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You seem to misunderstand the importance of knowledge building on previous knowledge. That’s the foundation of productivity gains and the engine of economic gro

You seem to misunderstand the importance of knowledge building on previous knowledge. That’s the foundation of productivity gains and the engine of economic growth for centuries - learning to do things better. An example of this I read elsewhere - Alex Honnold climbed a mountain with no safety equipment in 4 hours when it took weeks and plenty of safety gear a century ago. What changed? It was knowledge that people shared that made them more productive. Not just climbing routes, but fitness and dietary knowledge. For example, Honnold does yoga to stay in shape, which few climbers were doing back then. So when you say “real work” instead of “throwaway”, you’re underestimating how important knowledge is.

pcthrowaway 4y ago
> An example of this I read elsewhere - Alex Honnold climbed a mountain with no safety equipment in 4 hours when it took weeks and plenty of safety gear a century ago. What changed? It was knowledge that people shared that made them more productive. Not just climbing routes, but fitness and dietary knowledge. For example, Honnold does yoga to stay in shape, which few climbers were doing back then. I think you're mixing up some things Honnold has talked about here.. modern science (regarding training and nutrition), climbing gear, and climbing analysis (techniques used to further the sport of climbing) have enabled modern climbers to climb things that were considered impossible even 20 years ago. A 5.9 (considered the hardest possible grade 40 years ago) is now considered fairly casual and can be free climbed (not the same as free soloed) by people with less than a year of training. Freerider in Yosemite, Honnold's most famous free solo, didn't get a first free ascent until 1998. The time required to climb these things may have gone down also as a result of better equipment, but free soloing is a very niche subset of climbing. It's always been much faster than protected climbing. Honnold's specific training enabled him to climb it without protection (the one time anyway), but it's not a thing even most professional climbers would aspire to. They're mostly focused on harder grades, though outdoor speed climbing has a bit of a scene too (but still involves some protection)
- nindalf 4y ago
  Curious. I know exactly what I’m talking about, but you seem to be mixing up some things here. I specifically spoke about free soloing to take away the impact of better climbing gear. I implicitly ask - why couldn’t El Capitan be free soloed a century ago? Yeah sure, the shoes are slightly better but that’s about it. The main difference between Honnold free soloing in 2018 and a hypothetical climber free soloing in 1918 is knowledge. Honnold speaks a lot about the various routes through El Capitan mapped over the decades by others. Their freely shared knowledge is his productivity gain.
  - xyzzy123 4y ago
    Everyone wonders where the productivity gains of the internet are (beyond the obvious "amazon and aliexpress exist") and I think so much of it is in these very difficult to explain places. I'd argue that elite climbing is a post-scarcity activity. I suppose it always was... in a way, the question starts to become, how accessible can we make it, and to who? Paradoxically both the "decolonizers" and the "imperialists" (e.g. capitalist maximisers) are likely to be unsatisfied with the idea that it's basically a status economy now; people share tricks voluntarily because they love the work and the cred of introducing something novel and sharing is worth more than having secrets. Climbing is bought and paid for in climbing reputation which is only very loosely related to the "real" economy. When a broader range of humanity is introduced into reputation economies that can look like demand destruction since it suppresses demand for certain kinds of easily measured economic activity and replaces it with activities and value that are harder to measure (not primarily $ denominated). [All this ends up looking like people getting pissed off because ideologically unaligned people benefit from climbing just getting easier, which in general terms IMHO should be looked at as a good thing because human capability is increasing. Yes there will still be a lot of hocking gear and sponsorships in the meantime, reality is messy].
    - xyzzy123 4y ago
      EDIT: re-reading this I think this was a bad take, and I'm not sure what I was thinking.
  - pcthrowaway 4y ago

pcthrowaway 4y ago

> An example of this I read elsewhere - Alex Honnold climbed a mountain with no safety equipment in 4 hours when it took weeks and plenty of safety gear a century ago. What changed? It was knowledge that people shared that made them more productive. Not just climbing routes, but fitness and dietary knowledge. For example, Honnold does yoga to stay in shape, which few climbers were doing back then. I think you're mixing up some things Honnold has talked about here.. modern science (regarding training and nutrition), climbing gear, and climbing analysis (techniques used to further the sport of climbing) have enabled modern climbers to climb things that were considered impossible even 20 years ago. A 5.9 (considered the hardest possible grade 40 years ago) is now considered fairly casual and can be free climbed (not the same as free soloed) by people with less than a year of training. Freerider in Yosemite, Honnold's most famous free solo, didn't get a first free ascent until 1998. The time required to climb these things may have gone down also as a result of better equipment, but free soloing is a very niche subset of climbing. It's always been much faster than protected climbing. Honnold's specific training enabled him to climb it without protection (the one time anyway), but it's not a thing even most professional climbers would aspire to. They're mostly focused on harder grades, though outdoor speed climbing has a bit of a scene too (but still involves some protection)

nindalf 4y ago
Curious. I know exactly what I’m talking about, but you seem to be mixing up some things here. I specifically spoke about free soloing to take away the impact of better climbing gear. I implicitly ask - why couldn’t El Capitan be free soloed a century ago? Yeah sure, the shoes are slightly better but that’s about it. The main difference between Honnold free soloing in 2018 and a hypothetical climber free soloing in 1918 is knowledge. Honnold speaks a lot about the various routes through El Capitan mapped over the decades by others. Their freely shared knowledge is his productivity gain.
- xyzzy123 4y ago
  Everyone wonders where the productivity gains of the internet are (beyond the obvious "amazon and aliexpress exist") and I think so much of it is in these very difficult to explain places. I'd argue that elite climbing is a post-scarcity activity. I suppose it always was... in a way, the question starts to become, how accessible can we make it, and to who? Paradoxically both the "decolonizers" and the "imperialists" (e.g. capitalist maximisers) are likely to be unsatisfied with the idea that it's basically a status economy now; people share tricks voluntarily because they love the work and the cred of introducing something novel and sharing is worth more than having secrets. Climbing is bought and paid for in climbing reputation which is only very loosely related to the "real" economy. When a broader range of humanity is introduced into reputation economies that can look like demand destruction since it suppresses demand for certain kinds of easily measured economic activity and replaces it with activities and value that are harder to measure (not primarily $ denominated). [All this ends up looking like people getting pissed off because ideologically unaligned people benefit from climbing just getting easier, which in general terms IMHO should be looked at as a good thing because human capability is increasing. Yes there will still be a lot of hocking gear and sponsorships in the meantime, reality is messy].
  - xyzzy123 4y ago
    EDIT: re-reading this I think this was a bad take, and I'm not sure what I was thinking.
- pcthrowaway 4y ago