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I might be speaking out of line, but taking on these kinds of risks with young children at home seems kind of selfish. The fact that he went back into the same

I might be speaking out of line, but taking on these kinds of risks with young children at home seems kind of selfish. The fact that he went back into the same cave that nearly killed him only a month later...almost as if to say: "I would rather my kids grow up without a Dad than live without my adrenaline fix" I am neither a father or a cave diver though, so I might be missing a piece of the puzzle. Would either groups of people care to comment?

seanc 9y ago
I am a father and I agree 100% IMO maaaaybe you could be married with no kids and do this ethically. But with kids? You're rolling the dice on a very important promise. I do struggle with what that line of thinking means for soldiers though.
- rrhyne 9y ago
  As a father, I agree completely, and think you shouldn't have been down voted, so here's an upvote.
  - Fuckdang2 9y ago
    As a non cunt, I agree about your cuntery
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- balls187 9y ago
  For a soldier, it's their duty. For the diver in the story, it was his hobby. He'd been doing it for 24 years, so his tolerance for risk wrt cave diving is different than what you and I perceive--thus I don't blame him at all.
  - Chris2048 9y ago
    > For a soldier, it's their duty They accept that duty though, so it's the same thing - instead of "is it ok for a soldier to go to war" it's "is it ok to become a soldier". > his tolerance for risk wrt cave diving is different than what you and I perceive What does this mean?
    - balls187 9y ago
      > What does this mean? As someone who's never done cave diving, the perception of risk is going to be higher than the actual risk. 1 time in 24 years is pretty low.
      - Chris2048 9y ago
        Maybe, unless he got sloppier as time went on. There are a few flags pointed out in these threads - like not telling anyone that he dived..
        PhasmaFelis 9y ago
        On the other hand, in that case he's likely to be "scared straight" now and much more careful, at least for a good while.
        Chris2048 9y ago
        Hopefully..
    - harpiaharpyja 9y ago
      Not GP but I believe he is saying that unless we've been in an underwater cave the diver's perspective may be difficult for us to really appreciate. To us, continuing to dive seems like an unacceptable risk. To the diver, it seemingly is not. Along the same vein I believe GP then goes on to say that he does not feel that the diver's perspective is less valid just because he (the GP) doesn't understand it.
      - 9y ago
- mhluongo 9y ago
  > IMO maaaaybe you could be married with no kids and do this ethically. I've never heard any vows include anything about cave diving.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  > I do struggle with what that line of thinking means for soldiers though. It means exactly the same, but with millennia of cultural resistance to overcome before you can accept it.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  At least in theory, soldiers risk their lives to make all their country's children safer. I think that's a worthwhile trade, in aggregate. It depends on whether your country likes to get involved in wars that don't actually protect their populace, of course.
- gpawl 9y ago
  the common marriage vows explicitly state death as the one justification for exiting vows, so married with no kids is definitively in the clear.
- gpawl 9y ago
  the common marriage vows explicitly state death as the one justification for exiting vows, so married with no kids is definitively in the clear.
- pluma 9y ago
  The way soldiers rationalize it is presumably that they'd argue they're protecting their children by "serving their country". This line of reasoning works a lot better in countries like the US or UK than e.g. Germany (although the sole purpose of the German army by law is to defend the country) but it's easy to guess why Germans don't like putting soldiers on pedestals. The line of reasoning for firefighters and police officers is likely similar (though IMO the risks in these professions are far more manageable because you're not literally surrounding yourself with people who try to kill you). In the end I think it's a good thing we talk about these decisions at all and I hope it has not only to do with women (and thus mothers) entering these professions.
sametmax 9y ago
You can decide that having children doesn't mean you have to sacrifice everything for them. If you greatest joy in life is this, you may choose to take the risk. Children are not an all or nothing proposal.
- chad_oliver 9y ago
  I'm not sure I agree. Children don't ask to be born, and they don't get to agree to that trade-off. Parents are responsible for the children they bring into the world. That said, parents don't always get a choice. Sometimes pregnancy is unplanned or even unwanted. I'm not sure how much moral responsibility parents bear in this case, but this scenario illustrates that the issue of responsibility isn't always black and white.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    The degree of engagement is always your choice. You can deem the choice less moral according to your values, but that's the limit of it.
  - gnaritas 9y ago
    As long as abortion is legal, parents certainly do always have a choice; pregnancy is not equal to having a child.
    - justinjlynn 9y ago
      Indeed. Well, I really hate to get technical here - and don't want to debate identity politics - but the male half of the equation really doesn't have that option. In the vast majority of cases, that choice is solely the mother's prerogative. Edit: Let me be very clear here: I am not advocating for any position or change of position on this matter in any way. I am simply stating an observation of how the world currently operates to clarify original poster's statement.
      - gnaritas 9y ago
        Fair point.
agumonkey 9y ago
Some people just do what they need to, I'm saying this from Jeb Corlis, famous wingsuit diver, who said he just cannot avoid jumping even though it's more than risky, deadly AND that he crashed once (one of the luckiest comeback I ever got to see). His family isn't happy, but he cannot live otherwise so it's either depression or adrenaline.
- gpawl 9y ago
  and if you can't judge him for being addicted to taking risks, you can't judge people for being addicted to having feelings about it.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    let's be all accepting :)
coleifer 9y ago
I race motorcycles and also ride on the street most days, so this is a familiar topic of discussion with my wife, especially considering that we have a two-year-old son. What I can say on the subject is that there's a big difference between taking every precaution to minimize risk and being careless or reckless. What stood out to me when reading this article was "why the fuck would you use a guideline that could break so easily?" and also "why wouldn't you give yourself more margin with regards to your air supply?" That's just stupid, in my opinion.
- gpawl 9y ago
