Awesome post. Can I mention one stactavist number I keep - number of climbing days with no driving at all. Over the past few years I've got into the 'ecopointing' idea - climbing via walking, cycling and public transport. Though originally environmentally driven, for me it also resonates strongly with "dwelling in the world", social world, climbing as quest, deliberately doing things the hard way, and engaging deeply with the places around you. Often it results in finding hidden gems at closer crags and having just as good a time with your friends as if you drove for hours to tick that particular in-style route that lets you add a bigger number to your ticklist. New pubs are visited, books are read, zero energy is wasted being angry at other drivers, and fellow train passengers ask for demonstrations of trad climbing gear, interconnecting the world instead of atomising it in the pursuit of individual goals.
Good read! I think assigning complete power, over what is perceived to be good, to media and business misses an important experiential/phenomenological point though. Most climbers in the quest for a bigger number will (by default?) experience a version of that list of metrics given at the end of the article. These dopamine inducing metrics make true in terms of embodied experience the ‘Big number = good’. To say an acute awareness of these alternative metrics is better, is a bit instructive for me.
Also isn’t ‘Bigger number = good’ a more appropriate simplification of the discourse you are describing. ‘Bigger’ is more aligned with your preferred goal of self actualisation. Most know once they achieve the bigger number they won’t hang up their rock boots but instead continue on for the next bigger number.
For a lot of climbers getting better in an abstract sense is a source of their desire. Although ‘big number = better’ is sold to us maybe bigger number = better is experienced and is not as bad as we may think…
Hi Will, thanks for your comment. The acute awareness you describe is only necessary for those who are already running "big number = good" software. Those who are not almost certainly already know that quality is what really matters; these people also experience 'getting better = good' but it is not necessarily mediated by or measured with numbers.
R.e. "Bigger number = good". Yes this does make more sensea and fits the behaviour better, but the correctness of the grammer takes away the caveman-like attitude I allude to with "big number = good".
Thanks for the reply! I guess what I’m trying to get at is a series of unintended outputs that emerge from the program (this route of cybernetic language seems useful).
- If we are keeping in this frame of self actualisation, Maslow also gives us Grumble theory. The idea that once self-actualisation is achieved it all falls down and we go again (grass is always greener etc). Once ‘big number = better’ is realised, or in other words this method of self-actualisation fails miserably or someone actually gain’s happiness within these parameters this program will be replaced! Perhaps we are already seeing this in the climbing culture, this kind of cultural (discourse) analysis usually takes place a little after the fact. Certainly there is a growing push back against ‘big number = better’ (probably why Randall’s pillaging YouTube instead)
- Perhaps an unintended output is the bigger number = better. Which in turn leads to ‘getting better is good’.
- Also for those running that software an unintended output is they actually do go climbing at some point and get the known psychosocial benefits of that activity.
Awesome post. Can I mention one stactavist number I keep - number of climbing days with no driving at all. Over the past few years I've got into the 'ecopointing' idea - climbing via walking, cycling and public transport. Though originally environmentally driven, for me it also resonates strongly with "dwelling in the world", social world, climbing as quest, deliberately doing things the hard way, and engaging deeply with the places around you. Often it results in finding hidden gems at closer crags and having just as good a time with your friends as if you drove for hours to tick that particular in-style route that lets you add a bigger number to your ticklist. New pubs are visited, books are read, zero energy is wasted being angry at other drivers, and fellow train passengers ask for demonstrations of trad climbing gear, interconnecting the world instead of atomising it in the pursuit of individual goals.
Good read! I think assigning complete power, over what is perceived to be good, to media and business misses an important experiential/phenomenological point though. Most climbers in the quest for a bigger number will (by default?) experience a version of that list of metrics given at the end of the article. These dopamine inducing metrics make true in terms of embodied experience the ‘Big number = good’. To say an acute awareness of these alternative metrics is better, is a bit instructive for me.
Also isn’t ‘Bigger number = good’ a more appropriate simplification of the discourse you are describing. ‘Bigger’ is more aligned with your preferred goal of self actualisation. Most know once they achieve the bigger number they won’t hang up their rock boots but instead continue on for the next bigger number.
For a lot of climbers getting better in an abstract sense is a source of their desire. Although ‘big number = better’ is sold to us maybe bigger number = better is experienced and is not as bad as we may think…
Hi Will, thanks for your comment. The acute awareness you describe is only necessary for those who are already running "big number = good" software. Those who are not almost certainly already know that quality is what really matters; these people also experience 'getting better = good' but it is not necessarily mediated by or measured with numbers.
R.e. "Bigger number = good". Yes this does make more sensea and fits the behaviour better, but the correctness of the grammer takes away the caveman-like attitude I allude to with "big number = good".
Thanks for the reply! I guess what I’m trying to get at is a series of unintended outputs that emerge from the program (this route of cybernetic language seems useful).
- If we are keeping in this frame of self actualisation, Maslow also gives us Grumble theory. The idea that once self-actualisation is achieved it all falls down and we go again (grass is always greener etc). Once ‘big number = better’ is realised, or in other words this method of self-actualisation fails miserably or someone actually gain’s happiness within these parameters this program will be replaced! Perhaps we are already seeing this in the climbing culture, this kind of cultural (discourse) analysis usually takes place a little after the fact. Certainly there is a growing push back against ‘big number = better’ (probably why Randall’s pillaging YouTube instead)
- Perhaps an unintended output is the bigger number = better. Which in turn leads to ‘getting better is good’.
- Also for those running that software an unintended output is they actually do go climbing at some point and get the known psychosocial benefits of that activity.
That’s my hopeful hot take!