-hh
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DCBC...You state, without any evidence whatsoever, that "standards" must be localized to be effective. What I, and others have stated is that the TRAINING must be localized to be effective.
How is that not the two sides of the same coin? Afterall, training is to be conducted in accordance with the relevant standards ("heads"), and standards exist to identify what the training should encompass ("tails").
IF all of the training is DONE in the local conditions, should not that be enough to prove that the diver is safe to dive in the conditions "similar to, or better than, in which she was trained?"
Simplistically speaking, 'Yes', if that 'local training' was coldwater. Mostly, this is because more diving environs are covered in the 'similar or better' (SoB) caveat.
For warmwater, it isn't as simple...even if trying to be simplistic: sure, we can say 'Yes' under the same rationale of 'similar or better' (SoB), but the problem is that this SoB isn't the same as the SoB for coldwater: if we were to apply classical mathmatical terms, we would highlight that SoB(warm) is a logical subset of SoB(cold), and from that, draw the conclusion that a warmwater graduate isn't as 'adequate' as a coldwater graduate because his training ended up providing him with a smaller relevant experience base...in other words, he is qualified for less.
The inevitable defensibility protests aside, this isn't really the fault of the warmwater instructor to protest, because the standard that they're expected to uphold is this "locality" provision. The catch is that the 'locality' provision varies, so it is effectively a nebulous 'Rubber Ruler' requirement: what is overkill in a warmwater setting is not necessarily even the minimum elsewhere.
The wrinkle is that this is no longer merely an interesting pedantic exercise: coldwater isn't the norm anymore, and it becomes harder to ignore the diver population whose training & experience base is benign bathwater for which we can't easily provide a simple pat answer.
And if we read between the lines, we can see tacit admissions to this. For example, a longtime warmwater diver in this thread literally described their first coldwater dive experience with an "...I didn't die...". One has to wonder how many years (decades?) of warmwater experience they had under their belt before a coldwater experience which was STILL so clearly uncomfortable enough for them to use this "didn't die" in their dive description.
I know you don't like the PADI (and by implication, GUE or UTD) system of global standards that apply to all instructors, but is it really the standards that are the problem or is it the instructors who don't follow the standards that are the problem?
I'm not necessarily convinced that it is the instructors or the standards, per se: I think that the concern is stemming from the heterogenous nature of the starting certification due to this "local" regionalism factor which results in uncertainty as to the expected minimum qualifications of a random diver. What used to have been just an occasional experience of a diver who was "out of his element" because of the 'where' they were trained is being perceived as having become a more commonplace experience to compensate/overcome.
-hh