Is speedflying statisticly dangerous ?

Statistics.

The worlds most underrated propaganda tool.

Do You know about the psychological trap of statistics ? Do they make you, me (and also the general public) believe in having a basis or reasoning for decisions and in turn make us insecure about the value of our own decissions ? Seems so ? Seems to be a very sophisticated psychological trap, but not only a psychological trap, also a physical trap for some people as they get trapped in fear, fear to make a decission about how to live their lives, about what to do with their lives apart from the tracks others (society, parents etc.) put them in.

Thats also why statistics are so widely used for defense or reasoning of certain political decissions / government employed personnel made rules etc. - but what are they ? Just a projected illusion ? As good as saying "i believe that...", but of corse it sounds better / more plausible to say: "statistics tell us that...." - but just because most people dont understand statistics and their real properties.

So in reality a statistics driven decision basis is not valid for you or me as an individual, its only valid / comparable if one looks at an "everaged" group of individuals in an everaged environment (which does not exist in reality, let alone in a multi parametered sport like speedflying, paragliding or mountaineering)

Highly "valid" statistic outcomes are always tied to randomized large numbers of very comparable events in more or less controlled environments with little environment parameter deviation, the larger the number of those events fed into the statistic outcome the more accurate the statistic outcome will be - but in turn only (!) for that large number of events within that standardized environment.

I guess that nicely highlights the total absurdness of statistics for speedflying / paragliding and most any other multi parameter dependent action sport.

As decision help, if a complex, multi- parameter influenced activity like speedflying is dangerous or not for an individual (!), a statistic approach is therefore next to useless.

If you use it you are just doing one thing: cheating yourself with some pseudo reasoning to support your already "stomach driven" made assumptions.

In the end it all boils down to one thing: the ability to decide, to decide for yourself, with the infos you have, and the will and ability to bear the consequences (good and bad) - an ability that the majority of the overinsured and oversecured population in most of the "developed" world has almost lost.

I find it perticulary interesting that people in general these days seem to have a tremendous fear to trust in their own abilities, in their own ability to adapt and to easily turn a bad decision into a good outcome.

Instead more and more people seem to believe in the constant "...you cant do this or that..." propaganda in all aspects of life, they accept, no they seem to embrace limitations of their personal freedom, just to make sure they don't need to make a decission, just to avoid exposing themselves with a decission that could turn out as beeing "wrong" (oh my goodness.. WRONG ...) - and all that in a time where one should assume that personal freedom to decide has reached an almost historic maximum - very strange isn't it ?

In line with that, strangely enough - also in a freedom and decision oriented sport like Speedflying or Paragliding - I see a lot of participants who seem to act purely fear driven, (for example the endless and mostly completely use- and meaningless Paragliding EN rating and what you "should" fly and why and for how long etc.. discussions come to my mind ).

Fear driven, an approach that creates danger and accidents as its own self proclaiming prophecy = negative oriented thoughts tend to produce more negative outcomes than positive thoughts, but probably thats the outcome of permanent exposure to current mass media were negitivism is the main transported message as fear keeps the sheep quiet, and propaganda induced "fear" is often hidden in, and transported by, statistics.

So better dont listen too much to statistics, better trust your own feeling, think positive, be brave, make decissions, make errors, trust in your ability to correct them and learn from them, that does a lot more for a full and happy life then reading useless statistics.