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Your "personal choice" may end up risking the lives of search and rescue personnel, and costing the public hundreds of thousands of dollars. You get the benefi

Your "personal choice" may end up risking the lives of search and rescue personnel, and costing the public hundreds of thousands of dollars. You get the benefits of your risky fun but a large part of the costs are externalized. I don't want to live in a risk-less, fun-less society either but there are limits. As long as society is footing the bill, society has an interest in imposing limits. I'm perfectly happy letting you do whatever you want, as long as you are not endangering the public, and you bear the costs. I'd be all for a system where you can opt out of health and safety restrictions, with the caveat that it also opts you out of health and safety programs, like publicly-funded search and rescue.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Public safety costs are a sunk cost (staff are on call, vehicles are paid for), they will exist regardless. Society should bear the cost of reasonable exploration efforts by citizens, even by those who are unknowingly underprepared. That is a muscle we should be expected to flex as humans. The best way to learn is to do. I would agree that after your second or third rescue though, you're becoming a nuisance and should bear some of the cost.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Public safety costs are a sunk cost, they will exist regardless. No. Overtime, helicopter flight hours aren't a sunk cost. > Society should bear the cost of reasonable exploration efforts by citizens, even by those who are unknowingly underprepared. The issue here is in that one important word: reasonable. Exploring your neighborhood? Certainly. Exploring a mine shaft without a rope? Maybe a bit less so? > The best way to learn is to do. Or ask people that know stuff. Or read a book, or a pamphlet. There's plenty of options other than "whatever, the other will take care of me, I don't want to think and prepare, preparation is boring".
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    > Or ask people that know stuff. Or read a book, or a pamphlet. There's plenty of options other than "whatever, the other will take care of me, I don't want to think and prepare, preparation is boring". These are all valid forms of education, but all suboptimal to going through the motions. You should strive to be prepared, but also assume you don't know everything you need to know and de-risk accordingly.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      Of course, but the original comment was about the guys doing virtually nothing to be prepared, that is "I'm going to live in the remote wilderness. I have a sleeping bag and a pound of rice, what else could I possibly need". There's always some risk in everything, it cannot be avoided, but we really don't need people to learn by doing it from zero understanding of that risk, we have plenty of things they can learn from the comfort of their bed. If they then still want to go do the real thing, they'll be much less likely to require rescuing, because they will not just walk into the woods without a map going "I'll just use Google Maps if I get lost".
  - ghaff 6y ago
    You posit two examples at pretty far poles of the risk equation. How about doing winter hiking up high peaks in the Northeast US? Or whitewater kayaking? Or rock climbing?
    - luckylion 6y ago
      I'd say that also depends on how you're prepared. If you don't want to prepare or think safety is boring and you want that extra kick of adrenaline, sure, go for it, but I'd also prefer if you make sure that you're not going to be requiring a rescue operation and a life time of support for that little extra kick. Or we could just tax it accordingly so it gets pretty expensive to do, but the risk is priced in. Want to remove the helmet and swimming vest or go winter hiking naked? Sure, just pay here and off you go.
      - 6y ago
- mattmanser 6y ago
  What's reasonable about it? Those places have been explored. There's far less dangerous ways to experience nature and the wilderness too. I also don't see how the cost is sunk, it's proportional to the number of rescues they have to carry out, plus you risk the rescuers lives.
grecy 6y ago
> Your "personal choice" may end up risking the lives of search and rescue personnel, This is the standard answer everyone gives, and it makes no logical sense. I worked search and rescue, and have plenty of friends that have it as their full-time occupation. Search and rescue personal are trained professionals, who willingly signed up for that career, and who love being in the back-country. They know full and well what they're getting into, and going out and rescuing people is the definition of their chosen career. If there was nobody to rescue, they wouldn't be able to support themselves doing what they love. In fact when there are no rescues for a while they go out in their helicopters and practice all the "dangerous" stuff putting their "lives in danger". So even if there was nobody to rescue, they'd still be out there. Following on from your logic, it only makes sense we should ban open fireplaces and cigarettes in houses because that's the leading cause of house fires, which then put fireman's lives in danger. > and costing the public hundreds of thousands of dollars Please don't exaggerate, it detracts from the discussion. The average heli rescue costs around $10k (heli's are smack on $1k/hr), and in many jurisdictions if the person getting rescued was doing something stupid, they foot the bill, not the public.
- greenshackle2 6y ago
  > Following on from your logic, it only makes sense we should ban open fireplaces and cigarettes in houses because that's the leading cause of house fires, That's an amusing example to me, because indoor and outdoor fireplaces of any kind are in fact banned in my city, since it's densely built with lots of wood buildings, and because of air quality concerns, my city has deemed they are not worth the risk. > which then put fireman's lives in danger. And yes, the firemen will be the first to give you an earful if you don't respect the fire safety code. > following from your logic [...], we should ban [...] cigarettes Nice strawman though. I said it was in society's interest to set limits, I made no argument as to what exactly the limits should be. That's not my decision or yours, as long as it's public resources that are at stake, it should be a democratic process. > The average heli rescue costs around $10k (heli's are smack on $1k/hr), and in many jurisdictions if the person getting rescued was doing something stupid, they foot the bill, not the public. In that case, as I said, if they are footing the bill, I really have no problem with it.
nmfisher 6y ago
To me, the logical compromise would be to require upfront payment of a bond that is (a) forfeited if you need rescue, and (b) doubled if you don't follow basic precautions before heading out. Liberty can't be unconditional when your actions affect others. I see no philosophical objection to saying "you're free to do X, but you're the one paying the cost if it backfires."

