Posted by Wayne on September 25, 2000 at 20:45:52:
In Reply to: Re: Independent or maybe interdependent posted by MHK on September 25, 2000 at 17:29:23:
Well, yes and no. You are one who has pushed the cause of DIR rather vocally out here. Frankly I like much of the DIR stuff. It is the narrow mindedness of some DIR proponents that bothers me. And occasionally I must admit to being frustrated in reading some of your posts when they became personal rather than factual. But I am the quick to admit that most of your writings that I have seen have been factual and informative.
If you saw yourself in my post, well I am sorry as I intended to refer to no individual.
I strongly believe that we as a dive community need to analyze safety factors in diving accidents. But in any post mortem investigation I believe in following the trail of facts with no preconcieved notions or biases. In my profession I often have to perform failure analysis. It is hard to do without taking my favorite stand and "proving" it with the facts. But if we do this, and argue the facts AGAINST every conclusion as vehemently as we do FOR the conclusion, it is helpful in weighting the contributions of the many variables that lead up to failure. This is as true in people as it is in hardware failures.
Proponents of Solo Diving (however defined and I like Ken's helping to provide common terminology for the discussion) need to use care in evaluating the facts as much as the Buddy Only proponents. Since none of us will ever be in exactly the same situation as the injured divers, we need to examine the many facets of the accident and see how our personal "style" of diving would have impacted the probability of the accident occuring in the first place and the eventual outcome. While I do not see myself changing gear configurations soon, I continue to learn better diving practices from all diving persuasions. It is this learing process that is important, as you pointed out.
It is my fear that much of the good that can come from DIR will be diluted because SOME of the advocates of DIR believe they have the only way to dive. They then fail to take from the rest of the community what they have to offer. This will surely limit the knowledge base if only the opinions of DIR gurus are listened to.
Diving predated me and will be around long after you and I are gone. I just hope that during my diving life I can assist the occasional newbie or oldster in finding new, better, safer ways of enjoying the aquatic environment. Life is short, so I dive gently. And I try to speak softly and wear a loud shirt!
Wayne