Comment by tomxor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tomxor | Hacker News Reader

Not to detract too much from the author's point... But as a climber myself, I think climbing technology does actually contribute to advances in pure climbing skill more than you might think.

Take just a single aspect of the gear - climbing rope, modern rope is a technological wonder, light, super strong and extremely dynamic, it's part of what makes it possible to push yourself to the limit and repeatedly fall off routes safely, with zero injury. After a certain point you cannot improve in climbing without pushing beyond your limits and failing, modern technology allows you to push further and further and survive and retain your skills, and this is a significant part of why the pure climbing skill of climbers today is so advanced.

The author has made the same observation but ignoring climbing technology and focusing on internet etc for spread of knowledge - but there are many skills that do not survive conceptualization and communication in tact, for those, you need specialist technology to advance your learning beyond the basics.

Go back 80 years, you will find weak, heavy hemp rope, rope harnesses that will probably kill you, and people literally carried rocks as gear, shoving them in cracks with the rope behind them. It's not hard to see how limiting this is in learning the skill, as you move forward in time gear becomes more advanced but still very heavy.

I agree that more modern climbing gear is fantastic and definitely gives me a great deal of confidence when I am pushing my limits, I don't think that it would stop me from pushing at all.

Even using gear from 30-40 years ago, it is possible to climb with relative safety, the new gear is mainly only an incremental improvement in safety.

That's not to say that I would happily take a fall on older equipment, just that the main element of danger is generally not the equipment but the surrounding environment.

Really? You'd be comfortable whipping in a swiss seat tied to a hemp rope (not dynamic) and stopped by a body belay? I don't think so. A clean fall onto a static rope can kill you from the sudden stop alone. There is a reason the mantra used to be "the leader must not fall" and its not because those guys were just scared.

Sure 30 to 40 years ago (1980-1990) the equipment was good, and thats about when the explosion in free climbing ability really got going. The first 5.13 (Alex's Free Solo route Freerider has a 13a pitch) was done in 77 and the first 5.14 in 85. [1] Not coincidentally, the modern cam came into use in the late 70s. [2] Good climbing shoes came in the 80s too. Sport climbing, the use of bolts (technology) to safely climb faces that weren't previously protectable also started in the early 80s. So of course you wouldn't mind climbing on 30-40 year old climbing technology.

Normal gear has been pretty stable since then and the limits of the sport have continued to grow, but that doesnt mean its not because of technology. The boom we are in now has been due to another bit of technology, the indoor climbing gym. They started in earnest in the 90s and have allowed a new level of training.

[1] https://web.stanford.edu/~clint/yos/hard.htm

[2] https://www.climbing.com/news/10-things-you-didnt-know-about...

what type of whippers are you taking? if you are setting your protection closely enough and your belayer is not leaving lots of slack, you shouldn't be falling far enough on a static rope to kill you.

I'm not taking any whips at all on static rope. That's just dumb.

But I guess you mean what kind of falls am I taking on dynamic rope that I wouldn't want to take on static rope? Its not about distance, its about fall factor [1]. Fall factor 2 falls are possible on multi pitch routes. Doing that on a static rope would really screw you up even if it didn't kill you. It could also easily shock load your anchor gear enough to break or pull it out, killing you and your belayer.

[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/skills/fall_factors_expl...

> Even using gear from 30-40 years ago, it is possible to climb with relative safety, the new gear is mainly only an incremental improvement in safety.

Yes, but isn't that also roughly when modern sport climbing started?

Nylon ropes for climbing were introduced about 55y ago, though, I don't know when they became wide spread. Same for modern harness, modern bolts and quick draws. So your ~40y ago might be roughly correct.

Modern sport climbing started, I would argue, around that time. For instance, Red Pointing was popularized in the 70ties [2].