toomuchtodo 6y ago

Public safety costs are a sunk cost (staff are on call, vehicles are paid for), they will exist regardless. Society should bear the cost of reasonable exploration efforts by citizens, even by those who are unknowingly underprepared. That is a muscle we should be expected to flex as humans. The best way to learn is to do. I would agree that after your second or third rescue though, you're becoming a nuisance and should bear some of the cost.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
luckylion 6y ago
> Public safety costs are a sunk cost, they will exist regardless. No. Overtime, helicopter flight hours aren't a sunk cost. > Society should bear the cost of reasonable exploration efforts by citizens, even by those who are unknowingly underprepared. The issue here is in that one important word: reasonable. Exploring your neighborhood? Certainly. Exploring a mine shaft without a rope? Maybe a bit less so? > The best way to learn is to do. Or ask people that know stuff. Or read a book, or a pamphlet. There's plenty of options other than "whatever, the other will take care of me, I don't want to think and prepare, preparation is boring".
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  > Or ask people that know stuff. Or read a book, or a pamphlet. There's plenty of options other than "whatever, the other will take care of me, I don't want to think and prepare, preparation is boring". These are all valid forms of education, but all suboptimal to going through the motions. You should strive to be prepared, but also assume you don't know everything you need to know and de-risk accordingly.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    Of course, but the original comment was about the guys doing virtually nothing to be prepared, that is "I'm going to live in the remote wilderness. I have a sleeping bag and a pound of rice, what else could I possibly need". There's always some risk in everything, it cannot be avoided, but we really don't need people to learn by doing it from zero understanding of that risk, we have plenty of things they can learn from the comfort of their bed. If they then still want to go do the real thing, they'll be much less likely to require rescuing, because they will not just walk into the woods without a map going "I'll just use Google Maps if I get lost".
- ghaff 6y ago
  You posit two examples at pretty far poles of the risk equation. How about doing winter hiking up high peaks in the Northeast US? Or whitewater kayaking? Or rock climbing?
  - luckylion 6y ago
    I'd say that also depends on how you're prepared. If you don't want to prepare or think safety is boring and you want that extra kick of adrenaline, sure, go for it, but I'd also prefer if you make sure that you're not going to be requiring a rescue operation and a life time of support for that little extra kick. Or we could just tax it accordingly so it gets pretty expensive to do, but the risk is priced in. Want to remove the helmet and swimming vest or go winter hiking naked? Sure, just pay here and off you go.
    - 6y ago
mattmanser 6y ago
What's reasonable about it? Those places have been explored. There's far less dangerous ways to experience nature and the wilderness too. I also don't see how the cost is sunk, it's proportional to the number of rescues they have to carry out, plus you risk the rescuers lives.

grecy 6y ago

> Your "personal choice" may end up risking the lives of search and rescue personnel, This is the standard answer everyone gives, and it makes no logical sense. I worked search and rescue, and have plenty of friends that have it as their full-time occupation. Search and rescue personal are trained professionals, who willingly signed up for that career, and who love being in the back-country. They know full and well what they're getting into, and going out and rescuing people is the definition of their chosen career. If there was nobody to rescue, they wouldn't be able to support themselves doing what they love. In fact when there are no rescues for a while they go out in their helicopters and practice all the "dangerous" stuff putting their "lives in danger". So even if there was nobody to rescue, they'd still be out there. Following on from your logic, it only makes sense we should ban open fireplaces and cigarettes in houses because that's the leading cause of house fires, which then put fireman's lives in danger. > and costing the public hundreds of thousands of dollars Please don't exaggerate, it detracts from the discussion. The average heli rescue costs around $10k (heli's are smack on $1k/hr), and in many jurisdictions if the person getting rescued was doing something stupid, they foot the bill, not the public.

greenshackle2 6y ago
> Following on from your logic, it only makes sense we should ban open fireplaces and cigarettes in houses because that's the leading cause of house fires, That's an amusing example to me, because indoor and outdoor fireplaces of any kind are in fact banned in my city, since it's densely built with lots of wood buildings, and because of air quality concerns, my city has deemed they are not worth the risk. > which then put fireman's lives in danger. And yes, the firemen will be the first to give you an earful if you don't respect the fire safety code. > following from your logic [...], we should ban [...] cigarettes Nice strawman though. I said it was in society's interest to set limits, I made no argument as to what exactly the limits should be. That's not my decision or yours, as long as it's public resources that are at stake, it should be a democratic process. > The average heli rescue costs around $10k (heli's are smack on $1k/hr), and in many jurisdictions if the person getting rescued was doing something stupid, they foot the bill, not the public. In that case, as I said, if they are footing the bill, I really have no problem with it.

nmfisher 6y ago

To me, the logical compromise would be to require upfront payment of a bond that is (a) forfeited if you need rescue, and (b) doubled if you don't follow basic precautions before heading out. Liberty can't be unconditional when your actions affect others. I see no philosophical objection to saying "you're free to do X, but you're the one paying the cost if it backfires."