[tommytwotone]

As context - I did a "Ted talk" style thing on cognitive bias a couple of years ago. I thought it went really well but - well - you know...

 

Any online recording of this available TTT?

Fortunately not - but the link is still out there, including a picture of me looking a lot more relaxed than I actually was at the time:


https://www.meetup.com/Agile-in-Leeds/photos/27375954/455451773/#455451773


This is also an excellent diagram covering the multitude of stuff to go at if you want look more at cognitive bias in general:


https://medium.com/tradecraft-traction/flashcards-to-learn-168-cognitive-biases-4c37f3418f15

[SA Chris]

I've thought often about this and have come to the conclusion that a teenage boy's first few years of onsight trad climbing is a spectacularly dangerous time, during which the new climber is generally spectacularly unaware of the full gamut of risks they face.

This. Testosterone, ego, confidence of youth, the desire to impress a new social group, all combining into a fucking dangerous cocktail.

Certainly the case with me. Freely admit to not having a fucking clue for first 2 years or so. Desire to climb something totally outweighed any notion of safety.  Couple of days out I was very lucky to make it home from.

[IanP]

For a lap or two then let him go. I couldn’t cope with the feeling that at any moment it was about to go tits up. Not only from me but if he lost it chances were it would bring me down as well.
I also rode with him on the road in our local road race and I always made sure I never rode behind him in those.
[/quote]

That does sound strange, when I've ridden with relatively decent (youth/veteran racing) DH riders it's there smoothness while going at a pace that I can only keep up with at the ragged edge of my ability for a minute or less that always impresses.

[Stu Littlefair]

I'm sure it says something that almost all of us felt that we pushed our luck in our younger years, and that a combination of naivety, youth and peer pressure is potentially dangerous. And yet, examples of young lads actually coming to serious harm is, thankfully, rare.

[Oldmanmatt]

I'm sure it says something that almost all of us felt that we pushed our luck in our younger years, and that a combination of naivety, youth and peer pressure is potentially dangerous. And yet, examples of young lads actually coming to serious harm is, thankfully, rare.

On rock, yes.

One of my best mates, parked his motorcycle under a moving car, on his first ride, on his seventeenth birthday, terminally.
(I think the whole gang, if not the entire school year; grew-up ten years that week. If they didn’t then, they did by the end of the funeral).

[Stu Littlefair]

Grim.

I think some activities are much more risky than they appear and some much less. Climbing is probably the latter and motorised transport almost certainly the former.

[Paul B]

I'm sure it says something that almost all of us felt that we pushed our luck in our younger years, and that a combination of naivety, youth and peer pressure is potentially dangerous. And yet, examples of young lads actually coming to serious harm is, thankfully, rare.

This. Not that I've done anything particularly of note but I can remember soloing things and having rationalised it in my head as "I'd only break a leg or something". When I did hurt myself (messy leg break), it was in one of the safest, most controlled environments that exists (bouldering wall) and TBH I don't contemplate anything that has the slightest chance of a repeat, it was just too grim to be worth it.

I can also remember being in Yosemite on our 2013 tour. We'd spent most of May there and bore witness (from afar) to a few fatal accidents. One was a British climber, and we'd climbed the same route a matter of days beforehand. We went to do RNWF on Half Dome and came close when tying on to being struck by two falling rocks and I felt like it was all just becoming a bit of a lottery rather than a matter of skill and judgement.

[Will Hunt]

I'm sure it says something that almost all of us felt that we pushed our luck in our younger years, and that a combination of naivety, youth and peer pressure is potentially dangerous. And yet, examples of young lads actually coming to serious harm is, thankfully, rare.

This might say more about the efficacy of mountain rescue teams and the quality of trauma care in UK hospitals near climbing areas than about the level of risk that people expose themselves to.

I can think of about 5 times when I have personally been at the crag when a serious fuck up has occurred. On four of those occasions the injured party was 21 or under. In two of those cases I suspect belayer error. There's a big bias there because I spent much of my time aged between 18 and 25 or so climbing with a University climbing club. The people in that club at the time were actually pretty technically competent when it came to placing gear and setting up abseils etc. It was more often the decision making that got them into hot water. For instance, I broke my leg (femur) at Froggatt in December 2008. A contributing factor was that I made a choice to try Stiff Cheese (E2) instead of Chequer's Crack (HVS). I chose the poorer, harder route in part because we had a chart up in the living room of 20 Welton Mount that was tracking how many onsight E points we'd each ticked that year... I popped a couple of microwires in, blind, gave them a tug and then threw/dynoed for what looked like a good ledge but was actually a sloping shelf. I remember feeling the rope pull the wires out and thinking "uh oh". I was OK, but in retrospect that was an enormously cavalier thing to do. There may have been belayer error there (standing too far back) but ultimately it was my call whether to try and make the move or not and I didn't think twice. Had I been unlucky I could have punctured the femoral artery and then I'd definitely have been dead. Parent's lives in tatters, no marriage, no daughter, no more climbing, no more whatever else I've got to look forward to in the next 50 odd years. But when I went climbing then I hadn't really thought about how terrible that would be, to really appreciate the magnitude of the consequence of a big fuck-up. I think most people shut that out most of the time to be honest. If you thought about it too much you'd never leave the house, let alone go climbing, and what sort of life would that be?