  The day you flip out on your bike and land on your head, god forbid, the same questions will be asked of you.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    That's not entirely fair. There's a wide range of motorcycle gear available. Buying the best stuff, the equivalent of high-strength line, does dramatically reduce your risk of injury or death relative to cheap or no gear. Asking if the line was the appropriate type is a valid question. A huge part of riding a motorcycle is preparing for the unexpected. Always having an escape path, knowing your limits and the limits of your gear and riding within them. I'm sure there are similar concepts for divers, it's entirely fair to ask if this diver took all the necessary precautions or if there are additional precautions that are possible.
- nradov 9y ago
  Cave line doesn't break easily. Having a boulder fall on it isn't a normal or expected event.
- Simon_says 9y ago
  There's probably an order of magnitude or two difference in risk between cave diving and motorcycle racing. Cave diving is really dangerous.
- Aaargh20318 9y ago
  > What I can say on the subject is that there's a big difference between taking every precaution to minimize risk and being careless or reckless. I've heard people who work in the ER refer to motorcycles as "donorcycles", apparently they are a great source of donor organs. It's probably not because they are very safe.
betenoire 9y ago
I wrote a longer answer, but I'll shorten it to: it's not about the adrenaline fix. At some point, your hobbies/passions (hopefully) become an integral part of who you are. Especially ones like this with expertise and life-long pursuits. The rest is balancing act that you hope to get right.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  > become an integral part of who you are You can say that about anything. Smoking, alcohol, racism, leftism ( jk :-D ) But is identity investment in something life-risking really compatible with reasonable parenting? that's the question.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > But is identity investment in something life-risking really compatible with reasonable parenting? Every human activity is life-risking (as is inactivity.)
    - Chris2048 9y ago
      In what sense? In that some, possibly trivial, risk is involved?
  - betenoire 9y ago
    That's the balancing part, no? Nothing is risk-free, and the implied dichotomy is misleading. You can be a wreckless fool without the dangerous hobbies. Also implied is that we can even agree what "reasonable parenting" means.
    - Chris2048 9y ago
      > Nothing is risk-free You can determine a threshold though? > can even agree what "reasonable parenting" means. So much as we can agree what reasonable <anything> means - which we can, as there are all sorts of laws regulating various aspects of life. We can, to some degree, legislate "reasonable driving", or "reasonable flying".
benzofuran 9y ago
With the proper training and experience, this is an academically rewarding sport / hobby, and is quite safe - still less so than normal open water diving but not the death trap that it seems. The NSS-CDS (http://nsscds.org http://nsscds.org) keeps accident analysis articles on hand (only seems like older ones are available on the website right now, dead tree is still the boss in this arena) covering these. Similarly though, there's a trough in the safety numbers where folks between about 100 and 1000 hours seem to be involved in most accidents. I'm not sure if I'll keep this up if/when I have children, but that's something I'll have to wrestle with when it comes. I have a number of friends who've retired from caving until their kids are teenagers or permanently now that they are fathers & mothers.
- idlewords 9y ago
  A similar trough exists in general aviation—accident rates are markedly higher for somewhat experienced pilots than for beginners. The consensus among pilots seems to be that you are most dangerous between the time you think you know what you're doing, and the time you survive your first big scare. There's probably a good lesson here for computer programmers...
  - Procrastes 9y ago
    > There's probably a good lesson here for computer programmers... That sounds like a great Ask HN topic[1]. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14792764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14792764
  - matt4077 9y ago
    I seem to remember hearing the same about drivers. Might have been for my country (Germany) specifically, where the minimum age for a license 18. If you get your license at 16, you're still in the upwards swing on risk-taking behaviour, which might drown out all other statistical signals.
    - dx034 9y ago
      Yes, the most dangerous drivers tend not to be the ones who just got their license, as they usually still adapt and don't drive too fast. It becomes dangerous after a few months or 1-2 years when a driver feels confident enough even though he still has very little experience.
aasarava 9y ago
Or maybe what he's saying is, "I would rather my kids learn that they should explore and enjoy the world, rather than never take any big risks." There are a lot of parents in the world. Once you start judging them (for actions other than abuse and neglect), you very quickly realize how limiting that is. Do we need to look down upon astronauts who have children? What about pilots? People who travel for work for days or weeks at a time? Someone who commutes an hour to work each way in a car that has a poor safety rating? The good news is that once you become a father, you'll get to decide (possibly with a partner) what the acceptable level of risk is for you and your family.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  > rather than never take any big risks With kids at home? specifically?! There are ways to enjoy life, or take "risks", that do not involve mortal danger. > Do we need to look down upon astronauts who have children? What about pilots? .. Someone who commutes .. in a car that has a poor safety rating? Are those as dangerous? If so, then yes, I think so. > People who travel for work for days or weeks at a time? People agonise about this all the time. But seeing the kids not very often is very different from dying and never seeing them again. > The good news is that once you become a father, you'll get to decide (possibly with a partner) what the acceptable level of risk is for you and your family. Oh, great. Does that mean we should also stop judging people about abuse and neglect too? I mean, fuck other peoples kids, right?
  - nvahalik 9y ago
    > There are ways to enjoy life, or take "risks", that do not involve mortal danger. Depends on how you look at it. We are fragile creatures and the world is a fairly dangerous place. People die every day driving cars, riding bikes, going for walks—doing things far more mundane than cave-diving.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - Chris2048 9y ago
manarth 9y ago
You leave your house, walking towards the railway station to catch a train to work. You reach a traffic-crossing near your home, and see the crossing-light flashing orange. You dash across as you're in a rush, and as you dash out, a car hits you. It wasn't entirely your fault, but you did dash out without looking, and did dash out whilst the lights were flashing orange. Do you never take that crossing (or maybe even any crossing) ever again? The majority of cave-diving accidents stem from ignorance or disregard of cave-diving safety protocols. In this article, the diver seems to be very knowledgeable and aware of the protocols, but there were a few that weren't followed. The diver's had a very close call, and no doubt recognises some of the issues that caused the accident, and I'm sure is determined to never make those mistakes again.
