UKC Simpson statement

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alx said:
Your sponsorship is in essence based upon you performing high profile work. Is being paid for work that isn't performed considered fraud?

I've always understood that sponsorship is grossly based on your ability to make them sell more equipement, because people see a pic/vid of you wearing that shoe/harness/tshirt/rope/whatever on your 9c, and they know/think you've climbed a 9c, and/or they think you're really cool, so they unconsciously think that if they buy that shoe/harness/tshirt/rope/whatever, they will get marginally closer to climbing 9c and/or being as cool as you.
(and in the end, they buy that shoe/harness/tshirt/rope/whatever).

in that perspective, paradoxically, a totally false/inflated achievement that is believed by most as true has more value that a true achievement that's believed by most as false!!!
 
Ru said:
chummer said:
Ru, by 'history books' I mean it as a generalisation for all that is written on climbing ascents whether that be on the internet, in the history sections in guides, or in other publications. Of course it's up the guide writer but I personally don't think it's an irrelevency.

I meant that it was an irrelevancy for most guides as they don't have lists of ascentionists anyway. Clearly it's not an irrelevancy for the few that want to include this information, but then the writers will make a judgement call as they do already.

There's also his first ascents and the question of whether all of his ascents without evidence will be doubted now when written about.

My point is that there has been lots of fuss about the "historical record" when in actual fact the "record" is just a few trainspotter blokes like me who will do exactly the same thing when writing books and articles as we've always done. Which is to do a bit of googling, a bit of ringing round, then writing whatever we feel like afterwards.
To know what will count as the historical record, look at what represents the historical record of the past. As well as mags and guidebooks there are biographies, films, broader historical texts such as Welsh Rock and of course oral history. Nowadays it includes the forums and the news/articles on various websites.
Yes the creation of any media boils down to an individual making judgement calls and this is entirely the point. It is much easier and infinitely less contentious if such calls can be made from a position of knowledge rather than ignorance. If climbers at large are aware of what is known they can form their own opinions from this, otherwise the entire onus falls on the writer/film maker. In the absence of open discussion, said trainspotter bloke will likely verify any ascent regardless of its veracity. And what if Mr trainspotter, after ‘a bit of googling, a bit of ringing round’ does come across something dodgy? Do you seriously think he’s likely to go out on a limb and be the one to voice what everyone else is busily sweeping under the carpet?
When I read about Joe Brown, Colin Kirkus or whoever, I’d like to think the writing reflects the facts known and opinions help by climbers at the time, not some prettified version put about to keep the peace at the time.
I don’t think it’s helpful for the climbing community to avoid subjects just so we can all keep bobbling along in happy-happy-joy-joy land.
I do think that the discussion specific to RS has run its course. Though locking another topic on the subject seems pointless and counter productive to me. What is worth discussing is how to avoid the same shit happening again and again and….
 
Bonjoy said:
When I read about Joe Brown, Colin Kirkus or whoever, I’d like to think the writing reflects the facts known and opinions help by climbers at the time, not some prettified version put about to keep the peace at the time.

Dream on.

As an example of myths in the making I thought the following was gold dust:

by - Al Evans on - 10 Dec 2010
In reply to Monk: I used to be able to do three one arm pull-ups with either hand (it's actually not difficult if you train for them) but then along came Steve Bancroft who could do one arm pull ups on a single finger, as I remember , any finger!

This had me evaluating Bancroft in a different light then...

by - steve webster on - 10 Dec 2010 In reply to Al Evans:
although this has nothing to do with this thread.steve could not do one finger pull ups,he could barely manage a one armer.he was one of the climbers weakest stregth wise when he lived in leeds.
:lol:

Another example was the chockstone on Right Eliminate. Everyone banged on about the historical importance and it turned out Joe Brown hadn't placed but it was added later in the 70's.
 
Bonjoy said:
I do think that the discussion specific to RS has run its course. Though locking another topic on the subject seems pointless and counter productive to me. What is worth discussing is how to avoid the same shit happening again and again and….

shark is right, bullshit and climbing have always gone hand in hand and every generation has it's dodgy characters. However I also agree with Bonjoy that the above is worth discussing. Why does it seem to be so easy for bullshitters to prosper and what can be done about it? I have absolutely no idea what the answer is though.
 
Fair point Shark, I did only say ‘I’d like to think’. Anyway, regardless of the past, my point remains, the less turd polishing that goes into literature the better.
 
