Just following on from this thread, I was thinking about the argument that having a definition or a label is potentially unhelpful, and I was mulling that separate thought.
I think overall my own view is that having a definition, or at least a description (accepting that many people disagree on what it should be) does have a value for two reasons.
(1) For the general sport diving population, it provides some kind of definition for the class of things which "you know that you don't know". I was recently re-reading the PADI diving encyclopedia and they list five "types" of tec diving (from memory: deeper dives, trimix (as a separate category), cave penetration, wreck penetration, rebreathers), which I thought was pretty sensible: if you want to do these five things, get more training.
(2) Until the end of time, there will always be a breed of divers who want to try and prove something by "going beyond". In a world where tec diving didn't exist, those are the people that will try and do the deep bounce bounce dives or plunge headlong into caves. If you can deflect at least some of that macho-ness into doing courses so that they can brandish macho cards rather than trying to do macho things (untrained), we may save a few lives.
I think overall my own view is that having a definition, or at least a description (accepting that many people disagree on what it should be) does have a value for two reasons.
(1) For the general sport diving population, it provides some kind of definition for the class of things which "you know that you don't know". I was recently re-reading the PADI diving encyclopedia and they list five "types" of tec diving (from memory: deeper dives, trimix (as a separate category), cave penetration, wreck penetration, rebreathers), which I thought was pretty sensible: if you want to do these five things, get more training.
(2) Until the end of time, there will always be a breed of divers who want to try and prove something by "going beyond". In a world where tec diving didn't exist, those are the people that will try and do the deep bounce bounce dives or plunge headlong into caves. If you can deflect at least some of that macho-ness into doing courses so that they can brandish macho cards rather than trying to do macho things (untrained), we may save a few lives.