Risk, Skydiving & Fatalism

[Trae 1]

in reply to "- If fatalism is fact should we stop worrying about risk mitigation and enjoy ourselves?
- Is fatalism a form of dillisionment, mental illness or coping mechanism in dealing with death and should it be treated?
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Thought provoking stuff.

reminds me of the truism-- " negative fore-thought is the birthplace of paranoia".

Perhaps we get what we wish for -consciously or unconsciously.. part of our creating things/situations depends on our headspace. think bad make bad think good make good. (?)

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"If somoeone is taking un-necessary or extraordinary risk is their belief structure based on fatalism and therefore the risk argument redundant and what "means" of preventing them killing themselves is available? "
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.. don't think so. some of the most risky things can make a person feel the most alive. most skydivers know what its like to be called crazy by whoofos . risk is assessed differently by different people. many BASE jumpers know what its like to be called crazy by skydivers.

Instead of belief structures being based on fatalism the exact opposite may be true. What constitutes 'risk' and 'excessive' is a personal judgement call that is going to look different to observers than the doers.

[BIGUN 1,399]

Quote

Take a guy who likes to open at 2,000 feet. He knows it is riskier than opening at 3,000 feet, but believes he has the skill to deal with whatever problem might occur. That belief may be based on some level of personal experience opening at that altitude, or it may be that he is assessing his perceived skill against the skill level of others who have opened at 2,000 feet. The same goes for a jumper who sometimes likes to open at 1,000 feet. Or lower.

Case in point - me. In 1983, I was a relatively new skydiver with some 100ish skydives. When I was straphanging to fill a load and doing solos (on a PC), I would pull at 1,000'. Several people told me I needed to stop doing that and I blew them off. The DZO (Bill Campbell) was told by other more experienced skydivers what I was doing and he told me to knock it off or he'd ground me. The next day, I did it again and he grounded me for the weekend. I didn't understand "why not to do," I was just told, "what not to do."

The next weekend, it just so happened we had a MassTAC military jump at Davis field in Muskogee and I (having just finished Jumpmaster School earlier that year) was tasked with being the Senior Jumpmaster towards getting my Master Blaster wings. So here we are, 1200 something SF guys who'd just flown in - standing on Davis field, me on the podium giving the MACO briefing. As I'm giving the MACO briefing, I see Bill in the back listening and watching (with several other skydivers; including former Black Hat, Curly Roe).

After the MACO briefing, I made a quick dash over and shook their hands and said "Hi." Bill said, "Next time you're home and come out to make a jump, let's talk." So, next time I go to the DZ, I waited till Bill had some lull time and said, "You wanted to talk?" He took me off to the side and we sat down. He told something along the lines of (paraphrasing), "I get it. Now, you need to get it."

[paraphrasing] He began to explain that he understood that my frame of reference was getting out at 1250' (at some point Curly walked over and joined)... And, I was like, "Yeah, Bill, you grounded me for 1000', but I get out of the plane all the time at 1250' and 800' at night with a whole bunch of shit strapped to me, I don't get why you got so pissed at me for pulling at a grand." Curly pipes in with his Okie drawl and gets all fucking logical on me and they start drawing in the dirt. And the class began... Now, when you were in Jumpmaster school, you learnt about calculating forward throw, right? Yes. And, you learnt to count to four, right, Yes. OK, let's take a look at the difference between forward throw at 1250' at 125 MPH horizontally. Now, let's take a look at the difference between forward throw at 800' at 125 MPH horizontally. Now, let's take a look at terminal velocity at 1000' at 120 MPH vertically and the difference your four count means in all three cases.... Something clicked...Oh Fuck!!

So, back to nigel99's point... Before that discussion, I had a frame of reference and was engaged in determinism. Had I continued the same behaviors after the class, that would have been fatalism. I "think" Nigel's point being, that those who have some frame of reference (I'm a pilot, hanglider, parasailer, etc.) who downsize too quickly based on previous life experiences, BUT are "told" that what they are doing with a highly elliptical, highly loaded canopy, without training or a canopy class, without the experience of downsizing, without having gone thru Billvon's downsizing checklist, etc. AND have been "sat down" continue in the same behaviors shift from determinism to fatalism.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.