Perhaps I am not explaining myself clearly. Please allow me to make a fresh start, if you will.
I was not comparing free soloing to exposing exploits. I was comparing the statement ‘Free soloing is stupidly dangerous and anyone that does it is “inspiring” lots of kids to risk their lives for “glory” aka attention.’ To the similar statement often made by people not involved with computer security, that exposing exploits only helps the “evil hax0rz”.
I used the analogy because of what I knew of your background, hoping you would get the connection there. That was a poor assumption on my part. Aside from that, the only other assumption I made was that someone with climbing experience would be sympathetic to the idea that not everyone that has ever soloed or climbed without a rope is doing it for some sort of self aggrandizing reason, and that it somehow is causing the kids to run out in droves and take up free soloing.
I have to admit while awed by some of Honnold’s climbing, I have also cringed at what seems to be a rather cavalier attitude. I don’t know if it is truly him or what I get sold in the videos. I’m not sure that any of my comments could be read as glorifying free soloing, and here I think you are making some erroneous assumptions as well.
I agree with you entirely that it is good to teach people to manage risks. Managing risks involves understanding them to the best of your ability at a given moment and reacting accordingly. There are times for a climbing team where it is actually safer to unrope and climb solo. Be it because of the risk of dislodging loose rocks, weather coming in and the climbing being well below your ability, or the inability to get good protection where a fall would result in the death of 2 instead of one.
Is that what Alex is doing in this case? Of course not. I just object to the blanket statement you were making and hoped that comparing it to one from a field I knew you were familiar with would hint at where I was coming from. Clearly I need to be more verbose in the future.