- salad77 9y ago
  When I was SCUBA training, my instructor made a point of telling everyone in the class : "There are OLD divers and there are BOLD divers, but there are very few OLD, BOLD divers." Every single time I had an issue under water, it was when I was trying something BOLD and it brought back the instructors words. Martyn Farr's book [mentioned in other comments] is littered with examples of BOLD divers but when you look up to see what they're doing now, many of them are dead. Normally related to a cave incident.
  - Baeocystin 9y ago
    Those exact same words (with rider replacing diver) were the first ones uttered to me by my Motorcycle Safety Instructor when I first took the course back in the the 90's. He was an ex-CHP officer with ~1 million miles under his belt, and had a lot of stories, gruesome and glorious. It was a great class, and he was a wonderful teacher. Scared the foolhardy, sobered the romantics, and conveyed a career's worth of lessons on riding safe. I've been accident-free since starting in '94, and I genuinely do think a large part of it was his initial, excellent instruction.
brianwawok 9y ago
Well, where do you draw the line? It is safer to stay inside than outside. A padded room is safer than a normal roof. Should all parents stay in a padded room? I think everyone has a different place for the line.
QAPereo 9y ago
When you start to look at thrillseekers as addicts, it starts to make a lot more sense. It's just that to get high, they take risks instead of using drugs, but the personality and the lack of concern for others in the face of that addiction is more than just similar I believe.
- Fuckdang3 9y ago
  Way to belittle someone's interests and desires cunt
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ionised 9y ago
  So now we're comparing explorers to drug addicts. Are fucking serious?
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Yes, very much, and there's research to back up my point. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3604176/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3604176/ http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432815002570 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432815... It's the same circuitry involved in taking drugs or gambling, or jumping out of airplanes.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> I might be speaking out of line, but taking on these kinds of risks with young children at home seems kind of selfish. People die. A key responsibility of being a parent is to make sure arrangements are made for you children should you die. I suppose whether this risk is warranted involves some complex calculus taking, among it's many inputs, the quality of arrangements that the parent has made, the actual mathematical degree of risk, and personal factors including those about the ages, personalities, etc., of the children involved. And that's true of basically every activity involving risk, but I don't think the key parameters on the boundaries here are unambiguous even if the input values were clearly knowable and computation tractable. In general, I don't think outside parties ever have the information to have much of an meaningful discussion on specific cases, and it mostly ends up being empty posturing.
- huhtenberg 9y ago
  > A key responsibility of being a parent ... is to be there for your children.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    At what cost? Should parents ride bicycles? Run marathons? Swim? Go outside? Where do you draw the line?
- macspoofing 9y ago
  >A key responsibility of being a parent is to make sure arrangements are made for you children should you die. Could you even get life insurance if you engage in high-risk activities?
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Could you even get life insurance if you engage in high-risk activities? Probably, though you may need a specialized carrier and policy to have those activities covered.
    - 9y ago
myrandomcomment 9y ago
Agreed. Wife and I were both skydivers. We have not jumped since my daughter was born. To be honest, it is not because it is unsafe (there is a risk just driving to the drop zone) but because of the life insurance that we now carry. That being said, even if I still jumped I would not do some of the other items around it like is used to (BASE jumping for example).
- thephyber 9y ago
  I'm curious -- what effect does the life insurance policy have? Is the risk that you die during an event which is not covered or is there some other contingency (like simply taking unnecessary risks while alive can be used to justify voiding of the policy postmortem)?
- neurotech1 9y ago
  One of the ironies is that test pilots have trouble getting life insurance, yet its extremely rare that a test pilot for a major aerospace company has a serious accident. I can think of two crashes involving test pilots in recent years that resulted in fatalities (or serious injuries) [0] https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20110402-0 https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20110402-... [1] https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=188544 https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=188544
  - gpawl 9y ago
    Surely employers must cover life insurance then?
  - sokoloff 9y ago
    Virgin also lost Spaceship Two with one fatality in 2014 and Swearingen lost an SJ30 prototype in 2003. (The second is arguably is or is not in recent years.) Military and E-AB (Experimental-Amateur Built) aircraft also have a higher than normal flight ops fatality rate, which speaks to the test pilot insurance rate, not directly to "routine testing of new civilian aircraft" level of safety.
- gpawl 9y ago
Mz 9y ago
"I would rather my kids grow up without a Dad than live without my adrenaline fix" I am neither a father or a cave diver though, so I might be missing a piece of the puzzle. Would either groups of people care to comment? It is easy to assume that this is the entire picture, but this likely is not true. Perhaps if he were not a cave diver, he would be an alcoholic or a drug addict or beat his kids. We don't know and even if the author does, he likely would not share such information. The world would absolutely not be more supportive of his choices if he tried to justify them with "It's either this or (something far worse)." If he is actually an adrenaline junkie, this is a matter of brain wiring. It is not a choice. When you are born with something like that, the best you can do is try to channel it as constructively as possible instead of letting it lead to trouble. There are plenty of people in the world who are criminals, alcoholics, addicts, shit-stirrers of some sort and various other bad things. Adrenaline junkies are sometimes firefighters, EMTs, or soldiers. Those who can't be those things have hobbies like this. I am a parent. In fact, I was a homemaker and full time mom for a lot of years. I have special needs kids who still live with me, even though they are both adults. I am generally interpreted by the world as a very devoted mother, which is generally accurate. But I learned long ago that I need to make sure to get my own needs met. I can't live for my kids alone. Doing that goes bad places. I can't be a good parent if I don't first deal with what the woman in the mirror needs to get through the damn day without going ballistic. I don't need an adrenaline fix and I am not a cave diver. But we all need different things and that metric generalizes. I have seen lots of parents do terrible things because they failed to "put their own oxygen mask on first."
