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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

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
I think the improved safety equipment has enabled people to climb much harder things, which in turn has led to people being able to live to develop better techniques and share them. I agree with you, but a century ago, Freerider was outside of anyone's capabilities (shoes aside). My understanding is that Honnold has talked about just free climbing freerider being impossible a century ago as a result. If people are capable of free climbing something, they're capable of free soloing it (whether it's wise to do that is a different story) > The main difference between Honnold free soloing in 2018 and a hypothetical climber free soloing in 1918 is knowledge What I'm saying is that "free soloing" isn't relevant here, free climbing it in any fashion would have been impossible To be honest, if we're talking purely about the difficulty of the moves, "free soloing" is easier than protected climbing because you have less weight and don't have to get pumped out trying to manage gear and protection.

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

I think the improved safety equipment has enabled people to climb much harder things, which in turn has led to people being able to live to develop better techniques and share them. I agree with you, but a century ago, Freerider was outside of anyone's capabilities (shoes aside). My understanding is that Honnold has talked about just free climbing freerider being impossible a century ago as a result. If people are capable of free climbing something, they're capable of free soloing it (whether it's wise to do that is a different story) > The main difference between Honnold free soloing in 2018 and a hypothetical climber free soloing in 1918 is knowledge What I'm saying is that "free soloing" isn't relevant here, free climbing it in any fashion would have been impossible To be honest, if we're talking purely about the difficulty of the moves, "free soloing" is easier than protected climbing because you have less weight and don't have to get pumped out trying to manage gear and protection.