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Topic Date User

Watchtower new bolted line. 6-Mar-2014 At 6:06:15 PM Damien Gildea

Message

On 6/03/2014 davidn wrote:
>
>>Their dislike of (in this case) excessive bolting very much exists,
>
>Sorry, but your UK-based statistics and the inference to the Australian
>population are logical fallacies.
>
>'argument from ignorance'. Proof of non-responsiveness is clearly not
>proof of support of a particular ideology. Bolters could as well claim
>that the 80,000+ non-respondents per week in the UK climbing forums support
>bolting wholeheartedly (let's not even talk population skew - I think many
>of us, myself included, privately applaud UK for its love of gritstone
>and boltless tactics, suicidal as it can be at times).
>

You're correct that my original 2nd paragraph was a logical fallacy in that I implied that ALL of that silent majority was opposed to bolting. As you point out, we don't know what they think.

But that was really the main point, of my first paragraph. The point being that many people are interested enough to read the forum but not sufficiently motivated to post anything. That discrepancy was my point, not necessarily their view on any given thing.

> I don't believe climbers comprise a silent anything
>- we are vocal about our various peccadilloes, whatever they may be.

Who is 'we'? As above, the majority of climbers do not post on forums, do not write letters, do not write blogs or magazine articles. There might be a range of different voices and opinions, but numerically they are a minority.

I find it odd that climbers, as a general population, would in most cases adhere to the increasingly accepted and popular guidelines of 'leave no trace' and 'minimal impact' for outdoor activities - except when it comes to bolting. Bolts, except when replacing mounds of tat, are MORE impact than trad pro and leave a visible, artificial trace of passage. I'm not intrinsically against bolts and I'm all for a few in some places, but the degree of proliferation is highlighting this hypocrisy within the climbing community.