- putsteadywere 9y ago
  I really liked this: 'I have seen lots of parents do terrible things because they failed to "put their own oxygen mask on first."' Thanks for writing that!
  - JshWright 9y ago
    To take this tangent even further afield... Here's an actual real life demonstration of why you should put your oxygen mask on first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUfF2MTnqAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUfF2MTnqAw
pipio21 9y ago
It is not really that risky. It was just an unfortunate accident. It is probably way riskier to practice road cycling or breathing air in a big city(because of diesel particles pollution). This man has been doing this for 24 years, if something diving today with him is safer because of the experience he got. There are extremely risky sports like B.A.S.E, jumpsuit skydiving or freestyle motorbike stunt. This is not that risky. I have seen a lot of people die in their 50s of cancer after smoking 3 packs a day. You don't see people around telling smokers: You have children, you should not take risks like this. Even working too much could be riskier than diving caves. A fried of mine is quadriplegic because he felt sleep in the car for working too much.
- thephyber 9y ago
  > You don't see people around telling smokers: You have children, you should not take risks like this. Not exactly true. If you are in the US in a big city in a blue state, politicians and police say that, but for a slightly different reason.
  - 4ad 9y ago
    > politicians and police say that, but for a slightly different reason So, they don't say that?
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  > You don't see people around telling smokers: You have children, you should not take risks like this. I absolutely do see that, although it's more often about not exposing your kids to smoke than specifically about saving the parent's life. (Which makes sense if the concern is child welfare, since smoking deaths typically come at an age where most people's kids are full-grown.)
- 7952 9y ago
  But I would guess that the difficulty and risk is an essential part of the attraction. Trying to rationalise that risk away seems to be intellectually dishonest. A small percentage will experience the small risk and cause suffering to family. But for all the rest it was an amazing experience that was worth it. Those two things are not contradictory.
matt4077 9y ago
As long as he has a partner and/or other family that could take care of the children, and a good life insurance policy, I don't see much of a problem. Children are quite resilient, emotionally. And I wouldn't underestimate the positive effects it can have if your parents live interesting lives. And then, there's the bicycle helmet paradox: disparaging him for his decisions may just keep people like him from having children altogether. Considering such risk-takers tend to be well-educated, and provide an intellectually stimulating environment for their children, it may be better for society to just let him be. (the bicycle helmet analogy is that making helmets mandatory keeps enough people from riding bikes altogether, resulting in a net loss of life expectancy even when factoring in the reduction in deaths from accidents)
justinjlynn 9y ago
Asking people to debate what is likely to be a quasi-religious opinion is asking for a flame war. The problem with parenting and the implications of the responsibility thereof is that everyone who has to parent has to have an opinion and has to believe theirs is correct. There really isn't the societal barrier we have regarding discussions about religion and politics keeping most of us, who otherwise wouldn't contribute because of the radioactivity, silent. Of course, this can only result in a thread which spirals into arrogant "you don't have children, so your opinion is null and void" territory and other such nonsense. It's very unlikely to be a thread of any illustrative value other than the value of illustrating how closed minded and dismissive people can be. I'd rather not deal with that on HN.
imsofuture 9y ago
Think of the children!
sathackr 9y ago
I lost my father at 15 to his work. He had a relatively dangerous job, made a mistake, and it killed him. This was 4 years after I lost my mother doing something she was passionate about. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that losing both parents before you turn 16 is no walk in the park. But I managed, I survived, and now work in a field that often touches both of the things that killed my parents and I have a bit of a desire to 'conquer' the things that took them. I wish they both were here today, but I do not wish they hadn't done the things they had done. Even as a kid I held no ill will toward either of them. I'm glad my mother got to do what she wanted, and I wouldn't be where I am now if it weren't for my father's line of work. I am not a biological father and I have gone cavern diving. While it's not okay to be reckless and disregard all safety, as a child of parents who passed doing unnecessarily dangerous things, I can say that I have never wished that they had not done those things that they wanted or felt necessary to do. I only wish that I had made better use of my time with them.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Trufa 9y ago
  Sorry to hear about that though I'm glad you're doing ok, may I ask if it's not intruding what their professions were?
sigzero 9y ago
That comment (without context) is 100% selfish and stupid (coming from a father).
jfabre 9y ago
According to http://www.besthealthdegrees.com/health-risks http://www.besthealthdegrees.com/health-risks The odds of dying of a car accident are +- 5 times higher than scuba diving.
xixor2 9y ago
So can you give a list of hobbies or activities that are or aren't allowed with children at home?
kobeya 9y ago
As a father I concur. I'm not a cave diver although I have ambitions of extreme mountain climbing. It would be reckless and irresponsible of me to do that until my kids are grown however.
tiku 9y ago
Same goes for firemen or policemen, they choose to be near / around danger.
johnnyhillbilly 9y ago
These guys know what they are doing. The guide rope coming undone may lead to safety improvements for other divers. The divers found themselves in a quite difficult situation, and through skill, resourcefulness and chance managed to find a way for both to come home alive and well. A child of such a parent surely learns a thing or two about how to manage risk. Since life cannot be lived without risk, I would argue that such knowledge may better the child's chances in life. Therefore, I argue this may be a better father than one that shies away from "unnecessary" risk.
pavement 9y ago
I can think of a couple of angles into rationalizing this sort of thing, but then again, they say that even simply giving in to the motivation to rationalize something in any way might be a bit selfish, and (maybe) part of a personality disorder. What does it mean to be alive at all?
artur_makly 9y ago
Larry Smith gave a powerful talk on Parenthood + Living the "Safe" Life... this moment i picked out.. was the heaviest for me : https://youtu.be/iKHTawgyKWQ?t=10m41s https://youtu.be/iKHTawgyKWQ?t=10m41s

