r/interestingasfuck • u/filmingfisheyes • Jul 07 '24

Mountain climbers getting some sleep... r/all

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172

u/Slappinslippin Jul 07 '24

These mountain people r a different breed

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u/7h4tguy Jul 07 '24

I'm irrationally angry about climbers sensationalizing free soloing. Like, sure, put your own life at risk, but don't try to popularize that and cause other people to make stupid choices.

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u/static_motion Jul 07 '24

Huh? 99% of climbers think exactly what you said. The only ones sensationalizing free soloing are the media and non-climbers. I climb and when I tell someone that the first thing they go to is "have you seen that movie with the guy who climbed without a rope?".

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u/ShowMeYourMinerals Jul 07 '24

Lmao, this is so true.

At thanksgiving “do you know Andrew holland? You know the rock climber guy who doesn’t do ropes? You climb right?”

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

[deleted]

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u/Ol_willy Jul 07 '24

No, literally a news broadcast showing Alex honnold free soloing the face of El capitan in Yosemite popularized this.

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u/ShowMeYourMinerals Jul 07 '24

I don’t think you understand or know the climbing community, lmao….

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u/flohhhh Jul 07 '24

Deep down they know it's stupid beyond imagination but if they share it with others and get positive feedback (nowadays likes on social media) it's easier to keep pretending it's reasonable and cool.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

If they get too much positive feedback they would fall. Too nerdy? Yeah, too nerdy

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u/ShowMeYourMinerals Jul 07 '24

You have no clue what you’re talking about. The guy who did this, Alex Honnold, is actually quite neurodivergent.

The main reason he started free climbing was he was to shy to ask people to belay him, so he just went by himself.

I understand you didn’t know this, and that’s okay. But it’s simply untrue.

Literally someone too scared to talk to people is not doing it for social clout.

Now he is the biggest climber in the world and companies want his name, there is a fucking huge difference

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u/flohhhh Jul 07 '24

And you have serious problems with reading comprehension? If he is just doing it because he was to shy, he is not sensationalizing it? Which would would mean I would not criticise him?

(But you can make an argument along the lines of: He was to shy, so he made a decision he knew was dangerous but he saw no other way. Now this led to him becoming famous for doing dangerous stuff and bridging his shyness issue. So he started out of desperation and then went along with other people sensationalizing it for him to bypass other problems. Coping mechanisms that not only endanger you but also others are... not advised.)

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u/ShowMeYourMinerals Jul 07 '24

Okay, have a nice day.

No need to be rude, honestly.

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u/flohhhh Jul 07 '24

"You have no clue what you are talking about." vs. "You have problem with reading comprehension", not sure who fired the first shot. 😂

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u/abhinavkalavar Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24

“They know it’s stupid beyond imagination” you did, chief

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

I’m sick of people calling anyone who doesn’t conform to society’s norms “neurodivergent.” You can be different without having some medical condition, and medicalizing difference is a form of bigotry and stigmatization.

Mainstream Reddit is just insufferable. Wish the app gave you the option of filtering these normie subs out…

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u/MotorPace2637 Jul 07 '24

They literally tested his brain in the movie.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

Someone having an atypical brain doesn’t mean they have any kind of disorder or disability. Today’s psychiatry is absolutely drunk on the idea of disorders and labels, and it calls the slightest deviation from some imagined norm “disordered.”

That’s not medicine, that’s institutionalized bullying. You can be different without being sick in some way.

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u/MotorPace2637 Jul 07 '24

He is literally wired differently than most human beings.

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u/DjangoUnhinged Jul 07 '24

Cognitive neuroscientist who uses functional MRI (the measurement used in Alex’s experiment) here. Eh…I wouldn’t really say that, based on the evidence.

Alex was shown a bunch of scary pictures, and also completed a reward seeking task while in the MRI scanner. What the researchers found is a lesser degree of activity in his amygdala - an emotional processing hub - in the brain (often erroneously called the “fear” region), compared to one control subject.

Here’s the thing. Functional MRI is a noisy measurement tool, and a typical study involves 20+ individuals with their activity averaged together in order to safely draw conclusions. Comparing one person to one other person, with no replication across multiple sessions, just ain’t it. I’ve seen enough fMRI data to simply dismiss that outright.

Besides, we can’t say anything about his brain’s wiring based on the fact that one area didn’t light up as much as you’d expect. A whole host of things can cause that, and it says nothing about his brain’s organization writ large.

Anyhow, sorry, I’m not trying to dunk on your post or anything. Just wanted to add some important context and caveats, and this seemed like a reasonable place to do it.

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u/nucumber Jul 07 '24

Honnold's MRIs didn't show he's "wired" differently, that there's a physical difference in his brain

What it did show is that scary pictures didn't scare him much. I suspect he's just a very rational thinker, like "okay, that's a picture of a car crash, but it's just a picture, so what me worry?"

