[kthxb]

His "straight line missions" on YouTube are really entertaining. The concept (crossing some piece of land in a completely straight line) is simple, but leads to quite some interesting challenges in practice. His brillant story-telling makes the videos very compelling.

[TigeriusKirk]

A lot of the fun comes from how unqualified he is for such journeys. He's just a regular dude who puts in some preparation. It would be a lot less interesting if he was some sort of trained survivalist or even just a hardcore outdoorsman.

Probably because he's English I think of his missions like Bilbo marching off to the Lonely Mountain. No idea what's he's in for, but he'll make it fun in the telling of it.

[sandworm101]

Those great 18th and 19th century stories of rambling into the unknown are definitively English. The ability to walk across land without worry of being attacked (by man or beast) is because of England's strong legal and social rules, and that every predator larger than a badger was killed off long ago. At most you could expect an angry farmer, but more likely you would be seen as just another rambler. Try that in 18th century Africa, Asia or even North America and it would not have ended well.

[thaumasiotes]

> The ability to walk across land without worry of being attacked (by man or beast) is because of England's strong legal and social rules, and that every predator larger than a badger was killed off long ago. At most you could expect an angry farmer, but more likely you would be seen as just another rambler. Try that in 18th century Africa, Asia or even North America and it would not have ended well.

Perhaps not in 18th century Asia, but this was a very commonly noted feature of the Pax Mongolica in 13th- and 14th-century Asia. People remarked at the time that even women traveling alone would remain unmolested.

[sandworm101]

Maybe for the rich people. Average people living under pax Mongolia were not free to move about without good reason. Similar statements have been made about Tokugawa Japan; all those stories about wandering samurai. The reality is that while crime was under control only those with social station or government permission were allowed to move about, and then only along prescribed paths/means. England overcame this with the demise of feudal systems. Only then could literally anyone be allowed to walk across the country.

[BurningFrog]

Probably the travel ban for lower classes is part of how you create Pax Mongolia.

[thaumasiotes]

> Average people living under pax Mongolia were not free to move about without good reason.

The legal situation varied, but regardless of the legalities there was no structure in place to enforce this.

> England overcame this with the demise of feudal systems.

Note that at around this time, England started passing laws that prohibited serfs from leaving their ancestral lands, and the reason the laws were suddenly passed is that the serfs had suddenly begun to leave. The laws had no effect on whether the serfs could leave, though; feudalism fell apart because the general population structure stopped supporting it.

[thaumasiotes]

> all those stories about wandering samurai

I don't understand this reference; wandering samurai ("ronin") are bandits, the problem to be suppressed.

[sandworm101]

Ronin are masterless. A samurai with a master could also travel. Many of the stories are about perfectly legitimate samurai getting into adventures while wandering. Or they are about chasing down personal vendettas that involve lots of autonomous travel.

[avgcorrection]

One of his videos had some don’t try this yourself disclaimer (it was a particular straight line video where they faced a lot of challenges), which confused me. Is he really some kind of professional (at something outdoorsey)? Because that’s what that kind of a disclaimer seems to imply, or the way I tend to interpret it.

[anamexis]

He got into some hot water with the police at one point for crossing an active railway. Adding the disclaimer may have been part of his informal "plea deal," so to speak.

[2b3a51]

Trespass on the railway is a crime in the UK and attracts a significant fine. It is also dangerous especially in the middle of the green belt as train speeds increase (up to 100+mph on a track with gentle curves and trees both sides limiting forward visibility for driver). Suburban commuter tracks sometimes have third/fourth rail traction current (e.g. London Underground network which has extensive overground sections, Merseyrail). 630v/750v not to be trifled with. Most UK people know this and rail fences are well maintained.

Writers such as Iain Sinclair and similar who do performative walks actually build the detours round obstacles into the report of the walk as a kind of comment on land use. Entertaining and prudent.

As others have said, medical bills not an issue for UK people. Civil cases of the kind mentioned in this sub-thread don't seem to occur.

[kzrdude]

He's crossing a lot of people's fields and some gardens and jumping railway tracks. He probably cuts a lot of the sensitive stuff out more by now. I think his thing with this will be untenable or maybe even is as he gets more famous, it's just a legal boundary-line issue that doesn't work if it gets attention.

[isbvhodnvemrwvn]

If you look at similar videos, there's a number of people who try to mimic what he does. Often kids, and with much less preparation than he does.

[reificator]

If he gets hurt in these videos he'll accrue some medical bills.

If some number of kids watch his videos and get hurt mimicking them, he'll accrue a bunch of lawsuits to cover their medical bills.

Putting the disclaimer implies nothing but a well-founded fear of frivolous lawsuits.

[avgcorrection]

UK law says that he’s liable for that?

Now he did put a disclaimer on one of his videos. But in many other videos he’s been talking about this kind of mission as if it might be something that the viewer might wanna do herself. “If you’re planning a straight-line mission…” Stuff like that. So he might not have been encouraging it, but he has been talking as if his videos might inspire the viewer to do them themselves.

[tomgp]

my wife’s family has a new year day tradition of doing a straight line walk. great fun and revealing re physical and human geography. Parts of Wales and the North can be physically difficult but are generally doable if you don’t mind crawling through a hedgerow whereas walks in much of the south east (even in what is ostensibly the countryside) are basically impossible.

[tshaddox]

It almost doesn’t matter what the subject matter of his straight line mission videos happens to be (although it’s fascinating subject matter in its own right). There is a stunningly high level of craft readily apparent in those videos. He and his team (if there’s a team) are clearly very talented storytellers and filmmakers.