seanc 9y ago

I am a father and I agree 100% IMO maaaaybe you could be married with no kids and do this ethically. But with kids? You're rolling the dice on a very important promise. I do struggle with what that line of thinking means for soldiers though.

rrhyne 9y ago
As a father, I agree completely, and think you shouldn't have been down voted, so here's an upvote.
- Fuckdang2 9y ago
  As a non cunt, I agree about your cuntery
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
balls187 9y ago
For a soldier, it's their duty. For the diver in the story, it was his hobby. He'd been doing it for 24 years, so his tolerance for risk wrt cave diving is different than what you and I perceive--thus I don't blame him at all.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  > For a soldier, it's their duty They accept that duty though, so it's the same thing - instead of "is it ok for a soldier to go to war" it's "is it ok to become a soldier". > his tolerance for risk wrt cave diving is different than what you and I perceive What does this mean?
  - balls187 9y ago
    > What does this mean? As someone who's never done cave diving, the perception of risk is going to be higher than the actual risk. 1 time in 24 years is pretty low.
    - Chris2048 9y ago
      Maybe, unless he got sloppier as time went on. There are a few flags pointed out in these threads - like not telling anyone that he dived..
      - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
        On the other hand, in that case he's likely to be "scared straight" now and much more careful, at least for a good while.
        Chris2048 9y ago
        Hopefully..
  - harpiaharpyja 9y ago
    Not GP but I believe he is saying that unless we've been in an underwater cave the diver's perspective may be difficult for us to really appreciate. To us, continuing to dive seems like an unacceptable risk. To the diver, it seemingly is not. Along the same vein I believe GP then goes on to say that he does not feel that the diver's perspective is less valid just because he (the GP) doesn't understand it.
    - 9y ago
mhluongo 9y ago
> IMO maaaaybe you could be married with no kids and do this ethically. I've never heard any vows include anything about cave diving.
Chris2048 9y ago
> I do struggle with what that line of thinking means for soldiers though. It means exactly the same, but with millennia of cultural resistance to overcome before you can accept it.
PhasmaFelis 9y ago
At least in theory, soldiers risk their lives to make all their country's children safer. I think that's a worthwhile trade, in aggregate. It depends on whether your country likes to get involved in wars that don't actually protect their populace, of course.
gpawl 9y ago
the common marriage vows explicitly state death as the one justification for exiting vows, so married with no kids is definitively in the clear.
gpawl 9y ago
the common marriage vows explicitly state death as the one justification for exiting vows, so married with no kids is definitively in the clear.
pluma 9y ago
The way soldiers rationalize it is presumably that they'd argue they're protecting their children by "serving their country". This line of reasoning works a lot better in countries like the US or UK than e.g. Germany (although the sole purpose of the German army by law is to defend the country) but it's easy to guess why Germans don't like putting soldiers on pedestals. The line of reasoning for firefighters and police officers is likely similar (though IMO the risks in these professions are far more manageable because you're not literally surrounding yourself with people who try to kill you). In the end I think it's a good thing we talk about these decisions at all and I hope it has not only to do with women (and thus mothers) entering these professions.

sametmax 9y ago

You can decide that having children doesn't mean you have to sacrifice everything for them. If you greatest joy in life is this, you may choose to take the risk. Children are not an all or nothing proposal.

chad_oliver 9y ago
I'm not sure I agree. Children don't ask to be born, and they don't get to agree to that trade-off. Parents are responsible for the children they bring into the world. That said, parents don't always get a choice. Sometimes pregnancy is unplanned or even unwanted. I'm not sure how much moral responsibility parents bear in this case, but this scenario illustrates that the issue of responsibility isn't always black and white.
- sametmax 9y ago
  The degree of engagement is always your choice. You can deem the choice less moral according to your values, but that's the limit of it.
- gnaritas 9y ago
  As long as abortion is legal, parents certainly do always have a choice; pregnancy is not equal to having a child.
  - justinjlynn 9y ago
    Indeed. Well, I really hate to get technical here - and don't want to debate identity politics - but the male half of the equation really doesn't have that option. In the vast majority of cases, that choice is solely the mother's prerogative. Edit: Let me be very clear here: I am not advocating for any position or change of position on this matter in any way. I am simply stating an observation of how the world currently operates to clarify original poster's statement.
    - gnaritas 9y ago
      Fair point.

agumonkey 9y ago

Some people just do what they need to, I'm saying this from Jeb Corlis, famous wingsuit diver, who said he just cannot avoid jumping even though it's more than risky, deadly AND that he crashed once (one of the luckiest comeback I ever got to see). His family isn't happy, but he cannot live otherwise so it's either depression or adrenaline.

gpawl 9y ago
and if you can't judge him for being addicted to taking risks, you can't judge people for being addicted to having feelings about it.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  let's be all accepting :)

coleifer 9y ago

I race motorcycles and also ride on the street most days, so this is a familiar topic of discussion with my wife, especially considering that we have a two-year-old son. What I can say on the subject is that there's a big difference between taking every precaution to minimize risk and being careless or reckless. What stood out to me when reading this article was "why the fuck would you use a guideline that could break so easily?" and also "why wouldn't you give yourself more margin with regards to your air supply?" That's just stupid, in my opinion.

