Everyone dies sometime, and we all takes risks. Some of us text while driving. Some of us eat shitty food. Some of us make a career of doing things that no one else is willing to do.

These types of people are the exact same ones who got on a boat and floated off to sea never to be seen again. They settled lands and lived a wonderful and interesting life.

In another generation or 12, these are the folks that are going to settle Mars, or make discoveries on the Moon.

We'd still be living naked in the savanna if it weren't for people like this.

[–] potustheplant@feddit.nl 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm sorry but I think there's a huge difference between "I want to see if this is all there is" and "I want to risk my life for sport".

[–] Grogon@lemmy.world 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yeah I also think there is a difference between "I am going to climb a huge rock without safety measurements eventhough they exist and cost only 50$" and "I am going to go on a one way trip to mars for science and humanity but use all safety equipment available on that trip"

[–] Hegar@kbin.social 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

People with poor risk management skills probably serve some useful purpose because we still have them, but they are not the cause of all human progress.

Specifically:

We’d still be living naked in the savanna if it weren’t for people like this.

Processing skins of kills has nothing to do with risk taking behavior, nor do the host of incremental adjustments that lead from skinning to tailored clothing.

Similarly our expansion into areas beyond the savannah has nothing to do with unnecessary risk taking, it's just the result of favourable conditions that increased the birth rate.

floated off to sea... They settled lands

Permanent human settlements aren't founded by rugged loners washing up on a new shore. It takes at minimum ~20 people and new sites are scouted well in advance to make sure they have sufficient resources to support a growing population.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub -1 points 7 months ago

It takes at minimum ~20 people and new sites are scouted well in advance to make sure they have sufficient resources to support a growing population.

I guess the argument here would be that the scouts are the risk-takers, which would be true to some extent. But it's not like successful scouts worked alone, and also there's no "discovery" happening in the context of free solo climbing.