Status And Glory
Once upon a time it was elites who went to war, who took the risks but could gain the glory. Once upon a time gambling was banned for ordinary folks but elites could take such risks and gain glory if they won. Today, consider this NYT article (in which I’m quoted):
John Delaney, an Irish businessman who founded Intrade, an online prediction market that allows customers to bet on world political, entertainment and financial events, died on Saturday after coming within 50 yards of the summit of Mount Everest. He was 42.
This article said nothing on banning Everest climbs; few articles on Everest climbs do. Yet:
The overall mortality rate for Everest mountaineers during the entire 86-year period was 1.3 percent; the rate among climbers was 1.6 percent and the rate among sherpas was 1.1 percent. During the past 25 years, a period during which a greater percentage of moutaineers climbed above 8,000 meters, the death rate for non-Himalayan climbers descending via the longer Tibetan northeast ridge was 3.4 percent, while on the shorter Nepal route it was 2.5 percent.
Contrast this to strong widespread feelings that bike helmets should be required, even though cyclists suffer only about 7 injuries per million miles of biking, and despite serious doubts if helmets help. Even the proverbial banned lawn darts caused ~30 deaths a year with 10-15 million of them in use, far far less than a 2% user death rate.
Why do ban activities with very low risks yet celebrate very high risk mountain climbing? Status seems the obvious explanation. It takes a lot of money to even attempt to climb Everest. We celebrate high status risk-takers, and ban low status ones.
Need more data? Consider the widespread bans on “noodling”, i.e., catching fish with your bare hands:
Brady Knowlton believes it’s his inalienable right as a Texan to shove his bare hand into the mouth of a 60-pound catfish and yank it out of a river. But wrestling a flapping, whiskered giant as it latches onto your arm with its jaws isn’t among Texas’s accepted methods of capturing fish. It is, rather, a class C misdemeanor, with fines of up to $500. … Rod-and-reel anglers … say noodling is unfair to the fish, since they’re grabbed in their burrows without a chance to swim away. … Missouri … prohibits fish-grabbing on grounds that it would deplete the fish population. (more)
When you picture a fish-noodler do you picture someone high status? Didn’t think so.
Yachting and private jets are highly regulated: in how they are built, how they are maintained, how they are operated, and what safety equipment they are required to carry.
NASCAR racing is not particularly regulated by government. It IS highly "regulated" by its private sanctioning organization, as is Formula 1. NASCAR doesn't seem high status to me, Formula 1 does.
The construction of mansions is as highly regulated as the construction of any housing with long lists of codes and inspections that must be passed to render the mansion legally habitable.
Rules and regulations regarding construction and operation of supercars (many hundres of thousands of dollars each) are the same as for the tiniest Fiats and Toyotas.
Cocaine and heroin are both very illegal, and were so even when cocaine was for rich people and heroin for the poor.
Tobacco smoking and cheap alcohol use are not particularly high status, but are very dangerous when used as directed. Their use is regulated, but hardly to the point of making them as safe as other things which are banned from use because of their dangerousness.
Relatively middle/lower class people throughout the southwestern United States bring all manner of gasoline powered "toys" to vast swathes of public desert which are made available for their use. I do not know injury rates from this, but it sure looks dangerous and feels dangerous when you are doing it. It is also great fun, in between disasters.
It doesn't seem to me that status is a particularly good way to predict whether something dangerous will be regulated or not. I think it might have more to do with information. Non-racing of boats, planes, and cars FEEL like they should be safe. I justify the impulse to regulate by suggesting that regulation should reflect the tradeoffs a highly informed rationalist with great leisure available to study the issue would choose. I have heard from more ER nurses and doctors that if you are stupid enough to ride a motorcycle you could still be smart enough to mitigate with a helmet. That doesn't mean they are right, but they are certainly exposed to the highly non-vanishing tail of bad outcomes that the average rider might come across only once in his life, at precisely the point at which it is too late to factor the information into his decision.
Similarly with building regulation. I am not "free" to build my house out of stuff other people would use to start fires, or in ways where its collapse is a matter of years rather than centuries, and then sell it into a market where it would be prohibitively expensive to reverse engineer to determine for potential buyers the real status of this house. Instead we have a clearly well-working market in houses where there is a very reasonable expectation of the level of quality of construction based on building codes. Building codes do for houses what accounting standards and disclosure rules do for publicly traded stocks, they create a particular regulated market.
Sorry, that came across incorrectly. You are required to carry specific equipment in order to get a permit to climb. (It doesn't matter who makes it.)
http://www.nps.gov/mora/pla...
If you submit the climbing registration card e.g. minus an ice axe, you will not be granted a permit.