Question Advanced gas planning for complex cave dive (upstream/downstream)

[Lorenzoid]

There is a huge difference between talking with other trained diver about different stage rigging methods and trying to explain to untrained people how to do basic gas planning. The latter is online cave training.

Do you consider books to be different from online discussion forums? There are readily available books on cave diving that discuss gas planning and much more. I realize that the cave diving books I have seen include a caveat in the beginning that they are not intended to replace a formal training course. Is that the distinction you see here--that not all online discussion forums include that caveat?

 

[berndo]

I’m not spinning at all.

Yeah, sure.
You're intentionally misrepresenting what I said in order to make a point.

You should look up what 'thought police' means.

 

[steinbil]

You're intentionally misrepresenting what I said

Oh, the irony

 

[berndo]

Do you consider books to be different from online discussion forums?

Yes, of course. A decent book is written by an author you can look up information on. The author would be a person that has some degree of expertise and experience with the topic you can verify. Also a quality book is more detailed.
On a forum you have a lot of people that have never done what they're talking about. Lots of opinion based nothing other what they read on the internet.
Another large portion of content is people posting almost nothing but snarcky one-liners, people attack without making any points and people spinning.

 

[lostsheep]

Yes, of course. A decent book is written by an author you can look up information on. The author would be a person that has some degree of expertise and experience with the topic you can verify. Also a quality book is more detailed.
On a forum you have a lot of people that have never done what they're talking about. Lots of opinion based nothing other what they read on the internet.
Another large portion of content is people posting almost nothing but snarcky one-liners, people attack without making any points and people spinning.

Literally everyone here understands your point, it's not complicated, we just don't agree with you.

You've expressed your opinion, we reject it.

Move along and get over it.

ETA: first two lines are factual, the third is deliberately a snarky one liner.

 

[Wibble]

On a forum you have a lot of people that have never done what they're talking about. Lots of opinion based nothing other what they read on the internet.

You do presume a little too much.

 

[Underwater Tourist]

Since the thread became on sharing vs not sharing diving knowledge, here is my experience.

I first learned that there is such thing as cave diving when I saw Bogaert's beautiful videos, and right after binge-watching like a dozen of them, I went onto reading and watching anything cave training related. Luckily there was a ton of info on the subject and you could easily learn all the theory from A to Z from your bedroom. It took me several years until I could actually do my cavern and full cave, but in the meantime I found new information on cave training as well as re-read and re-watched things that I saw previously. In effect, by the time I hit the water, I completed all the cave theory numerous times, which was also "taught" by different people with each emphasizing slightly different aspects.

Once it came to the actual training, I already knew what I wanted to ask my instructor (it included basic questions, and some more abstract thoughts on cave diving philosophy; do's and don't etc.). Those discussions with the instructor were the highlight of my course, and they would have never happened had there not been so much information about cave diving publicly available. Also, in all humidity, I think I did pretty well during my course partially because I had a lot of material to read before hand.

So I am for sharing as much info as possible on anything from how to handle a stage, how to do most advanced gas planning, how to do complex navigation, how to plan a ccr cave dive, etc etc etc.

As for people misusing potentially improper information, if in the 21st century you are not capable of filtering through things you read on the Internet, I don't think cave diving is a hobby for you. Plus, we should never stand in the way of Natural Selection.