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Drunk driver, war, etc. Am I callous to believe that the two are not equally deserving of our empathy? I've always thought that a good comparison was drug addi

Drunk driver, war, etc. Am I callous to believe that the two are not equally deserving of our empathy? I've always thought that a good comparison was drug addiction. Ultimately, what's the difference between someone who engages in high-risk extreme sports and someone who just sits at home doing meth in the basement? They are both doing dangerous, unnecessary things to manipulate their brain chemistry, without creating or learning anything useful or affecting anything in the larger world around them. Why is one considered heroic and adventurous, and the other criminal or at best pathetic? I'm not saying that pleasure-seeking for its own sake is inherently bad or wrong, but how would you compare and contrast the behavior of a drug addict and a high-risk climber, if you were explaining it to an alien anthropologist?

foldingmoney 1y ago
>I'm not saying that pleasure-seeking for its own sake is inherently bad or wrong, but how would you compare and contrast the behavior of a drug addict and a high-risk climber, if you were explaining it to an alien anthropologist? the argument is probably that today's extreme sports risk takers were last epoch's explorers who helped humanity conquer the planet.
- CamperBob2 1y ago
  I'd be willing to buy that if she had died while diving in an unexplored cave system, for instance, working to bring us knowledge and insights about nature that we didn't already have. But there was nothing left to discover on that mountain peak, except how much frostbite sucks.
afthonos 1y ago
I find the analogy quite apt. I have known drug addicts who I thought were recovered, but who could not fathom simply going to work and then going home to their families every night. They thought that was an incredibly boring life. Predictably, they relapsed. They could’ve caused significantly less stress to their families and loved ones by having more socially acceptable thrillseeking methods.
fatbird 1y ago
In general I agree with you, but a counterexample to our rejection of their supposed heroism (and ascription of it to brain-chemistry-seeking identical to heroin addiction) is Alex Honnold [0], famous for his free solo of El Capitan in Yosemite. There's an excellent documentary on him, Free Solo [1], where it's very clear that he's neuro-diverse and that extreme climbing efforts put him into the zone, calming and focussing him. There's zero machismo to it. For him, it's an act of supreme, extended concentration. I suppose in some sense it's still just manipulating one's own brain chemistry, but it seems a very distinct kind from adrenaline junkies. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Honnold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Honnold [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Solo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Solo
- CamperBob2 1y ago
  I do tend to agree that Honnold is an exception to the "why don't they just do drugs" argument. He's teaching us that we can do things we didn't think we could do, and I have to believe there's real value there. He's genuinely inspirational. Climbing some random mountain in Russia, though... that's not "Holy fuck, what's this guy made of?!" but "Yeah, a bunch of other people already did that, and it was cool, I guess, except for the ones that died."
- alex1138 1y ago
  You didn't say it outright so this is not me correcting you specifically, but there's this semi-myth that "Honnold doesn't feel fear because that region of his brain is smaller than everyone else's". He, at least, disputes this. He feels fear but he knows how to focus it, and it's a combination of some kind of innate talent and conditioning as he's put himself in scary situations before Not quite the same, but Youtuber Ally Law (known for climbing cranes and tall structures) started doing it specifically because he used to be terrified of heights and now seems to not have a problem with it
BurningFrog 1y ago
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talkingtab 1y ago
Life is for living silly bear. I cannot imagine anything worse than getting to the end of your life and finally realizing you never lived it. That you wasted this once in a live time experience. But that is just me.
- vincnetas 1y ago
  are you planning to try meth before you die?
  - stavros 1y ago
    Right before.
golemiprague 1y ago
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microtherion 1y ago
I suspect high risk extreme sports are in fact worse, as they seem to require a constant ramp-up of the risk, and there does not seem to be any detox mechanism (other than old age) that would allow one to reset the required risk. There is an appalling number of people in these sports who die young, e.g. Ueli Steck (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ueli_Steck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ueli_Steck), recently Felix Baumgartner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Baumgartner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Baumgartner). Many of them had already see friends and family die in these sports (as had Natalia Nagovitsyna), so it's not like they were not aware of the dangers.

foldingmoney 1y ago

>I'm not saying that pleasure-seeking for its own sake is inherently bad or wrong, but how would you compare and contrast the behavior of a drug addict and a high-risk climber, if you were explaining it to an alien anthropologist? the argument is probably that today's extreme sports risk takers were last epoch's explorers who helped humanity conquer the planet.

CamperBob2 1y ago
I'd be willing to buy that if she had died while diving in an unexplored cave system, for instance, working to bring us knowledge and insights about nature that we didn't already have. But there was nothing left to discover on that mountain peak, except how much frostbite sucks.

afthonos 1y ago

I find the analogy quite apt. I have known drug addicts who I thought were recovered, but who could not fathom simply going to work and then going home to their families every night. They thought that was an incredibly boring life. Predictably, they relapsed. They could’ve caused significantly less stress to their families and loved ones by having more socially acceptable thrillseeking methods.

fatbird 1y ago

In general I agree with you, but a counterexample to our rejection of their supposed heroism (and ascription of it to brain-chemistry-seeking identical to heroin addiction) is Alex Honnold [0], famous for his free solo of El Capitan in Yosemite. There's an excellent documentary on him, Free Solo [1], where it's very clear that he's neuro-diverse and that extreme climbing efforts put him into the zone, calming and focussing him. There's zero machismo to it. For him, it's an act of supreme, extended concentration. I suppose in some sense it's still just manipulating one's own brain chemistry, but it seems a very distinct kind from adrenaline junkies. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Honnold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Honnold [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Solo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Solo

CamperBob2 1y ago
I do tend to agree that Honnold is an exception to the "why don't they just do drugs" argument. He's teaching us that we can do things we didn't think we could do, and I have to believe there's real value there. He's genuinely inspirational. Climbing some random mountain in Russia, though... that's not "Holy fuck, what's this guy made of?!" but "Yeah, a bunch of other people already did that, and it was cool, I guess, except for the ones that died."
alex1138 1y ago
You didn't say it outright so this is not me correcting you specifically, but there's this semi-myth that "Honnold doesn't feel fear because that region of his brain is smaller than everyone else's". He, at least, disputes this. He feels fear but he knows how to focus it, and it's a combination of some kind of innate talent and conditioning as he's put himself in scary situations before Not quite the same, but Youtuber Ally Law (known for climbing cranes and tall structures) started doing it specifically because he used to be terrified of heights and now seems to not have a problem with it

BurningFrog 1y ago

[dead]

talkingtab 1y ago

Life is for living silly bear. I cannot imagine anything worse than getting to the end of your life and finally realizing you never lived it. That you wasted this once in a live time experience. But that is just me.

vincnetas 1y ago
are you planning to try meth before you die?
- stavros 1y ago
  Right before.

golemiprague 1y ago

[dead]

microtherion 1y ago

I suspect high risk extreme sports are in fact worse, as they seem to require a constant ramp-up of the risk, and there does not seem to be any detox mechanism (other than old age) that would allow one to reset the required risk. There is an appalling number of people in these sports who die young, e.g. Ueli Steck (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ueli_Steck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ueli_Steck), recently Felix Baumgartner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Baumgartner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Baumgartner). Many of them had already see friends and family die in these sports (as had Natalia Nagovitsyna), so it's not like they were not aware of the dangers.