the problems with the opposing argument.

Dan wanted to say that he preferred to use hot drops. Fine. A lot of people do. But he made the mistake of using words like "defective" to describe other methods and calling those who use those methods as "lazy." That brought an understandably angry response from those who pointed out that under different conditions, different approaches work, which means those methods are not universally defective, and the people who use them are not inherently lazy.

In the example I gave in my last post, the poster who angered me kept making ridiculous exaggerations about alternate air sources. Rather than describe the very real (but admittedly marginal) advantage of the long hose setup in the recreational world, he made an absurd exaggeration that any thinking diver would have to dismiss as an absurdity. As a result, he lost all credibility with me, and I began to equate him and his beliefs with the few long hose divers I met on my dives. I was thus pleasantly surprised when those people were not ludicrous zealots. It took me longer than it should have to adapt the long hose configuration in my own recreational diving because I did not want to be perceived like that myself. I didn't want people to think I was an idiot.

Any rational person can see that GI3's posts and style were abrasive and needlessly harmful. If there was anyone who believed that you won an argument by thoroughly demeaning and insulting your opponent, it was he. Although his comments turned me off, I could have easily dismissed them as history and gone on from there if it were not for the fact that I kept encountering people online who worshiped him and that style, people who kept his old words alive in the current world. A few minutes on Google will find countless examples of current DIR oriented web sites featuring his words. I did not see him as a part of history--I saw him as a current guru of the movement,and people who continually extol his virtues and dismiss his problems today keep this belief alive.

Now for the other side.

A number of anti_DIR posts exaggerate or put undue emphasis on what they perceive to be the nature of DIR. We have read a great deal about the myth of all black gear. We have had the issue of standardization of gear emphasized beyond all reason. We have seen exaggerations of the dangers of wearing a long hose. We have seen the almost impossible potential of the failure of tough webbing equated with the danger of the breakage of a plastic buckle. Yes, DIR proponents believe in standardized gear for themselves, but I have never seen in this thread or any thread for that matter an insistence that all divers should do it their way. Has anyone told you that you need to put a SMB in your left pocket if you don't want to?

A number of DIR practitioners in this and other threads have responded to exaggerations and misinformation with calm and reasoned statements. As I see it in this thread, this approach has whittled the arguments down little by little, and things are starting to get rational and balanced.

I think that is a good plan for persuasive speech overall. Yes, state what you prefer and why you prefer it. On the other hand, there is no reason to go beyond that and inflame passions by stating or implying a farm animal stupidity to those who do not match your preferences.

 

[The Chairman]

Someone once suggested that a diver loses 20 IQ points just by donning their gear. I think the same process happens within our Keyboards. As soon as we start to type our IQ drops in direct relationship to our passion.

 

[maniago]

Someone once suggested that a diver loses 20 IQ points just by donning their gear. I think the same process happens within our Keyboards. As soon as we start to type our IQ drops in direct relationship to our passion.

That's the problem with the internet - noone gets to know anyone anymore.

I mean, what ever happened to good ol bar fights - with broken chairs, bloody lips, smashed plate glass windows and beer bottles everywhere. Boy I miss those days....!

 

[T.C.]

I use the same backplate for reef dives as I do when cave diving. The only swap is the wing (because of bigger or smaller tanks). The rest is the same. I don't show up for a beach dive in Bonaire with double 104s, deco bottles, and stages, if thats what you mean by "the same".

So what does that backplate weigh? Wouldn't it make sense to have a few, one for lighter diving, one for when you need more weight?

The point about the rifle was the repetitive habit you build. I knew the system, too, and many other systems. But I won't pretend to be as proficient with any of them as I am with an m4(m16, ar-15, whatever). Jack of all trades and a master of none?

It doesn't take much to master a weapon. I've shot sub-MOA groups with a Australian sniper rifle at 1200 yards within three shots of picking it up. It's because the principle of shooting remain the same, no matter which weapon I handle, from a M9 to a M256A1. That said; I'm sorry for the collection of military stories; reviewing my posts it wasn't my intent to make it that way.That said, to rephrase what DaleC said, if you were diving with a rec. diver and had an emergency, would the intensely drilled DIR skills be as useful? Would your first reaction be to get the 2nd stage from his mouth, instead of the one clipped to his lower right side?There is something to be said for adaptability and the retention of the basic skills of diving. The DIR system works well in the environment for which it was designed, but is merely average in an setting like a typical rec. dive.

T.C. can you let it go? PfcAJ and I like standardization. We see value in it - so do an awful lot of other people who have adopted the system.

Very well. Driver, back up.

Did a scooter dive last weekend with a group, 3 of which had never been diving with scooters (Rec 1 diver and 2 fundies divers), the only thing we added were scooters, they did not need to alter any other piece of their gear. Virtually all non-DIR gear would have to be substantially altered to comfortably dive a scooter, making a simple scooter dive into a 4 day course.

I have to disagree with that. I could add a scooter to just about any dive I can think of. Only thing I'd need is a free spot to clip it to if I shut it down. It doesn't involve a alteration of my gear. What makes you think that a non-DIR setup can't handle a scooter?

All I can say is that I have yet to see a DIR diver make a non-DIR diver feel bad on a dive boat.

It's not "making them feel bad", it's that it's annoying to have gear that someone has spent good money on indirectly called poor (or deficient, if you will ), when the other set-up does not offer significant advantages to the average diver.

Now I think it has gone full circle, with non-DIR's attacking DIR, and dog-pilling.

You're big boys. No one has hurt my feelings on the internet yet.

How does this translate into using a down line or not?

It doesn't. BoP gave us the thread, and without an OP or a statement; we can run it all over the internet.

Dude, I didn't derail this thread. I'm just trying to see what the outcome of it really was.

We covered that; the other guy is wrong. This is the internet, after all.