Also interesting is, that Phoenix, the first 7c+, the grade of the route in the Free Solo movie, was climbed in 1977 [3,4] and first free soloed in 2011 (also by Honold).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernmantle_rope [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redpoint_(climbing) [3] https://www.emontana.cz/climbing-milestones-from-6a-to-9c/

When Yosemite Mountaineering School classes went out to the rock they used nylon ropes, in 1975. I was never more than a student of climbing but everything that has been mentioned in this thread was being done, and written up in books you could buy at Kelty, in the mid 70's. Dawn Wall was climbed with 300 bolts on its first ascent (but bolt usage was ahead of its time). The 'harness' is the main refinement I would say was lacking. YMS classes were taught to put on, and the books described, the swami belt (not unknown today, but not preferred?) made on demand from webbing. Cams were advertised but chocks/nuts were the standard.

I doubt cams were advertised in '75. Friends were created in '78.

Greg Lowe’s cams predated friends by about 3-4 years

Not just nylon ropes, but multi-fall ropes: in the early 70's, we didn't trust a rope after it had taken a hard fall. You can't learn a big-wall route if you have to retire your rope after every long fall.

I saw Jeff Lowe a couple years ago and someone from the audience asked him what technology he's seen that has most revolutionized climbing- he said headlamps: The small, light, LED headlights that last 50+ hours.

I disagree, in some ways it does make a big difference in pushing grades. It is much easier to plug a cam in then pound a piton when you're free climbing. To me it seems very few hard off widths would be climbed if your pro was a bong or chockstone you place. People do trad 5.11s now and think no big deal but the routes were often runout and bold leads back in the day.

But getting to the point where you can ascend El Cap in 4 hours requires modern gear. In Free Solo, most of the documentary focuses on his progress over years practicing the route.

Getting to a specific point on the face of El Cap used to be a weeks-long endeavor in itself, pushing everyone to their physical and technological limits. The fact that he was able to go for day-trips to any point on the wall to practice is a testament to all the technology involved.

He used modern ropes, hauling gear, etc, to essentially turn the route into a gym that he could practice on. He used modern climbing holds to re-create the dyno problem so he could practice at home. He literally memorized the entire sequence of moves.

It would be impossible to learn a route to the level that it requires to ascend it in 4 hours without modern technology. Imagine if practicing the dyno problem required having to fund and set up a 47 day expedition to reach it.

That's simply untrue. Climbing technology is fundamentally unchanged from the early '80s. Since then it's been a process of refinement, with the big exception of shoe technology. I acknowledge that TC Pros are tremendous shoes compared to eg '80s-era Fires.

Untrue of the parent comment perhaps, but the article is talking about going back two centuries.

Regardless, the 80s was the inception of most modern climbing gear sure; but the intermediate years were not only refinements but improvements through the culture assimilating that gear to the point of maximum utility - much the same could be said about personal computing, although the technological advances are larger, much of the advances are cultural, learning how to best utilise it.

Tommy Caldwell recreated the dyno on the Dawn Wall with plastic holds. Alex Honnold didn't practice the boulder problem on Freerider on the ground to my knowledge, he set it at a gym later for fun though.

Are the plastic holds themselves an example of the technology we're thinking about here?

The gym is, itself, a technology that has pushed the envelope on climbing. When I was learning in the 90s there was no gym where I was and if I wanted to practice I had to climb buildings. It's much easier now to find good places to work out climbing technique without traveling to the cliff.

I feel like you've selected a very convenient mile marker. Right after nylon ropes & cams entered widespread usage.

Using gear from, say, 45 years ago you would have mainly hexes, tricams, and nuts. Would you climb as hard then?

You should detract from the author's point, because it only works if you are largely ignorant of how things like this actually happens. It is essentially always not generics, but specifics. Specific people doing specific things in specific places with specific technology and culture. Without knowing much of the "extreme climbing community" I would bet that it is a rather specific group of people and largely non-existent outside of that.

The author is largely trying to sell exceptionalism. That everything will be fine with generic improvements. Yet, of course that isn't true. Both state of technology and the economy is probably better than ever yet deliver less and less value. Chances are people like Alex Honnold did it despite of the policies of this economist.