Jaspersharpe said:
shark is right, bullshit and climbing have always gone hand in hand and every generation has it's dodgy characters. However I also agree with Bonjoy that the above is worth discussing. Why does it seem to be so easy for bullshitters to prosper and what can be done about it? I have absolutely no idea what the answer is though.

Harry Frankfurt : On Bullshit (I've got a book verison of this and its a load of crap a very good read).

Its an attempt to define what bullshit is and its application.

There is this excellent paragraph on truth/lying/bullshit...

[quote author="Harry Frankfurt"]
It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.[/quote]
 
It's way off topic now (or maybe the problem of historical accuracy is the new topic) but I'm not sure about your gold dust stuff Shark. I don't see the Al Evans and Webbo quotes as being contradictory, for two reasons: firstly, if I remember it right Bancroft did get a bit stronger in the fingers towards the end of halcyon days - see FAs of Castellan and Narcissus in 1976. Secondly, I think Al Evans was referring to one finger wrapped through a sling or a loop rather than draped on a campus rung or similar. The former is a lot easier.

I'm also a little skeptical of the second example you cite - that discussion of chockstones and Right Eliminate. It's my experience that Brown and his generation enjoyed teasing others and spinning tales - not in any kind of RS way, more around the edges and for the fun of it on the whole (their big achievements are not in doubt) - especially when asked about it by admirers or later generations.
 
What was the Brown quote about his inventing jamming? Something like 'the fact that we didn't make any such claims didn't stop others making them for us'?
 
Jaspersharpe said:
Why does it seem to be so easy for bullshitters to prosper and what can be done about it? I have absolutely no idea what the answer is though.

I think the answer has arrived.

My experience is that the majority of people the majority of the time are honest in their dealings. I also thing that it is a healthy thing to be generally trusting. Suspiscion breeds suspiscion and if people are generally perceived to be breaking the rules then it in turn encourgaes cheating for those who wouldnt otherwise as after all what is the incentive to be honest if everyone is at it ? Also it makes for a nicer world. I think this is how things are and should remain in climbing.

However, and I think this high profile case with Simpson will help enormously, if there are anomolies that give rise to doubt then asking for and being supplied with evidence should be an unemotionally charged transaction. I am of course talking about high profile claims rather than what somebody said they did on the Wave last wednesday. If nothing else is salvaged from the Simpson car crash then raising the notion more generally that it is conceivable that top athletes may be bullshitting is likely to put observers on a more heightened sense of alert for anomolies and have greater weight/authority when requesting evidence - well for this generation anyway. Top climbing performers will no doubt also be more likely to ensure they have evidence to hand for these eventualities too.
 
John Gillott said:
I'm also a little skeptical of the second example you cite - that discussion of chockstones and Right Eliminate. It's my experience that Brown and his generation enjoyed teasing others and spinning tales - not in any kind of RS way, more around the edges and for the fun of it on the whole (their big achievements are not in doubt) - especially when asked about it by admirers or later generations.

He signed a questionnaire confirming there was no chockstone. My take in my dealings with Brown is he as straight as an arrow albeit not having the perfect recall. Perrin also said that he (Perrin) effectively soloed RE as there was no chockstone.
 
Maybe RS was the last of a generation who could get away (for a long time) with making stuff up? Already the expectation (from both public and sponsors) has shifted and anyone who hasn't got FA photos on their blog or a video would instantly raise suspicion. In the world of HA mountaineering, unless you have photographic proof, you may as well not bother publicising your ascent.
 
T_B said:
In the world of HA mountaineering, unless you have photographic proof, you may as well not bother publicising your ascent.

You'd be gutted if your batteries died then!
 
I see your point there Ru, well made. I suppose I just want that 'mush of stuff' to be as accurate as possible but I guess it can only say what is based on evidence of which there is none. So to conclude, the only conclusion you can draw is that all of his unproven ascents are to be recorded with a hefty element of doubt. Full stop, finito, fucking shame, but he's only got himself to blame as my mother used to say. (not that Simpsons had ount to do with my mother, allegedly)

The one good thing that may come out of this is that any bullshitters or potential bullshitters may think twice before bullshitting and those that don't may do a little more to prove they aren't.

That's got to be it now eh?
 
Excuse the long winded post. By the time I’d written it a lot of the points had already been made, but I can’t be arsed to edit it down now.

