divEr 68
U
NUSUALLY FOR A COLUMNin a
diving magazine, this one begins
in the highlands of Papua New
Guinea. A few years ago, a young
ornithologist was on an expedition,
leading a team of New Guineans.
They climbed through the forest until
they reached a level where they were to
spend a few days studying birds. The
ornithologist selected a site for their camp
beneath a huge forest tree, its bark
covered in thick moss.
He asked his companions to build a
sleeping platform there but they refused.
He asked why, and they told him that the
tree was dead, and they were afraid it
might fall on the camp during the night
and kill them all.
He tried to reason with them but they
were adamant and eventually they all
agreed on a different site far from the tree.
At first, the young ornithologist was
annoyed. He thought the New Guineans
were exaggerating the danger posed by
the dead tree. However, over the following
months, he noticed that at least once a
day he would hear the sound of a tree
falling somewhere nearby, and at night his
companions would share stories around
the campfire of friends who had been
killed by falling trees.
He reckoned that the New Guineans
spent about 100 nights a year camping in
the forest. Even if the likelihood of a tree
falling on them was low, the more time
they spent in the forest, the more chance
there was that it would happen.
They could not completely avoid the
risk of falling trees by not going into the
forest. But they could minimise the risk
by not sleeping beneath a dead tree.
The ornithologist noted that younger
members of the group were particularlyfascinated by tales of how people had
come to harm or just avoided disaster. He
guessed that these stories constituted an
important part of their education.
He concluded that the community’s
obsession with safety was an essential
cultural survival tool that contributed
significantly to keeping them safe, and he
labelled this “constructive paranoia”.The young ornithologist was Jared
Diamond and today he is a celebrated and
much-published academic and author.
I found the falling trees story in his
book The World Until Yesterday, in which
he looks at tribal societies, describes their
behaviour and strategies and relates these
to the modern world.Any technical divers reading this will at
once get what Diamond is talking about.
They might not use the actual phrase, but
technical divers employ constructive
paranoia as a survival technique.
They address the real risks of diving up
front. They know how the technical divers
who went before them got hurt and have
developed procedures and equipment to
reduce the chances of the same thing
happening to them.
Technical divers also talk constantly
about safety in scuba-diving. They
exchange stories and debate safety
strategies online and when they gather
at conferences. In doing so, they are
unconsciously imitating tribal societies.
Their dialogues fulfil the same purpose as
the New Guineans’ campfire chats.Over the years, technical divers have
passed on to the mainstream diving
community innovations such as octopus
hoses, BCs and, more recently, side-
mount diving. However, generally
speaking, the sport-diving community
has not yet adopted technical divers’
constructive-paranoia safety culture.
In fact, knowing that bad things can
happen and learning either to prevent
them happening or knowing how to deal
with them when they do happen is what
diver training at every level is all about.
For instance, new divers learn how to
replace a mask under water so that they
can manage (without panicking) a
situation in which their strap breaks or
their mask is dislodged from their face by
an unfriendly fin-kick.
However, instructors don’t always
introduce skills with direct reference to
the emergency situation they are designed
to resolve. Skills are often presented
instead as tests to be accomplished, orTECHNICAL DIVERS
CONSTRUCTIVE
PARANOIA
A SURVIVAL TECHNIQUE
THE WORLD UNTIL
YESTERDAYWhat does a tree
falling in a rainforest have to do
with safe diving? Everything,
says SIMON PRIDMOREANDREY BIZYUKINBelow:Constructive
paranoia can be part of a
beginner’s course too.Above right:Nusa Penida –
what could go wrong?SPORT DIVERS
divErNEt.com