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I find the sentimentality towards dead bodies difficult to relate to. I would be fine with my body being left and would not want someone else to die attempting
by jcoffland 10y ago
I find the sentimentality towards dead bodies difficult to relate to. I would be fine with my body being left and would not want someone else to die attempting to retrieve it. I suppose my friends and family might not feel the same.
- kh_hk 10y agoI feel similarly. However the article notes: > Having the bodies would help the families grieve, and would also help to prevent lengthy delays to insurance and inheritance settlements. Risking lives to recover dead bodies does not sound logical and yet it's the norm on underwater accidents. One of the multiple examples of a recovery gone wrong is the case of David Shaw [1], particularly famous because there's footage of the recovery accident. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shaw_(diver)#Last_dive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shaw_(diver)#Last_dive
- biswaroop 10y agoSurely an ROV could be tasked to this effort (at least for the identification part for insurance).
- timclark 10y agoHow would the ROV be controlled? Radio won't work. Long cables are problematic in cave environments, they snag, they get pulled by currents.
- adrianN 10y agoI wonder how much bandwidth a sonar link can provide over reasonable distance.
- amelius 10y agoThe ROV can drop an amplifying transceiver every so many meters?
- biswaroop 10y agoHow do divers communicate over long distances? If they don't, that's something worth solving in its own right. If they do, couldn't the ROV use the same thing?
- gaius 10y agoLight signals. You can say 3 things over any distance, which are "OK" (as a question or a response), "attention please" and "OMG OUT OF GAS NEED HELP IMMEDIATELY".
- Piskvorrr 10y agoGiven clear visibility, which gets rarer and rarer with distance - and even more so in constrained spaces, which are unlikely to be pure bedrock. Also, line of sight.
- Piskvorrr 10y agoThey don't. GL;HF.
- chongli 10y agoThere's no current down in these caves. The logical solution then is to drop a trail of breadcrumb beacons to relay your signal along, either via light or some radio band that penetrates water halfway decently.
- callahad 10y agoAre you certain? I've spent most of my dives in Florida springs, which can have flow rates above 100 cubic feet per second. You can basically get blown out of Devil's Eye at Ginnie Springs if you're not careful with your trim when ascending. The downside of still systems is that any silt you stir up can kill the visibility for hours / days, which would cause problems for light-based beacons.
- imglorp 10y agoThere are wire guided torpedoes and missiles that carry a spool with them and pay it out as they travel. Presumably this is a good thing because it can't be intercepted and jammed. Anyway, that missile carries 4200m of wire, which would be plenty for an ROV to explore most of the cave in the article before sending people, who could follow its wire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-71_TOW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-71_TOW
- blubb-fish 10y ago> Risking lives to recover dead bodies does not sound logical You're a green-blooded, heartless monster, Mr. Spock ...
- kh_hk 10y agoIt does not sound logical. Every time there's an underwater accident (including plane/helicopter accidents and shipwrecks), popular sentiment is on the same line: "why put lives in danger for dead ones" so there must be another reason for sending divers down there (other than feeling logical or not): - Something related to body identification and insurance. - Human life is cheaper than ROVs. - There are tasks that ROVs can't accomplish.
- LanceH 10y agoOne of the reasons is the bond between the living who continue the dangerous pursuit. It is a statement between them that nobody gets left behind. That is the level of commitment needed; unequivocal and unending.
- harlanlewis 10y agoIt's interesting to contrast this with mountaineering, and the many corpses pointing the way to Everest's summit. Some have nicknames.
- rrauenza 10y agoShaw's story: http://www.outsideonline.com/1922711/raising-dead http://www.outsideonline.com/1922711/raising-dead
- jkestner 10y agoAlso, cultural: Finns also have a proud history of going to great lengths to retrieve the bodies of deceased friends.
- ptaipale 10y agoSoldiers in various armies share some similar traditions: not only do people risk injury or death retrieving wounded comrades; they even do it to recover the bodies of dead comrades, so that the body can be sent back to the family. Finland was unusual in the context of WWII that all bodies of dead soldiers were retrieved if at all possible, and sent back home, not just buried at a local military graveyard. This diving thing (Finnish divers in a Norwegian cave) has echoes of the same.
- chrisseaton 10y agoAnother reason for extracting dead bodies in a war is to avoid them being mutilated and used for propaganda by the enemy.
- bcook 10y agoIs that a legitimate concern? During war-time, I would assume the body's of your enemy would be plentiful. I always assumed the "no man left behind" spoke more about the excessive abilities of the group. (We are so powerful that we can even overcome our enemy to retrieve our fallen men.)
- chrisseaton 10y agoIt's probably not a legitimate concern between two advanced regular militaries who follow the laws of war and would bury your dead with respect if they can't actually return them to you, but if you left a uniformed western body where ISIS can get it then I'm sure that would end very nastily indeed, with photos on social media and so on. Think of the military contractors burned and hanged on that bridge in Iraq. 'No man left behind' is practical, both for the propaganda reason above and unit morale, not about showing off. But like most things in military life I never heard anyone ever bombast about 'no man left behind' like they do in the movies.
- gaius 10y agoIt's also a way of telling troops that if you get stranded, we'll even come and rescue corpses, so never give up hope.
- vlehto 10y agoI'm just reading Dawkings Selfish gene and it attacks pretty fiercely against "group selection". But I find it impossible idea that any part of human behaviour could be completely detached from genes. And especially weird if Human behaviour could influence genes, wihtouth anykind of feedback from genes back to behaviour. How can you explaing phenomena like this withouth group selection? From selfish gene point of view, a brain that is even capable to think about risking life to fetch dead body of friend* should be strongly selected against. * (and therefore some individuals might act on it very occasionally)
- scythe 10y agoIt's worth pointing out that The Selfish Gene is kind of old, and is by no means the last word on evolutionary biology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection#Group_selection_revisited https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection#Group_selectio... >Since the 1990s, group selection models have seen a resurgence.
