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Comment by badpun | Hacker News Reader

On the other hand, I took risks when I was younger, and got a very annoying disability in the process. I wish I was more careful.

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Sometimes people forget that taking risks doesn't always end well. I took a big financial risk in the 1990s which ended up costing me 15 years of savings and a long period of anxiety and depression. If it had worked out I could now give speeches about the need for taking risks...

Can you share what that risk was?

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I think the key is differentiating between real risks (wingsuits are dangerous!) and fake ones (who cares if strangers give you weird looks because you’re barefoot).

> wingsuits are dangerous

Are they really that much more dangerous than parachuting? I know they have more fatalities but wingsuiting is only more dangerous because people take more risks with them and fly close to the ridgeline(typically you only get into wingsuiting if you are an experienced parachute operator). Similar to in rock climbing with typical roped climbing vs. free soloing(sans ropes).

Over the last fifteen years there have been three times as many wingsuit deaths as freesolo deaths, for what its worth.

the general practitioner of wingsuiting is pushing the limits of what can be done safely. watch video after video of them do close calls near the edge of a ridgeline. most(perhaps all?) freesoloists are well below their limit(hell even honnold only freesolos well below his limit).

Wingsuits aren't inherently dangerous, but they're only fun if you're flying close to things, and flying close to solid objects in an impromptu aircraft with terrible aerodynamics and highly questionable control scheme is dangerous.

So yes, wingsuits when used in the way that wingsuits are almost always used are inherently dangerous.

> but they're only fun if you're flying close to things

I only rock climb but wouldn't it still be fun to be in the air for a longer time even if you are not close to objects? I think the wingsuit craze of flying near objects has more to do with being bored of the normal parachute experience.

I'd imagine if you want more hang time you'd just open your parachute earlier. I've seen videos of people wingsuiting in clear air and it looks pretty boring.

Well it's about the sensation you get, not how it looks. With a wingsuit you can drift faster so it's already something, but it's true that you fully realize the (horizontal) speed you're flying at only when you're close to others objects.

   (wingsuits are dangerous!)

Several high-level wingsuit flyers were profiled in a short film called "The New Birdmen". I was struck by the calm rationality most exhibited in their commentary.

But then, many insist on flying extremely close to terrain, and that's where things go sideways. I'm the type who would be perfectly content to never be closer than 10+ meters to terrain, but that's not their mindset. Several pioneers shown in the film suffered deaths, none (apparently) from equipment failure.

In my case, it was just dancing for a couple hours non-stop at the disco while on mild drugs... It was enough for life-long tinnitus.

On the other hand though, I think it's just biological imperative. Statistically, young men (up to around 25 perhaps) are simply reckless and take stupid risks. They make the best soldiers (less fear for their life), extreme sportsmen etc., but obviously some of them end up dead or disabled.

Not make light of your disability but tinnitus is extremely common and can occur because of regular every day activity. When making risk assessments this one is way down on the list of priorities if it's there at all. For some it's even an occupational hazard that they just have to accept as part of their life, however I doubt most people consider being a musician as one of the more life threatening professions.

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