GoPro
3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2016–2022
2:44 · 16M views · Jul 1, 2015
A short GoPro film of Uli Emanuele's wingsuit BASE jump through a roughly 2 meter wide cave opening, after three years of preparation. It follows his climb to the exit point and the flight itself, shot on a HERO2 camera.
HN commenters cite it as a striking example of humans doing extremely dangerous, precise things for fun.
3 comments from Hacker News
"Antiquity" is conventionally considered to end about 1500 years ago, though this really only applies to Europe: [LINK] The reason for this is the very sparse historical record from the European Dark Ages. Scholars in the High Middle Ages like Petrarch could look back on their own recent history, and then a vast gap of mostly unknown, and then the impressive cultures of Antiquity among whose ruins they lived. We know more about the Dark Ages now than we did then but still not that much. Here you can see people flying like birds without being canned in metal tubes: [LINK] this video [LINK] [LINK] It seems likely that we have changed. I suspect Merer's workers, even if they had grown up in modern civilization, would not tolerate being employees, being disarmed, and having their children taken away for education; and probably more of them were dyslexic than in modern populations. But I don't really know. Generally the rule is that domestic animals are stupider, smaller-skulled, more submissive, weaker, more neotenous, less aggressive, fatter, lower in testosterone, less sexually dimorphic, and possessed of smaller teeth than the wild type ( [LINK] ). Modern humans have these traits to a very notable degree compared to, as you allude to, chimpanzees and even Neandertals or Denisovans; but perhaps we have also been substantially domesticated over the last 4500 years, maybe even over the last 2000. Not because of driving cars, but because of having kings. Are we the Eloi? I don't thin
this video this is why. Constant pushing of the envelope in a incredibly dangerous sport. Judging how fast you are falling and whether you'll end up a meter above or below your target is hard and it probably cannot be predicted in a persistent manner. One time you'll get a gust of wind that pushes you slightly off target and you catch a rock wall or a tree at 100mph+.
Statistically too dangerous. Humans do immensely dangerous things for fun all the time[1]. That isn't going to stop. People will continue to drive on private roads pretty much forever. [1] For example this video