gpawl 9y ago
The day you flip out on your bike and land on your head, god forbid, the same questions will be asked of you.
- mulmen 9y ago
  That's not entirely fair. There's a wide range of motorcycle gear available. Buying the best stuff, the equivalent of high-strength line, does dramatically reduce your risk of injury or death relative to cheap or no gear. Asking if the line was the appropriate type is a valid question. A huge part of riding a motorcycle is preparing for the unexpected. Always having an escape path, knowing your limits and the limits of your gear and riding within them. I'm sure there are similar concepts for divers, it's entirely fair to ask if this diver took all the necessary precautions or if there are additional precautions that are possible.
nradov 9y ago
Cave line doesn't break easily. Having a boulder fall on it isn't a normal or expected event.
Simon_says 9y ago
There's probably an order of magnitude or two difference in risk between cave diving and motorcycle racing. Cave diving is really dangerous.
Aaargh20318 9y ago
> What I can say on the subject is that there's a big difference between taking every precaution to minimize risk and being careless or reckless. I've heard people who work in the ER refer to motorcycles as "donorcycles", apparently they are a great source of donor organs. It's probably not because they are very safe.

betenoire 9y ago

I wrote a longer answer, but I'll shorten it to: it's not about the adrenaline fix. At some point, your hobbies/passions (hopefully) become an integral part of who you are. Especially ones like this with expertise and life-long pursuits. The rest is balancing act that you hope to get right.

Chris2048 9y ago
> become an integral part of who you are You can say that about anything. Smoking, alcohol, racism, leftism ( jk :-D ) But is identity investment in something life-risking really compatible with reasonable parenting? that's the question.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > But is identity investment in something life-risking really compatible with reasonable parenting? Every human activity is life-risking (as is inactivity.)
  - Chris2048 9y ago
    In what sense? In that some, possibly trivial, risk is involved?
- betenoire 9y ago
  That's the balancing part, no? Nothing is risk-free, and the implied dichotomy is misleading. You can be a wreckless fool without the dangerous hobbies. Also implied is that we can even agree what "reasonable parenting" means.
  - Chris2048 9y ago
    > Nothing is risk-free You can determine a threshold though? > can even agree what "reasonable parenting" means. So much as we can agree what reasonable <anything> means - which we can, as there are all sorts of laws regulating various aspects of life. We can, to some degree, legislate "reasonable driving", or "reasonable flying".

benzofuran 9y ago

With the proper training and experience, this is an academically rewarding sport / hobby, and is quite safe - still less so than normal open water diving but not the death trap that it seems. The NSS-CDS (http://nsscds.org http://nsscds.org) keeps accident analysis articles on hand (only seems like older ones are available on the website right now, dead tree is still the boss in this arena) covering these. Similarly though, there's a trough in the safety numbers where folks between about 100 and 1000 hours seem to be involved in most accidents. I'm not sure if I'll keep this up if/when I have children, but that's something I'll have to wrestle with when it comes. I have a number of friends who've retired from caving until their kids are teenagers or permanently now that they are fathers & mothers.

idlewords 9y ago
A similar trough exists in general aviation—accident rates are markedly higher for somewhat experienced pilots than for beginners. The consensus among pilots seems to be that you are most dangerous between the time you think you know what you're doing, and the time you survive your first big scare. There's probably a good lesson here for computer programmers...
- Procrastes 9y ago
  > There's probably a good lesson here for computer programmers... That sounds like a great Ask HN topic[1]. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14792764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14792764
- matt4077 9y ago
  I seem to remember hearing the same about drivers. Might have been for my country (Germany) specifically, where the minimum age for a license 18. If you get your license at 16, you're still in the upwards swing on risk-taking behaviour, which might drown out all other statistical signals.
  - dx034 9y ago
    Yes, the most dangerous drivers tend not to be the ones who just got their license, as they usually still adapt and don't drive too fast. It becomes dangerous after a few months or 1-2 years when a driver feels confident enough even though he still has very little experience.

aasarava 9y ago

Or maybe what he's saying is, "I would rather my kids learn that they should explore and enjoy the world, rather than never take any big risks." There are a lot of parents in the world. Once you start judging them (for actions other than abuse and neglect), you very quickly realize how limiting that is. Do we need to look down upon astronauts who have children? What about pilots? People who travel for work for days or weeks at a time? Someone who commutes an hour to work each way in a car that has a poor safety rating? The good news is that once you become a father, you'll get to decide (possibly with a partner) what the acceptable level of risk is for you and your family.

Chris2048 9y ago
> rather than never take any big risks With kids at home? specifically?! There are ways to enjoy life, or take "risks", that do not involve mortal danger. > Do we need to look down upon astronauts who have children? What about pilots? .. Someone who commutes .. in a car that has a poor safety rating? Are those as dangerous? If so, then yes, I think so. > People who travel for work for days or weeks at a time? People agonise about this all the time. But seeing the kids not very often is very different from dying and never seeing them again. > The good news is that once you become a father, you'll get to decide (possibly with a partner) what the acceptable level of risk is for you and your family. Oh, great. Does that mean we should also stop judging people about abuse and neglect too? I mean, fuck other peoples kids, right?
- nvahalik 9y ago
  > There are ways to enjoy life, or take "risks", that do not involve mortal danger. Depends on how you look at it. We are fragile creatures and the world is a fairly dangerous place. People die every day driving cars, riding bikes, going for walks—doing things far more mundane than cave-diving.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Chris2048 9y ago

manarth 9y ago

You leave your house, walking towards the railway station to catch a train to work. You reach a traffic-crossing near your home, and see the crossing-light flashing orange. You dash across as you're in a rush, and as you dash out, a car hits you. It wasn't entirely your fault, but you did dash out without looking, and did dash out whilst the lights were flashing orange. Do you never take that crossing (or maybe even any crossing) ever again? The majority of cave-diving accidents stem from ignorance or disregard of cave-diving safety protocols. In this article, the diver seems to be very knowledgeable and aware of the protocols, but there were a few that weren't followed. The diver's had a very close call, and no doubt recognises some of the issues that caused the accident, and I'm sure is determined to never make those mistakes again.

