Scuba Extremists

[divingjd]

In addition, disagreeing with extremists is like wresting with a pig. You'll get muddy and the pig will enjoy it.


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[Basking Ridge Diver]

Back in the day - conformity was expected and it was rude to be the oddball. If you were extreme you were ostracized and if you did not conform you were shunned or ignored.

These days extremism seems to be in vogue and the louder you get - the more attention you seem to get. It almost seems like a vicious circle at times. The pendulum may swing back again but it will not go back to conformity like it was, we have let that genie out of the bottle and it is too late now.

For the moderates out there it is difficult sometimes but we as the majority have not been expressing our opinions in a loud enough voice or rebuking others for extremist views - most of us have been ignoring or turning away from the fight because we don't want to expend the energy or fight the battle - the end result is that moderate views don't get expressed or extremists take our inaction as consent.

Either way something has to happen or it will only get more extreme... the pendulum needs to swing the other way and more moderates need to speak up...

Hang in there it is a team effort.

 

[boulderjohn]

Is non violent extremism a bad thing? Is it always bad? The example of the brewer and his 3 day drying process is extremism but who or what is hurt?

No one. It becomes a minor problem is when the extremist is in a postion to impose his or her extremism on others.

Here is a modest example of how it can happen. This example is not that big a deal, but I think you can see how it can become a big deal.

When I first started assisting classes as a DM quite a few years ago, I observed a sequence that illustrates what can happen. Students were being taughts how to help each other get their gear, a process that ends with each diver putting on the fins by resting one hand on the other diver and lifting the leg nearest to put the fin on, then turning around and doing the other foot. An instuctor I was assisting commented that if they started off with their backs to the pool, they wouls finish facing the pool, ready to do the giant stride, which was the next skill. He suggested that they do that. Other instructors picked up on it. Within two years, if students did not put their fins on so that they finiished with facing the swimming pool, then they had done the skill incorretly and had to do it over.

OK, so that's working with OW students--no harm. What happens when the director of isntruction for an operation decrees that aall skills must be done the way he wants them done, even if they contain steps that are as absurd as that. Now, as an instructor, if you want to keep working, you have to tell students to do things that are silly, like letting the breweing equipment dry three days. the students will not be harmed, but you sure feel like a jackass telling students things you know are wrong. You know your credibility will be shot when your students go out in the real world of diving and find that what you taught them is a crock.

 

[Jack Hammer]

More like online extremists... Most divers I've met just want to actually dive.

 

[mikeb21072]

It's the internet, you will get all types of viewpoints and not always one that you agree with at the time. I have been on plenty of dive boats and I have yet to have someone look at my i3 BCD or AI computer and tell me I was going to die if I dive with it. I have looked around and seen several instructors on the boat diving i3's, and feel the same way I do about them, they like the setup. If I went by the consensus on the board, both items are overcomplicated and additional failure points. Is it an extremist view, maybe, but it is relative to the diving. Is the i3 and an AI computer relative to a 200 ft dive, no, but it is for recreational warm water diving.
At the same time, I am heading to the Cayman's, and while I am there; I will spend a day trying out a rebreather. Yet another topic full of opinions one way or the other.

If I were a scuba company, the main thing I would be concerned with is the reluctance or even aversion for any new technology. If you were spending your R&D money and thought you came up with a game changer, only to get blown out of the water that your new product is just a failure point, the R&D money is going to dry up in the industry.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

If being a free thinker and not accepting what are considered the norms is being an extremist, then I am an extremist. In order to define extremism there has to be a set norm to measure the extent of the extreme view. So in the case of SCUBA diving what is the norm? If we cant define The norm then we can't define the extreme.
What I think is normal others may think extreme and vise versa.
Perhaps the "norm" is constantly changing too making what used to be considered "extreme" now more normal.
What used to be normal may Now be considered extreme by todays standards.

 

[Bob DBF]

If being a free thinker and not accepting what are considered the norms is being an extremist, then I am an extremist. In order to define extremism there has to be a set norm to measure the extent of the extreme view. So in the case of SCUBA diving what is the norm? If we cant define The norm then we can't define the extreme.
What I think is normal others may think extreme and vise versa.
Perhaps the "norm" is constantly changing too making what used to be considered "extreme" now more normal.
What used to be normal may Now be considered extreme by todays standards.

Yeah, but you are the same way in real life.

The internet extremists that I've run into in wouldn't start the same nonsense with either of us in real life. It it is quite easy to be an a**hole to people on the internet and get away with it because no one can reach through the screen. It shows the actual courage of their convictions, if people on the Internet wrote like they were standing in front of the reader, I believe the Internet a would be a more civil place.

I don't mind extreme ideas or views as long as the person with them listens to my ideas on the subject as well, and does not make my life miserable trying to convert me. If it isn't enlightening, I go on my way or, occasionally, start poking them with a sharp stick to see what happens.

One other point is that some extreme ideas are considered bad and incorrect just because of political considerations. Socrates and Galileo had their problems with it, but it still goes on today.



Bob
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There is more than one way to skin a cat, but the cat never likes it.

 

[divad]

Extremists can try one patients at times.

Are you saying that all extremists are both judges and doctors?

 

[clownfishsydney]

I think you have hit the nail on the head. I have long believed that most people who are extremists in one thing, will also be extremists in other things. For example, I know people who believe that their religion is the only one and others are "heathens" (and I am not talking about Muslems here). These people also happen to be divers. They also believe that the way they have been taught to dive (a certain technical way) is also the only way to dive and that we who do not dive to this exact formula are doing it wrong. I believe that in most cases these people will also be easily led by others and may end up becoming extremists in everything they do.

Personally I run a mile from these people!

 

[kimbalabala]

In my opinion, it's not the extremism that is the problem - it's the delivery - and the judging (whether the writer intends to be judging or not). For instance, without being specific, on another thread someone referred to my original post as being 'a bit weird' because I guess I didn't remember a minor detail from my PADI training (not a survival or safety skill) that happened 5 years ago. Mind you, I got certified in March in the midwest in a quarry and got dry-suit certified at the same time. I suspect there were several little things that I was taught and have since forgotten. Does that really mean that I am weird or that my statement was weird? Maybe I need to be more thick-skinned, but it's those type of statements that keep me from offering advice to newbies for fear of being referred to as ignorant, weird or dangerous. Now that I have some decent experience, I'd like to offer help to those starting out. I'd love to tell them some of the stupider things I've done and how they turned out. But it would feel like I'm offering my jugular ...

Having said that, I have really appreciated the support I've gotten here when I really needed it. But I'm much more cautious when I post now.