Scuba Extremists

[Pullmyfinger]

Indeed it is.
Around here, gear is loaned out all of the time by local GUE trained divers.
These are the same people that are usually the ones taking people out diving and showing them the dive spots. A nice group of people for sure.


Quite different from the "internet" perceptions from over a decade ago.

Totally agreed.
Same experience from my first ever exposure to DIR around 1999/2000 in Philippines. But I must admit that I had met some nice DIR divers as well. So it is all down to individual.

 

[drrich2]

What he finds is that many highly intelligent leaders fail because they are unable and even unwilling to communicate effectively with a critical part of society: the ones whose world view is frozen at the level of the 5-year old mind.

In Scuba, the diver with the 5-year old mind will adhere to a diving phlosophy and keep bleating its tenets like Orwell's sheep, not going beyond the phrase to a level that allows intelligent understanding.

Interesting in light of the occasional dissing of PADI's recreational training materials being 'dumbed down' to the level of a child (hey, you can certify as young as 10 years old!), as though this insults the student's intelligent. Even though these intelligent people can also learn from the materials, and it's not clear they need to be written/illustrated more 'high brow' or that this would produce must lasting benefit.

Kind of like when I was used to DOS on PCs & sat down at a Macintosh for the 1st time. I thought 'This thing looks & works like a cartoon! Where's the command prompt? Why can't I enter C:| and so forth? Slowly it dawned on me that folder hierarchies, the trash can & such let me do the same tasks in a more intuitive, non-technical way.

So, a leader crafting ads to appeal to the low end by offend the higher functioning people. How to market at both without offending either?

Richard.

 

[boulderjohn]

Interesting in light of the occasional dissing of PADI's recreational training materials being 'dumbed down' to the level of a child (hey, you can certify as young as 10 years old!), as though this insults the student's intelligent. Even though these intelligent people can also learn from the materials, and it's not clear they need to be written/illustrated more 'high brow' or that this would produce must lasting benefit.

Kind of like when I was used to DOS on PCs & sat down at a Macintosh for the 1st time. I thought 'This thing looks & works like a cartoon! Where's the command prompt? Why can't I enter C:| and so forth? Slowly it dawned on me that folder hierarchies, the trash can & such let me do the same tasks in a more intuitive, non-technical way.

So, a leader crafting ads to appeal to the low end by offend the higher functioning people. How to market at both without offending either?

Richard.

You misunderstood.

The 5-year old mindset is an outlook on life. Someone with that outlook on life can have a college education and still be frozen to the point of view that the world is made of black and white situations, with no shades of gray.

 

[Nemrod]

I imagine there is a number of posts (where one complains and bashes DIR) wherein the poster finally gets their DIR chip of their shoulder. I don't know what that number is but there must be one.

DIR can be an extremist position when applied to open water rec diving. Accepting non-DIR methods and rigging as equally viable and in some cases superior is not.

N

 

[Adobo]

DIR can be an extremist position when applied to open water rec diving. Accepting non-DIR methods and rigging as equally viable and in some cases superior is not.

N

This has to be the single most asinine thread in scubaboard history. And I feel incredibly moronic for replying not once but twice within this thread.

 

[DavidFL]

I don't find this thread either extremely stupid or foolish (the definition of asinine); I've read every post and found myself contemplating my own experience as a diver and instructor (a long time ago). Because I am also a pilot, and a military and civilian flight instructor, I keep making lots of comparisons to similar issues between recreational and professional pilots; new pilots and old pilots. Given the egos involved, many pilots would never admit learning something or changing their mind on an issue they fill strongly about in the bar....or even in a public forum...but most old pilots, definitely including me, have quietly reached a decision to change their approach or beliefs about some technical or procedural issue from exposure to others with equally strongly held views.

 

[TSandM]

I find it fascinating that, although the original post was crafted with deliberate vagueness, it seems as though everyone immediately grasped that it was about DIR divers.

I see entrenched opinions which are not amenable to argument in MANY areas of diving. I also see them in riding, and in politics, and even in medicine. A certain type of person holds intense beliefs which CANNOT be challenged, and strongly feels that everyone around him should do things the way he does them. I think, for example, that DCBCs views on open water training were extremist. I know people whose belief that sidemount is the future of all technical diving seems extreme and aggressive.

It may not be that the systems or the techniques are extremist, but rather that some things tend to appeal to people with that kind of mindset, who then behave as they would in any arena.

I spent a lot of my own time and chewed up a lot of stomach lining trying to clean up that SoCal DIR forum, years back. It was not that they were DIR; it's that they were jerks. We've seen those in other areas of diving.

And yes, I'm feeling picked on . . .

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

You shouldn't feel picked on, Lynne ... you and Koos are (to my concern) the main reason why the local DIR community has good relationships with the rest of the diving community locally. It didn't used to be that way ... as you're well aware. I still have some residual sting over how I was treated by some of your predecessors ... but I couldn't be happier with the way things have turned out over the past few years.

There will always be some whose minds will never change ... don't waste your time or feelings worrying about what they think ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[halocline]

I AM A SCUBA EXTREMEST.

I dislike the scuba business model and distrust small local dive shops. I would like to see them all replaced by efficient retailers and not for profit clubs.

I would also like to be able to purchase OEM parts for the scuba gear I own.

I'm not sure the small local shops are the root of the problem; it's the manufacturers' stupid policies that have set the culture in the dive gear industry for the last few decades. Unfortunately, the large corporate teaching agencies are right in there with them, forcing the local shop to toe the line set by both sides of their business suppliers. I think a larger retailer might be even worse.

A good first step IMO would be to separate the teaching from the gear sales; this might improve both dramatically.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

A good first step IMO would be to separate the teaching from the gear sales; this might improve both dramatically.

It's worked pretty well for me ... although I have to admit that shops have certain advantages over independent instructors if your intent is to make a living at it.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)