salad77 9y ago
When I was SCUBA training, my instructor made a point of telling everyone in the class : "There are OLD divers and there are BOLD divers, but there are very few OLD, BOLD divers." Every single time I had an issue under water, it was when I was trying something BOLD and it brought back the instructors words. Martyn Farr's book [mentioned in other comments] is littered with examples of BOLD divers but when you look up to see what they're doing now, many of them are dead. Normally related to a cave incident.
- Baeocystin 9y ago
  Those exact same words (with rider replacing diver) were the first ones uttered to me by my Motorcycle Safety Instructor when I first took the course back in the the 90's. He was an ex-CHP officer with ~1 million miles under his belt, and had a lot of stories, gruesome and glorious. It was a great class, and he was a wonderful teacher. Scared the foolhardy, sobered the romantics, and conveyed a career's worth of lessons on riding safe. I've been accident-free since starting in '94, and I genuinely do think a large part of it was his initial, excellent instruction.

brianwawok 9y ago

Well, where do you draw the line? It is safer to stay inside than outside. A padded room is safer than a normal roof. Should all parents stay in a padded room? I think everyone has a different place for the line.

QAPereo 9y ago

When you start to look at thrillseekers as addicts, it starts to make a lot more sense. It's just that to get high, they take risks instead of using drugs, but the personality and the lack of concern for others in the face of that addiction is more than just similar I believe.

Fuckdang3 9y ago
Way to belittle someone's interests and desires cunt
deleted 9y ago
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ionised 9y ago
So now we're comparing explorers to drug addicts. Are fucking serious?
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Yes, very much, and there's research to back up my point. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3604176/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3604176/ http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432815002570 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432815... It's the same circuitry involved in taking drugs or gambling, or jumping out of airplanes.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> I might be speaking out of line, but taking on these kinds of risks with young children at home seems kind of selfish. People die. A key responsibility of being a parent is to make sure arrangements are made for you children should you die. I suppose whether this risk is warranted involves some complex calculus taking, among it's many inputs, the quality of arrangements that the parent has made, the actual mathematical degree of risk, and personal factors including those about the ages, personalities, etc., of the children involved. And that's true of basically every activity involving risk, but I don't think the key parameters on the boundaries here are unambiguous even if the input values were clearly knowable and computation tractable. In general, I don't think outside parties ever have the information to have much of an meaningful discussion on specific cases, and it mostly ends up being empty posturing.

huhtenberg 9y ago
> A key responsibility of being a parent ... is to be there for your children.
- mulmen 9y ago
  At what cost? Should parents ride bicycles? Run marathons? Swim? Go outside? Where do you draw the line?
macspoofing 9y ago
>A key responsibility of being a parent is to make sure arrangements are made for you children should you die. Could you even get life insurance if you engage in high-risk activities?
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Could you even get life insurance if you engage in high-risk activities? Probably, though you may need a specialized carrier and policy to have those activities covered.
  - 9y ago

myrandomcomment 9y ago

Agreed. Wife and I were both skydivers. We have not jumped since my daughter was born. To be honest, it is not because it is unsafe (there is a risk just driving to the drop zone) but because of the life insurance that we now carry. That being said, even if I still jumped I would not do some of the other items around it like is used to (BASE jumping for example).

thephyber 9y ago
I'm curious -- what effect does the life insurance policy have? Is the risk that you die during an event which is not covered or is there some other contingency (like simply taking unnecessary risks while alive can be used to justify voiding of the policy postmortem)?
neurotech1 9y ago
One of the ironies is that test pilots have trouble getting life insurance, yet its extremely rare that a test pilot for a major aerospace company has a serious accident. I can think of two crashes involving test pilots in recent years that resulted in fatalities (or serious injuries) [0] https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20110402-0 https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20110402-... [1] https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=188544 https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=188544
- gpawl 9y ago
  Surely employers must cover life insurance then?
- sokoloff 9y ago
  Virgin also lost Spaceship Two with one fatality in 2014 and Swearingen lost an SJ30 prototype in 2003. (The second is arguably is or is not in recent years.) Military and E-AB (Experimental-Amateur Built) aircraft also have a higher than normal flight ops fatality rate, which speaks to the test pilot insurance rate, not directly to "routine testing of new civilian aircraft" level of safety.
gpawl 9y ago

Mz 9y ago

"I would rather my kids grow up without a Dad than live without my adrenaline fix" I am neither a father or a cave diver though, so I might be missing a piece of the puzzle. Would either groups of people care to comment? It is easy to assume that this is the entire picture, but this likely is not true. Perhaps if he were not a cave diver, he would be an alcoholic or a drug addict or beat his kids. We don't know and even if the author does, he likely would not share such information. The world would absolutely not be more supportive of his choices if he tried to justify them with "It's either this or (something far worse)." If he is actually an adrenaline junkie, this is a matter of brain wiring. It is not a choice. When you are born with something like that, the best you can do is try to channel it as constructively as possible instead of letting it lead to trouble. There are plenty of people in the world who are criminals, alcoholics, addicts, shit-stirrers of some sort and various other bad things. Adrenaline junkies are sometimes firefighters, EMTs, or soldiers. Those who can't be those things have hobbies like this. I am a parent. In fact, I was a homemaker and full time mom for a lot of years. I have special needs kids who still live with me, even though they are both adults. I am generally interpreted by the world as a very devoted mother, which is generally accurate. But I learned long ago that I need to make sure to get my own needs met. I can't live for my kids alone. Doing that goes bad places. I can't be a good parent if I don't first deal with what the woman in the mirror needs to get through the damn day without going ballistic. I don't need an adrenaline fix and I am not a cave diver. But we all need different things and that metric generalizes. I have seen lots of parents do terrible things because they failed to "put their own oxygen mask on first."

