Quote:
Originally Posted by Onkel Neal
Nope, not buying it. What's next? Drop a case of sharp knives off a ledge above you and see if you can dodge them all? It's just stupid. You've heard of the Darwin Awards, right?  |
Darwin Awards are for people taking daring risks while being too stupid to realise that they are taking a daring risk; or for doing something stupid that gets them killed while not seeing the chance that it could kill them.
He knew what he was doing. Not my cup of tea, I would never overcome my fear to try such a thing like him, or Baumgartner. But he overcame his fear, and that is the achievement.
Finally, and that is what ultimately decides this action, he did not put anybody at risk, he did not play with the lives of others. His wife supported him, and being such a star in his business that he is, I take it that he has done what was needed to secure his family financially in case he did not survive.
You see, I'm the type of guy who would not at
any cost try to prevent somebody committing suicide with a pistol, or pills. I would try my share to make sure that he is not just in a deranged state of mind, suffers some mental disease, or is choosing a method that also would affect others. Jumping before a train is unacceptable, putting a bullet into your head is. In principle I leave everybody the right to decide over his life all by himself, and if somebody decides that it has been enough on this world for him, that is to be accepted, and must not even be morally commented, that would just be presumptuous.
And so, people also are free to take risks - if potential costs are at their costs indeed, not at the costs of anyone else. Your risk taken must be your risk, and yours alone.
You see, by now I have done several hundred laps on the Nordschleife - a laserscanned, highly accurate simulation representation of it. I know it inside out, and I can move a car around it quite fast,
in a sim. Without taking any risks. Whether I would be able to do that in a real car, when the pucker factor drives its teeth into my mind and fear sits in my neck and my mind knows that any crash would not be cured by hitting the reset button - that is what differs a jump off a plane with a parachute on and aiming for a small landing zone - or hitting that landing zone while jumping off a plane
without a parachute. This little difference - no safety, no second chances, no reset buttons - makes all the difference.