> And now, the technology of the internet. Each new idea in rock climbing is accessible quickly all over the world. Without that large group of interested people, this communal knowledge would not have advanced so far. [The Article]

> After a year, he dropped out of Berkeley and spent time living at home and driving around California to go climbing. "I'd wound up with my mom's old minivan, and that was my base," he said. "I'd use it to drive to Joshua Tree to climb or I'd drive to LA to see my girlfriend. My orbit was tiny and really cheap. I destroyed that van fairly quickly; it died on me one day, and for the next year I lived just on my bicycle and in a tent." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Honnold

> The author is largely trying to sell exceptionalism. That everything will be fine with generic improvements. [...] Specific people doing specific things in specific places with specific technology and culture.

On second thought I think you are correct, it should detract. And it's important my example only be seen within the context of the entire climbing culture, not as an alternative to the authors causal choice. Many things, individual pieces of technology, social environment and cultural inertia have brought the culture to where it is today - it cannot be attributed to any single thing or event.

I think there is something about human psychology that makes people commonly gravitate towards this type of thinking, like in a myth or fairytale... some sensitive dependence, a key event that changed it all! or a single piece of technology to change it all etc etc. It makes for exciting stories and makes it easy to explain things (wrongly), but it's rarely the truth.

> I think there is something about human psychology that makes people commonly gravitate towards this type of thinking

Chronology and narrative are definitely natural ways that humans frame the world - one of the many instinctive faults in our cognition. Such a simple view of the “infinite now” is easily hijacked in marketing, politics, etc.

There are obviously both factors at work though. Exceptionalism does happen, and it is not purely driven by technology. Outside of climbing, take guitar as an example. The amount of excellent players out there on youtube is amazing. Certainly music and the instruments have been available and mass marketed since the 70s at least, but guitars haven't gotten easier to play. Now though, there are a lot of players that have grown up now watching how others play. Not just figuring it out by ear but seeing videos of great players and studying them. It's never been easier to observe great musicians, and so you see plenty of instrumentalists that have progressed very far, building on the shoulders of those who figured those techniques out and wrote those songs.

I don't think the author intended the piece to be "an explanation" so much as an observation. I think that is fine, and there isn't much point in generalizing this observation a human tendency towards sloppy thinking.

I just don't think the authors observation is very good. He is essentially saying that "a rising tide lifts all boats". But in reality it is the boats that are important more so than the tide.

The invention of the sampler created a huge amount of value. But mainly by a handful of companies and music scenes. If you wasn't for Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, London, Bristol or wherever else the change would have been marginal. Just like climbing wouldn't necessarily improve without places like Yosemite.

You can even go further and say that it isn't just specific groups that make progress, but that they define progress itself. There isn't much as such saying that free soloing in Yosemite is what progress is. Or even that climbing is worth progressing.

There also can't be many who believe that technology haven't made e.g. trains significantly better in past decades. Yet, China now have much more advanced trains than the US which is arguably better at technology. That is presumably because China is building boats rather than praising the tide.

Alex didn't use any rope going up El Cap so...

He did though, just not on his final ascent.

I don't think you read all of my post... i'm not talking about the direct affect of technology use on any single assent.

Only if Alex has never used a modern climbing rope in his life is my point invalid (I know he has). It's also important to understand that many of other pieces of climbing technology help in learning and developing the skill for everyone, not a single one, ropes are just an example.

True, but he did use a rope to rehearse the route a large number of times. He knew he was physically capable of free soloing the route because of the confidence he was able to gain as a direct result of using the technology available to him.

That's like saying maps don't matter in warfare because they aren't useful in hand to hand combat

The vast majority of Alex's climbing is trad. So he benefited from thousands of pitches with modern safety equipment: harnesses, lightweight cams, ropes, crash pads (when he was training in Bishop) and so on. Free Solo was his magnum opus, the result of all that training.

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