putsteadywere 9y ago
I really liked this: 'I have seen lots of parents do terrible things because they failed to "put their own oxygen mask on first."' Thanks for writing that!
- JshWright 9y ago
  To take this tangent even further afield... Here's an actual real life demonstration of why you should put your oxygen mask on first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUfF2MTnqAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUfF2MTnqAw

pipio21 9y ago

It is not really that risky. It was just an unfortunate accident. It is probably way riskier to practice road cycling or breathing air in a big city(because of diesel particles pollution). This man has been doing this for 24 years, if something diving today with him is safer because of the experience he got. There are extremely risky sports like B.A.S.E, jumpsuit skydiving or freestyle motorbike stunt. This is not that risky. I have seen a lot of people die in their 50s of cancer after smoking 3 packs a day. You don't see people around telling smokers: You have children, you should not take risks like this. Even working too much could be riskier than diving caves. A fried of mine is quadriplegic because he felt sleep in the car for working too much.

thephyber 9y ago
> You don't see people around telling smokers: You have children, you should not take risks like this. Not exactly true. If you are in the US in a big city in a blue state, politicians and police say that, but for a slightly different reason.
- 4ad 9y ago
  > politicians and police say that, but for a slightly different reason So, they don't say that?
PhasmaFelis 9y ago
> You don't see people around telling smokers: You have children, you should not take risks like this. I absolutely do see that, although it's more often about not exposing your kids to smoke than specifically about saving the parent's life. (Which makes sense if the concern is child welfare, since smoking deaths typically come at an age where most people's kids are full-grown.)
7952 9y ago
But I would guess that the difficulty and risk is an essential part of the attraction. Trying to rationalise that risk away seems to be intellectually dishonest. A small percentage will experience the small risk and cause suffering to family. But for all the rest it was an amazing experience that was worth it. Those two things are not contradictory.

matt4077 9y ago

As long as he has a partner and/or other family that could take care of the children, and a good life insurance policy, I don't see much of a problem. Children are quite resilient, emotionally. And I wouldn't underestimate the positive effects it can have if your parents live interesting lives. And then, there's the bicycle helmet paradox: disparaging him for his decisions may just keep people like him from having children altogether. Considering such risk-takers tend to be well-educated, and provide an intellectually stimulating environment for their children, it may be better for society to just let him be. (the bicycle helmet analogy is that making helmets mandatory keeps enough people from riding bikes altogether, resulting in a net loss of life expectancy even when factoring in the reduction in deaths from accidents)

justinjlynn 9y ago

Asking people to debate what is likely to be a quasi-religious opinion is asking for a flame war. The problem with parenting and the implications of the responsibility thereof is that everyone who has to parent has to have an opinion and has to believe theirs is correct. There really isn't the societal barrier we have regarding discussions about religion and politics keeping most of us, who otherwise wouldn't contribute because of the radioactivity, silent. Of course, this can only result in a thread which spirals into arrogant "you don't have children, so your opinion is null and void" territory and other such nonsense. It's very unlikely to be a thread of any illustrative value other than the value of illustrating how closed minded and dismissive people can be. I'd rather not deal with that on HN.

imsofuture 9y ago

Think of the children!

sathackr 9y ago

I lost my father at 15 to his work. He had a relatively dangerous job, made a mistake, and it killed him. This was 4 years after I lost my mother doing something she was passionate about. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that losing both parents before you turn 16 is no walk in the park. But I managed, I survived, and now work in a field that often touches both of the things that killed my parents and I have a bit of a desire to 'conquer' the things that took them. I wish they both were here today, but I do not wish they hadn't done the things they had done. Even as a kid I held no ill will toward either of them. I'm glad my mother got to do what she wanted, and I wouldn't be where I am now if it weren't for my father's line of work. I am not a biological father and I have gone cavern diving. While it's not okay to be reckless and disregard all safety, as a child of parents who passed doing unnecessarily dangerous things, I can say that I have never wished that they had not done those things that they wanted or felt necessary to do. I only wish that I had made better use of my time with them.

deleted 9y ago
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Trufa 9y ago
Sorry to hear about that though I'm glad you're doing ok, may I ask if it's not intruding what their professions were?

sigzero 9y ago

That comment (without context) is 100% selfish and stupid (coming from a father).

jfabre 9y ago

According to http://www.besthealthdegrees.com/health-risks http://www.besthealthdegrees.com/health-risks The odds of dying of a car accident are +- 5 times higher than scuba diving.

xixor2 9y ago

So can you give a list of hobbies or activities that are or aren't allowed with children at home?

kobeya 9y ago

As a father I concur. I'm not a cave diver although I have ambitions of extreme mountain climbing. It would be reckless and irresponsible of me to do that until my kids are grown however.

tiku 9y ago

Same goes for firemen or policemen, they choose to be near / around danger.

johnnyhillbilly 9y ago

These guys know what they are doing. The guide rope coming undone may lead to safety improvements for other divers. The divers found themselves in a quite difficult situation, and through skill, resourcefulness and chance managed to find a way for both to come home alive and well. A child of such a parent surely learns a thing or two about how to manage risk. Since life cannot be lived without risk, I would argue that such knowledge may better the child's chances in life. Therefore, I argue this may be a better father than one that shies away from "unnecessary" risk.

pavement 9y ago

I can think of a couple of angles into rationalizing this sort of thing, but then again, they say that even simply giving in to the motivation to rationalize something in any way might be a bit selfish, and (maybe) part of a personality disorder. What does it mean to be alive at all?

artur_makly 9y ago

Larry Smith gave a powerful talk on Parenthood + Living the "Safe" Life... this moment i picked out.. was the heaviest for me : https://youtu.be/iKHTawgyKWQ?t=10m41s https://youtu.be/iKHTawgyKWQ?t=10m41s