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For me personally, I just have so little want to do anything like that. If it goes wrong, you go splat, and there's very little you can do about it. Is that the

by bmitc 2y ago

For me personally, I just have so little want to do anything like that. If it goes wrong, you go splat, and there's very little you can do about it. Is that the way you want to go, just jumping out of something? I mean, even getting injured and living is still ridiculous sounding. "How did you break your back?" "Oh, I jumped from 10,000 feet." The best case is that you get a "thrill" out of being reminded that gravity exists. I wonder if a lot of these people have some issues that cause them to seek the adrenaline and other hormone rushes from these activities. And it's very likely many get addicted to it once they start such extreme activities.

mlyle 2y ago
> I wonder if a lot of these people have some issues that cause them to seek the adrenaline and other hormone rushes from these activities. Everyone has a different calculus of what risks are worth it. I don't think it's fair to characterize them as "issues." Skydiving is dangerous, but not ridiculously so-- about a 1 in 100,000 chance of dying per jump, though this does wobble a little bit on your preparation and where you choose to jump (places like Lodi are disproportionately dangerous). One way to understand this order of magnitude is that you're spending a few hours of life expectancy per jump. I was into airplanes; the fatal general aviation accident rate per hour is about the same as the skydiving risk per jump. But I loved the feeling of being in the air, the things I saw, and the way it felt to control an airplane. This meant on a day with 5 hours of flying, I "spent" much more life expectancy than someone who skydived once. I went into it open-eyed, and I'm glad that I have the experiences of having flown.
- bmitc 2y ago
  Issues as in deficiencies or excess of hormones or neurotransmitters. I guess I am wondering what the mechanisms of risk seeking are.
  - mlyle 2y ago
    Yah, some people do explicitly risk seek. But you don't need that to be drawn to a risky thing. Indeed, the times in an airplane where I acutely felt the risk were not fun and were not what I was looking for at all.
technothrasher 2y ago
Personally, just wanting the experience is what made me jump out of an airplane at 10,500 feet. I knew I was taking a risk, but what the heck, I can't live in a closet my whole life and avoid experiencing things I want to just because there are risks. I did it, I enjoyed doing it, but I've never felt any motivation to do it again. I certainly wouldn't encourage anybody who isn't interested in doing it, it wasn't honestly all that amazing.
somenameforme 2y ago
Vice versa, people overestimating risk is likely what leads to them people being excessively scared of things that are relatively harmless. The Wiki page on micromorts [1] is pretty informative. A micromort is something that has a 1 in a million chance of fatality. One skydive exposes you to about 8 micromorts of risk. That's about the same risk as 80 miles of bicycling, 1900 miles of driving, or a bit less than your chance of being murdered in England within a year. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort

by bmitc 2y ago

mlyle 2y ago

> I wonder if a lot of these people have some issues that cause them to seek the adrenaline and other hormone rushes from these activities. Everyone has a different calculus of what risks are worth it. I don't think it's fair to characterize them as "issues." Skydiving is dangerous, but not ridiculously so-- about a 1 in 100,000 chance of dying per jump, though this does wobble a little bit on your preparation and where you choose to jump (places like Lodi are disproportionately dangerous). One way to understand this order of magnitude is that you're spending a few hours of life expectancy per jump. I was into airplanes; the fatal general aviation accident rate per hour is about the same as the skydiving risk per jump. But I loved the feeling of being in the air, the things I saw, and the way it felt to control an airplane. This meant on a day with 5 hours of flying, I "spent" much more life expectancy than someone who skydived once. I went into it open-eyed, and I'm glad that I have the experiences of having flown.

bmitc 2y ago
Issues as in deficiencies or excess of hormones or neurotransmitters. I guess I am wondering what the mechanisms of risk seeking are.
- mlyle 2y ago
  Yah, some people do explicitly risk seek. But you don't need that to be drawn to a risky thing. Indeed, the times in an airplane where I acutely felt the risk were not fun and were not what I was looking for at all.

technothrasher 2y ago

Personally, just wanting the experience is what made me jump out of an airplane at 10,500 feet. I knew I was taking a risk, but what the heck, I can't live in a closet my whole life and avoid experiencing things I want to just because there are risks. I did it, I enjoyed doing it, but I've never felt any motivation to do it again. I certainly wouldn't encourage anybody who isn't interested in doing it, it wasn't honestly all that amazing.

somenameforme 2y ago

Vice versa, people overestimating risk is likely what leads to them people being excessively scared of things that are relatively harmless. The Wiki page on micromorts [1] is pretty informative. A micromort is something that has a 1 in a million chance of fatality. One skydive exposes you to about 8 micromorts of risk. That's about the same risk as 80 miles of bicycling, 1900 miles of driving, or a bit less than your chance of being murdered in England within a year. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort