> If the actual risk are close to BASE jumping then you’ve failed.

The myriad BASE jumping businesses would probably like a word. Risk tolerance varies.

How many are there and what do they do?

How many? No idea. But it's common to find it offered as a commercial activity — in a similar way to skydiving or other "extreme sports" — all over the world, as a quick web search would show you…

Can you show me a few? I did the quick web search as suggested, but cannot find the right keywords to find a lot.

What I did find is that BASE jumping is apparently often illegal (but definitely not everywhere per se), that everyone who did it can claim a “number”, and that 2000 numbers total have been claimed since 1981.

I’m not saying you’re wrong, I know next to nothing about BASE jumping. I’m curious what companies offer it commercially as an activity, and if that’s really widespread.

I just remember watching a documentary once, saying how crazy and uncommon it is.

Check my reply to your sibling comment for some links.

The only place I know of where it's specifically illegal is US national parks (only national parks — you're fine in Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service territories).

Of course, if you have to trespass to make the jump, that's itself illegal, but that has nothing to do with BASE jumping.

There’s also business supporting people climbing Mount Everest, but their profits are severely limited by the number of people with means willing to take such risks.

It's a pretty robust and long-lasting industry, so the idea that their profits are "severely limited" doesn't pass the sniff test. They no doubt just increase their unit cost accordingly.

Anyway, although fewer than 1000 people summit Everest each year, 500 people per day reach Everest Base Camp, so there's plenty of room for profits.

It’s a matter of scale, right? 500/day sounds pretty low, if you’re trying to start a new airline or taxi company. But if I could sell 500 books per day that’s a huge slamdunk success.

Sure. A guided trek to Base Camp is, at a minimum, a few thousand dollars, and there's a good chance that's not the only tourist dollars you're spending while in Nepal.

Yea, but again a trip to base camp isn’t particularly dangerous.

If your business model is running a cruise ship where a few people take extreme risks and 98% are doing a normal holiday then sure that’s reasonable. Building a business on 3k customers/ year worldwide might survive but it’s lucky to make the same money as a single decent restaurant location.

Reaching Everest base camp is nowhere close to as risky as seriously trying to climb it. The record is 800 people per year actually reaching the summit and ~3,000 people making serious attempts.

That’s a tiny market, and yes companies do get involved but it’s not the sole source of income for any significant business.

Nepal introduced limits on the number of permits it will issue recently, because there’s more people who want to climb Everest than it can safely accomodate each year.

I've heard of bungie jumping, and sky diving businesses, any examples of base jumping businesses (not counting gear makers).

From a quick Google search…

Some "experience" operators:

https://www.basejumpmoab.com

https://www.tandembase.com

Plenty of "course" operators too:

https://www.snakeriverbase.com

https://www.learntobasejump.com

http://www.brentobaseschool.com

Holy crap, I can't believe they're able to offer commercial BASE jumping to untrained customers. There's no way anyone would sell them liability insurance is there?

Insurance for the jumper seems to not be a problem. I couldn't easily find out about liability insurance for the operator, but I'd imagine that it's possible for the right price.

https://www.moabbaseassociation.us/insurance

https://www.globalrescue.com/common/blog/detail/is-base-jump... — "You’re certainly welcome to go BASE jumping under a Global Rescue travel protection membership as we have no altitude or activity restrictions."

https://www.base-jump.com/en/insurance-en

There are things that are even more dangerous than BASE jumping that people do for fun, like cave diving, but people do them. I never got the attraction of people to cave diving. All you have to do is kick up a little dirt, and you're pretty much dead.

Tourist Cave diver here, kicking up a little dirt happens on almost every dive, we train to deal with complete blackout scenarios, while sharing air, in restrictions but that rarely happens. Typical incidents relate to people doing a dive over their experience level or getting lost and running out of gas. Some cave systems are truly huge in scale and navigation can be difficult if you do a huge dive in one go. Personally i will only make 1 new navigation decision per dive so i can always visualize the cave. This goes out the window for those doing exploration type dives, then anything can happen.

I'd hate to see your account suddenly stop posting.

Honest question, why do it? What’s the attraction of cave diving? Are underwater caves exciting enough that it’s worth the risk? Or is the risk itself the main thrill? Or is your perception that it’s not that risky?

I can understand the attraction of e.g. wingsuits, because the idea of flying like a bird is compelling, even if I would never risk my own life to do it. Although there’s definitely more than a few wingsuit jumpers who are doing it specifically to dice with Death e.g. proximity flying.

Adrenaline is a powerful drug. And there's also a 100% focus (or very close to it), something that's really hard to achieve otherwise. Keeping yourself fit counts as well. I don't cave dive but I do ride MX which is also considered a risky sport. I'd say you'll hear similar answers from everyone dealing with risky sports/activities.

Surprisingly there are skilled but unfit cave divers. You are neutrally buoyant most of the time with little need for major physical exertion. I was a technical driver for over 6 years. The more efficient you become the less energy and air you use. I like to parachute and motorcycle too. Gravity, the plane and the moto do most of the work. That's why I go to a boxing gym for fitness among other activities.

It's not an adrenaline thing. Cave dives last for hours, not a few seconds like BASE jumping. If anything cave explorers do everything they can to minimize adrenaline production in order to hold their breathing rates down.

Personally I do it because it's the closest I will ever get to feeling like a space explorer. You are neutrally buoyant (weightless) completely relying on your equipment for survival and able to see places IN the earth very few people will ever experience, plus I love a challenge. When most people think of cave diving they imagine really small holes and limited visibility. Sure, that can be it if you want or you can visit places like this,

https://youtu.be/TTICP6m-FyY?t=594

^ THAT is why I do it. Also I spent about 2 years in initial training and continue to train every time I dive. Our goal is to drive the risk to 0 which isn't reality but I feel less safe driving to some of the caves than I do diving them.

I guess you might be saying that, but it's probably not actually true. "I feel less safe driving to some of the caves than I do diving them" see https://www.dg-aviation.de/en/library/safety-comes-first and https://chessintheair.com/the-risk-of-dying-doing-what-we-lo...

So the places we drive to are pretty remote and not in 'safe' spots. So I could sit at the hotel/resort and have no issues or get out on the road to the dive site. Every trip has had a story, not all good ones, but every dive has been worth it.

I am not a cave diver myself, but I do a lot of scuba diving and am friends with cave divers. Cave diving is one of the only remaining ways where an ordinary middle-class person can do original exploration without being part of some bigger organization. They can just get together with a few friends, fly to Mexico or wherever, and potentially go where no human has ever gone before.

A generalization that I often hear for open water diving is that the drive to a dive place is more dangerous than diving itself, at least considering the time spent on the highway compared to the much shorter duration that is the dive.

That said, it does require a lot of training and certification, and people need to maintain that training and their gear. It not so much that kicking up a little dirt will kill you (it generally won't), but that a combination of complacency, stress and panic will kill you. In that it is again similar to driving in that in generally it is not the car or even the highway speeds that kills people, but rather complacency and a lack of attention to the road and traffic. Random tire explosion on the highway is a real risk, but even that is usually a lack of attention to maintenance.

A big difference is things like BASE jumping / cave diving / mountain climbing require active participation and skill from the people experiencing them. I assume most fatalities in these sports are because of mistakes made by those participants (or health issues), not equipment failure by the companies facilitating them.

Adventure trips like Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and these OceanGate tours are passive experiences. Exhilarating, but you're not really expected to have any skill or do anything. I think a better analogy would be African Safaris - exotic, exclusive, and extremely expensive "adventures" for the wealthy. There's a powerful illusion of danger, but no one buying a package actually thinks there's a real chance they won't come home.

If these ultra-expensive, high-tech space and deep-sea adventures don't turn out to be as safe as, say, theme park rides, I wonder if there will be enough wealthy, risk-seeking adrenaline junkies to keep them in business.

I agree, you actively seek the activity and the risk of other extreme activities and have often followed a long path of garnering the skills required to participate. It isn't surprising to a wingsuiter if their friend dies.

If a tour to the Titanic could be sold in a holiday package deal you're going to get people who don't understand the risks.

You do see it in holiday scuba diving destinations, where people are led to believe it is perfectly safe, and it's marketed to everyone. The reality of a dive is that you are just a couple of mistakes away from fatal consequences and the dive masters must know that as they strap a bottle onto a newbie and send 8 of them down at once.

“Risk” covers both stakes and odds.

People take extreme risks every day riding in cars; high stake, low odds.

But yeah, if the TAM of Titanic tourism is anything close to BASE jumping, that’s a gold mine. Tens of thousands of people a year? Good business.

All the dead frozen bodies on Mount Everest are a testimony to risk hand-waving.

But I short-circuit trying to figure which is more stupid, visiting Everest or Titanic.

People want an "adventure" and to learn useful things about themselves? Okay train to run a marathon. Now train to run it faster.

"Don't tell me what to do"-ism?

Yeah, I just don't get how "sitting in a 5 foot diameter tube for 24 hours looking through a tiny window" is exploring. You didn't make the project happen in any meaningful way - you're just a passenger. Seems like a pretty terrible way to pass the time, even when everything works as expected.

I can kind of see the appeal of Everest from a mountain climbing point of view, but I think I'd go and do one of the peaks without rush hour queues. So what if it's the 2nd/3rd/4th highest.

Interestingly, it's much easier to climb Everest than K2 (second highest peak). Death rate is one per four who reach the summit (91 deaths total).

Running is a very high injury rate sport. Depending on what study you look at, novice runners has an accident rate of around 3.3 (that requires medical attention) per 100h of running. It is not without its own risk. Lower risk than climbing Everest or visiting Titanic, but still fairly high risk activity in a city environment with city traffic.

Swimming is a bit better if one want to a lower-risk sport.

Musculoskeletal overuse injuries requiring some level of medical attention are pretty common in every endurance sport, including swimming. But the number of people who actually die due to running accidents is miniscule. We usually have a few deaths every year in open water swimming and the swim portion of triathlon races due to medical issues like heart attacks and immersion pulmonary oedema.

It also isn't reasonable to expect "normal people" to be experts on every single thing so that they even realize they are taking an extreme risk in the first place.