- im3w1l 10y agoAbout the only logical thing I can think of is that it gives certainty. Without a body, there is always the possibility that they just wanted to start a new life elsewhere and their friends are covering for them. Or maybe they were saved by mermaids or...
- blazespin 10y agoThis wasn't sentimentality, it was just adrenaline junkies justifying themselves. I really do get why people cave dive and do dangerous things. It's a lot of fun. But really, at the end of the day, they did this because it was a rush. There's no other rational reason to do something to risk your life doing someone your friends just died doing for no other reason than it was exciting. lol, go ahead and downvote. I do a lot of adrenaline rush type activities, but I've never tried to pretend it was anything other than just dumb, life risking adrenaline pumping distraction from life.
- ggus 10y agoso what is life, if not some boring stuff around adrenaline pumping distractions? you do not hold the key to the proper way of living other people's lives. sorry for my bad english and for feeding a troll.
- imakesnowflakes 10y agoI wish people think twice before calling troll. That word has so lost it's original meaning, and is now a days used to shoot down any dissenting opinions. I say this as someone who 100% agree with the first part of your comment.
- ggus 10y agoI think you are right. My troll detector was triggered by the request for downvotes.
- 7952 10y agoA couple of years ago someone died on a mountainbike trail I use. This can really spook people, even those of us who didn't know the guy. Ultimately people want that feeling to go away and be able to enjoy the sport without such things hanging over them. It felt like people wanted closure so that the fun could continue rather any deeper sentiment. Also I think that these sport are about more than just adrenalin. There is joy in mastering the difficulty without getting a rush.
- 10y ago
- ZeroGravitas 10y agoThere's a crazy theory that human burial, as well as singing and dancing, are an evolutionary defense against large predators. http://www.meltingasphalt.com/music-in-human-evolution/ http://www.meltingasphalt.com/music-in-human-evolution/ That link is a blog length summary of a book, but the ultra-short version is: if local predators get a taste for human flesh from a corpse, they'll come after the living and humans singing and dancing in unision can give the appearance of one large animal to scare off predators.
- elbrownos 10y agoWe like to flatter ourselves that human flesh is super tasty and drives predators into a feeding frenzy. Why should it be?
- Mtinie 10y agoI don't believe that it is a matter of being "super tasty", but rather, one of not wanting to inform predators of an easy to access food supply.
- jschwartzi 10y agoThis sounds a lot like why horse mares will eat the placenta from their foals after giving birth. Foals are born able to run, but they're nowhere near as strong as a mature horse.
- hobs 10y agoI was under the impression they ate it because of all the vital nutrients that the placenta had, but I dont think anyone had conclusive evidence except in an evolutionary biology hand-wavy way.
- superuser2 10y agoIf that were the case we should expect health problems from horses that go too long between pregnancies, yes? Otherwise the nutrients are not "vital."
- saiya-jin 10y agoon top of all mentioned - bodies were blocking the way through. in cold waters it would take years to decompose and all equipment would be still there making passage much more dangerous/impossible.
- asimuvPR 10y agoDead or alive they are still your friends, family, coworkers, etc. You take care of each other no matter what. Thats it.
- rev_bird 10y ago>Dead or alive they are still your friends, family, coworkers I think that's the main idea at issue here: Are they still those people? Or are they just, to oversimplify a little, just some old meat?
- asimuvPR 10y agoYour body is as much part of you as your mind/thoughts/consciousness. Just like a battery is still a battery even after it holds no more charge. It's not a piece of metal but a battery. A dead one at that.
- dTal 10y agoI think it's arguable that a battery that can no longer be charged is a "battery". At best it's a "dead battery", and you'd be annoyed if someone sold you the latter as the former. Analogously, I would not call Bob's dead body "Bob", but rather "Bob's corpse". It's kind of a dumb philosophical argument though. We all know what's really going on, so it's pointless to argue over words.
- rev_bird 10y agoIt might be (waaay) outside the scope of the usual discussions around here, but I don't know that it's pointless. I'm an atheist, and I'm totally fine with the idea that when I die, that's it, I'm as dead as any other organism. Still, though, I've got strong opinions about how I want to be "disposed of" when I die. Burial evokes strong emotions for me, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. Even in games like Fallout, I try not to leave corpses just lying in a river or in a shrub or something, even if it was somebody who was just trying to knife-murder me. I accept that it isn't a person anymore, like I said in my previous comment, but I still have a sentimental attachment to the... husk.
- retube 10y agoThey wanted to recover for 2 reasons: 1) Speed up post-death admin (insurance etc) 2) Unblock the route for future use, they did not want to see the system closed.
- lostlogin 10y agoThose are the practical reasons - there are numerous mentions of a culture of "leaving no one behind".
- pcmaffey 10y agoThe ability to grieve for the deceased is an intrinsic part of the healing process that needs to happen, after death rips a person from the fabric of their loved one's lives. The dead body allows for death, in all its unknown shock, to be visualized and thus integrated into human experience. A link from the living to the gone, that allows grieving to heal the social wound of a death.
- fit2rule 10y agoIn this case I think there was a practical purpose behind the retrieval - the body was preventing further exploration of the system. Well of course the sentiment makes sense, and the Finnish have a long cultural history with this form of retrieval, but don't discount the practicality of it. Dead bodies really stink up the place something foul.