I think there are reasons why this happens time and again and trying to address these might reduce the chances of recurrences.
Some of the reasons why climbing has historically been a fertile breeding ground for liars?
1. Climbing is as much a way of life as a sport and as such is done by individuals for entirely individual reasons. I think many consider the seeking of verification as an intrusion and an insult with no part in our noble pastime. Some seem to believe this to such an extent that they refuse to accept that anyone could possibly abuse this trust, or that protecting the code of trust is so precious that a few liars and cheats is a price worth paying. Ironically it is this three wise monkeys approach which leads to the messy divisive splurges which periodically happen (see point 3). Nobody particularly wants to ask their mate “who belayed you on X route?”. And once an aura of doubt surrounds a particular climber this question becomes even less attractive as it tends to label the asker as doubtful. Obviously this difficulty can easily be exploited by anyone seeking to fabricate ascents.
2. The climbing media and sponsors, in reflection of climbers’ attitudes have taken ascents on trust as a matter of principal too. There is rarely any fact checking. Therefore issues only surface (usually in a messy explosion) when a large amount of grassroots noise about a climber forces someone out of silence. By which time the proverbial horse has bolted.
3. Once a ‘doubt’ does surface the nature of it’s emergence has placed the burden of proof on the ‘doubter’ at least initially, rather than the ‘doubted’. Doubters generally have been given a very rough ride for daring to speak out. As it’s not really possible to prove a negative in most cases, the doubter is often then shot down with egg on their face. The whole doubter v doubted game seems to place the doubted party on an apparent moral high ground which is easily exploited to avoid scrutiny.
4. Subsequent to any attempts to clarify matters regarding doubted claims the climbing media has then tended to back up the unbalanced nature of the challenge/response. Either for fear of libel accusation or fear of appearing tawdry, they have tended to take the easy line, at best ignoring the subject, more often shutting down discussion in a way which looks to the world like support for the doubted.


How could things be different?
1. Climbers could accept that some elements of climbing are in fact as much a sport as for instance athletics. Once this acceptance is made then it stands to reason that for top level achievements a basic amount of verification should be the norm. Not for every ascent but for sufficient to give credit to the rest. Crucially the onus should be on the climber to provide this and failure to do so will leave the burden of proof firmly in the hands of the doubted should any questions arise.
2. Any source of climbing news could ask a basic set of questions of any ascent and provide the answers or lack of as a standard part of the news. Date, belayer/spotter, witnessed/unwitnessed, film/no film, etc. By making this a basic, standard part of news processing it takes the poison out of the question as everyone will be asked the same questions and won’t feel singled out. There is no temptation for fantasists to build a portfolio because it will appear hollow from the outset.
3. Hopefully 1 and 2 would greatly reduce the likelyhood of an internet fact finding debacle, but should one arise it should be easy to either dismiss the doubt, or failing that it would be the norm that it’s the responsibility of the climber to back their own story.
4. Clear news standards should make it easy for websites/mags to dismiss the obvious (hopefully very rare) fantasists and hence avoid having to make tricky calls about moderating/pulling critical threads.

Not rocket science really
 
John Gillott said:
It's way off topic now (or maybe the problem of historical accuracy is the new topic) but I'm not sure about your gold dust stuff Shark. I don't see the Al Evans and Webbo quotes as being contradictory, for two reasons: firstly, if I remember it right Bancroft did get a bit stronger in the fingers towards the end of halcyon days - see FAs of Castellan and Narcissus in 1976. Secondly, I think Al Evans was referring to one finger wrapped through a sling or a loop rather than draped on a campus rung or similar. The former is a lot easier.

I'm also a little skeptical of the second example you cite - that discussion of chockstones and Right Eliminate. It's my experience that Brown and his generation enjoyed teasing others and spinning tales - not in any kind of RS way, more around the edges and for the fun of it on the whole (their big achievements are not in doubt) - especially when asked about it by admirers or later generations.
billy bancroft lived in leeds when he did the f.a. of narcissus and castellan so its not a case of him getting stronger after he left leeds.as i spent most of 1976 and 77 down the old leeds wall practicing one armers on the pocket above the door with steve and chris the flash i reckon i've more idea about this than mr evans plus given his history i wouldn't trust his memory.
 
Interesting - thanks. The magazine and guidebook write-ups of the first ascent of Castellan (the moves through the overhang, or the way it was done at that point at any rate) suggested a bit of a breakthrough for Bancroft: press hype perhaps?
 


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