[tomtom]

I'm sure it says something that almost all of us felt that we pushed our luck in our younger years, and that a combination of naivety, youth and peer pressure is potentially dangerous. And yet, examples of young lads actually coming to serious harm is, thankfully, rare.

To sort of build on Matts point - at the teenage years when you feel you are capable of almost anything it can lead to all sorts of strife. Whether that be soloing up something daft, drinking too much, taking too many pills, driving or being driven too fast.... and it’s men and women who both do this (wills quote mentions Lads - probably unintentionally).

If it’s riding a skateboard fast down a hill when you’re 13, downing a line of tequilas when 16 or just missing those wet drain covers when scraping the pegs on your motorbike... you’re completely in control - until you are not.

[teestub]

I can think of about 5 times when I have personally been at the crag when a serious fuck up has occurred.

Not to mention the countless near misses that go along with these, your successful solo of Birds Nest above more than the Cheetham approved number of mats being a prime example!

[Will Hunt]

I can think of about 5 times when I have personally been at the crag when a serious fuck up has occurred.

Not to mention the countless near misses that go along with these, your successful solo of Birds Nest above more than the Cheetham approved number of mats being a prime example!

I was wondering when you might recount this! 

[user deactivated]

Any injuries sustained deep foam soloing don’t count as going climbing lads

[user deactivated]

Not to mention pads tied off to gear on the rock face ffs

[Fiend]

You're worse than me FFS.

Didn't Jordan do that on an onsight of Dangerous Crocodile or something??

[teestub]

I was wondering when you might recount this! 

I thought you might be about to, totally forgetting that you’d actually spannered yourself!

[user deactivated]

You're worse than me FFS.

Didn't Jordan do that on an onsight of Dangerous Crocodile or something??

Aye, no disrespect to Jordan who is of course up there with the most accomplished grit meisters. But that looked to be more V7 than e7. Probably would have been better to have the rope running through the pad gear though and just hop off onto the mats

[Fultonius]

I think the closest I've had to really fucking up was climbing a big route above Grindelwald, late on in the second day we were working our way up 70 degree ice, trying to find the exit ramps up and left to the ridge line. We were moving together, putting the odd ice screw in between us. I was out front. Went to move leftwards up an icy ramp when my foot skittered on thin ice, which sheared off under my foot. Both my axes suddenly felt much less secure than they had a few moments before. While screaming to Graham "make yourself saaaafffeeeee" (which, in hindinsight would probably have done fuckall if I'd take a half rope length ride onto a single ice screw) I tried to reset my right axe, my left axe felt like it was working its way out.

5 years ago. I still feel quite anxious thinking about it now.

[SA Chris]

Didn't you and AI do something on Meggy that was collapsing as you climbed it?

Closest I've come is going off route on a winter climb in Glencoe, and scratching my way up a verglassed slab rather than abbing offf and finding the right way in fading light. I think it would have been injury rather than death, although a big clattering fall onto a snowy slope with winter tools would never be pretty. 

[duncan]

I've thought often about this and have come to the conclusion that a teenage boy's first few years of onsight trad climbing is a spectacularly dangerous time, during which the new climber is generally spectacularly unaware of the full gamut of risks they face.

This. Testosterone, ego, confidence of youth, the desire to impress a new social group, all combining into a fucking dangerous cocktail.

Certainly the case with me. Freely admit to not having a fucking clue for first 2 years or so. Desire to climb something totally outweighed any notion of safety.  Couple of days out I was very lucky to make it home from.

Only two years?! At least 6 for me, I still had delusions of control approaching 25. 

Grim.

I think some activities are much more risky than they appear and some much less. Climbing is probably the latter and motorised transport almost certainly the former.

Fortunately my Dad was an ex-biker who recognised his fortune in surviving 30s London's wooden cobbled streets and agreed to pay for car driving lessons if I promised not to get a motorbike. It's probably still true the long hours of driving too and from the crag represent some of the riskier things I do.

[petejh]

Bikes, wars, fights, climbs, cars and other 'stuff'.. I definitely should be dead but I'm glad I've experienced it all. Living a life as risk-free as possible would be no life worth living.

[Offwidth]

In such discussions it's best to look at what actually kills or seriously injures experienced climbers. For Yosemite (a place with much lower objective risks than big alpine routes), the results are surprising and as such Dills work is well worth digesting.

"80% of the fatalities and many injuries, were easily preventable. In case after case, ignorance, a casual attitude, and/or some form of distraction proved to be the most dangerous aspects of the sport."

https://www.friendsofyosar.org/climbing