[vertex-four]

Taken to the extreme, your suggestion would be to never drive a car (or indeed go anywhere near a public road), as that is one of the most dangerous things we do every day. Travelling for a holiday would be a definite no-no, as it's likely more dangerous than staying at home. And so on and so forth.

[Chris2048]

> Taken to the extreme

True, so let's not take to the extreme. Risk-adversion is a quantitative, not qualitative, practise.

I'm not saying minimising risk is the only goal in life, but avoiding very high risks is - do you think cave diving is no riskier than driving a car on the motorway?

[vertex-four]

In that case, we have to define "very high risks" - is it literally just anything more dangerous than driving? if so, why do we stop at driving, why couldn't we be safer? - and then compare "number of cave divers" vs "number of deaths", and then figure out the subcategories of cave divers who're most likely to die and figure out whether this theoretical person falls into them, and so on and so forth.

Taking a specific incident and combining it with "that sounds dangerous" is not likely to come up with anything meaningful.

[Chris2048]

Well, that was an example, not a proposal to an official risk limit.

But maybe - you'd need a proper analysis of the relative risk. Isn't that done with cars/driving? All sorts of vehicle legislation may be driven (npi) by driving incident data / risk analysis.

> Taking a specific incident and combining it with "that sounds dangerous"

I'm not. I think it sounds dangerous before this specific incident. But you are right - a meaningful, proper analysis would be appropriate. I'm not saying my suggestion is enough, I am saying, maybe something formal would be appropriate.

[eric_h]

> a meaningful, proper analysis would be appropriate

Maybe you should just base it on what a given repetitive activity does to your life insurance premiums.

[gpawl]

http://www.insuranceclarity.com/life/life-insurance-extreme-...

OP is between "extra premium" and "cannot get coverage"

[mauvehaus]

This is a pet peeve as a climber. The article lists "free climbing" as something that an insurer might refuse to cover. This is most likely incorrect, as the immediately preceding section suggests it would cost you an extra $1500 a year if you engage in rock climbing.

The bit that's incorrect here is that "free climbing" encompasses many forms of rock climbing. "Free" in the context of "free climbing" means that vertical progress is made solely by climbing the rock itself.

This is as compared to "aid climbing", wherein vertical progress may be made by affixing some form of gear to the rock, and climbing said gear, or something attached to it.

The article most likely means that if you free solo, you're uninsurable. Solo in this case meaning, without a partner to catch your falls.

E.T.A. Note also the existence of "aid soloing", and "rope soloing", both of which are done without a partner, but with varying degrees of gear in place to catch you should you fall.

Also note that absent the qualification of "soloing", rock climbing is generally understood among climbers to mean the kind that is done with a partner and a rope. Among climbers, bouldering is understood to include climbing routes of low height ("problems") without the protection of a rope, but generally with the protection of a crash pad (big foam thing to land on).

[cafebabbe]

Anything taken to the extreme is stupid. What's the point exactly ?

[vertex-four]

The point is mostly to show that we consider a lot of things "safe" that are actually really dangerous. We then do those things with absolutely no regard to the people around us. But as soon as someone does something different that's dangerous to pretty much any degree, people start to care. It makes no sense.

[fulafel]

Not driving a car is good advice for other reasons.