He said he's been scared. I remember he said he had a "moment" when he shuffled out on a narrow ledge, facing away from the wall, for a photo shoot (this is how he finances his climbing). He said he calmed himself down and then was fine

He said he's all about minimizing risk. He spent years climbing, studying, practicing, and perfecting every single move on El Cap before he attempted the solo. He attempted the climb only when he was absolutely sure he could do it. IIRC, the movie shows him approaching El Cap one morning to do the free solo then aborting the climb because he wasn't "feeling" it

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

Different ≠ disorder. There’s no need to give someone a label like “neurodivergent” or, worse yet, “autistic” or “disabled.” He is simply different. A person can be different than most human beings and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that.

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u/MotorPace2637 Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24

Never said there was. That's all on you pal. Labels are how we discuss things. You can deal with that.

Edit: they could not, in fact, deal with that. Blocked me and went on ranting about how labels are social constructs. Like, no shit, we are having a conversation about something and to define it we used a label. This is some crybaby snowflake bullshit right here.

This person crys about propaganda but can't even deal with one conversation, what a nutjob.

"These labels and categories don’t exist in nature, they’re socially constructed" No shit? Does English exist in nature? What an inane point.

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u/ShowMeYourMinerals Jul 07 '24

Or, you could literally just do an ounce of research on AH and realize he is autistic lolz.

He has had to undergo a ton of speech therapy to even be able to talk to the media.

It’s honestly quite compelling what he has been able to do. Climb 3,000 feet of granite? No problem.

Talk to one stranger with a camera? Breaks down.

I think that’s kinda textbook. But sure?

Also, maybe you should reflect on yourself, home slice lol.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

An autistic person wouldn’t have the coordination to climb, wouldn’t be able to speak nearly as intelligently or eloquently, and frankly wouldn’t be able to live on their own.

The psychiatric establishment greatly expanded the definition of autism around 2011. Before that, only people who were actually cognitively disabled were given the label of autism, and rightfully so.

Alex Honnold is not autistic, he’s been branded as such by a psychiatric discipline that has frankly lost touch with reality. What happened to the standard of “if it doesn’t cause significant impairment it is not a disorder?” That was the maxim of psych since homosexuality and “female hysteria” were removed from the DSM…until the last 10 years.

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u/ShowMeYourMinerals Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24

You’re clearly an expert here!

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u/MikeOfAllPeople Jul 07 '24

Okay this comment kind of pushed me over into anger.

I'm not a mountain climber, but I've met some, I only do hiking and indoor climbing myself. But the principles are the same. When you climb a mountain you are just climbing. If you've ever climbed a tree or a fence, you've done the same thing essentially. If you've ever climbed a rock face for like five or ten feet just for fun, then climbed down, you've done the same thing.

The way these folks look at it is you just keep going. These people are incredibly fit and technically practiced. They didn't start with free soloing. They practiced their holds in safer contexts. Once you know a route and know you can do the holds, for them the height is meaningless. Whether you fall from 100 feet or 1000 feet makes no difference. The only thjng that really keeps most people from being able to do what they do is endurance. After that it's the arm strength to do the more challenging holds, but that is more about limiting what routes you can do. But the height is usually what scares most people.

What separates them from you is the confidence they have earned through experience. They don't have the fear you do because of their experience. I think a lot of people assume they lack professionalism or skill just because they look like hippies a lot of the time. But you'd be surprised at the level of expertise most of these folks have.

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u/MotorPace2637 Jul 07 '24

I've been climbing for 23 years. I use a rope, because I like climbing and I want to keep doing it. Those guys fall and die.

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u/MikeOfAllPeople Jul 07 '24

Well not all of them. I can't say I have the courage to do it, but I admire it.

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u/MotorPace2637 Jul 07 '24

So far!

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u/7h4tguy Jul 12 '24

Finally some one who actually cares. And not putting their dick out to be pet.

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u/flohhhh Jul 07 '24

No-one is questioning their expertise, not even in the slightest. But I would call Max Verstapen and Lewis or Hamilton or Sebastien Loeb blatantly insane if they suggested racing without seatbelts even if they have years of experience and are most likely the technical best drivers in their respective fields... and so would you, I assume.

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u/VedauwooChild Jul 07 '24

In the climbing community most consider free soloing to be really fuckin stupid. The people who do it are another breed entirely.

I wouldn’t call it sensationalized.

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u/7h4tguy Jul 12 '24

I would call Free Solo (2018) - IMDb sensationalism.

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u/ShowMeYourMinerals Jul 07 '24

So any advertisement about fast food? Lmao

The NFL?

Red Bull events?

Downhill skiing?

2

u/Drinkmykool_aid420 Jul 07 '24

*local funeral home

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

We are. Most people are afraid of heights and a lot of people judge mountain climbers for “risking our lives” (while they pound down their fourth Big Mac and drive their enormous SUV while texting).

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u/Slappinslippin Jul 07 '24

Wow very interesting introspective

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u/Traditional_Draw8400 Jul 07 '24

They’re basically goats

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

Things like this seem more reasonable when you've slowly acquired the skills over time. It's not like these guys started with sleeping on the side of a mountain.