@@leandervr same i got genuine anxiety watching it. I have an atypical fear of heights but this situation definitely falls into it and this was brutal. I couldnt even focus on what Tom was talking about
YannickoYT Yeah, no kidding. I felt seriously uneasy when he put his arms up in the air just watching the video. Can't even imagine what it would be like actually being there. Yikes.
***** I one went there (I'm Norwegian so it wasn't to far to drive) and my brother (/my sister. can't remember) tryed to joke and pushed me a little. I almost fell over the ledge if he/she didn't hold me afterwards.
I went there a few years ago, and was astonished by how carefree everyone seemed there. There was a 9-10 year old kid who just walked out to the edge and stood there - maybe about 10 cm from the edge? I could help thinking about what would happen if a gust of wind made you take a step forward, or if you stumbled over a fold in the rock on the way to the edge.. it stressed me out a lot. It's unbelievable to me that only one person seems to ever have fallen off by accident.
@Ian Visser Are you thinking it may have been suicide? It's certainly possible but why go to pulpit rock, it's brimming with tourists. And after googling it the person was a spanish tourist, so i'm not sure that theory holds.
that's just darwin's law in action. personally, i would account for all what you said and even if that wouldn't exist at all, i would not trust anybody there to not push me over, accidentally or willingly. i wouldn't go the the edge at all and if i had to, id lay down flat and rob on the ground until just my eyes could peak over.
@@hazardeur I wouldn't go to the edge either, but not because I don't trust in other people. When you stand at an intersection of a busy road waiting for a green light, anyone could push you in front of an oncoming car and kill you. Same at a trainstation. In reality, very few people are willing to kill another person and go to jail for life just for a moment's psychopathic amusement.
@@mandel94 everybodyy is different. myself, i always calculate in terms of risk if other people are around and there's something that could be dangerous, be it a intersection, a cliff, water, whatever
I'd be less afraid of falling and more afraid of someone pushing me off (intentionally or otherwise) In fact, I'm hesitant to stand near high edges whenever there are people close behind me, but if I'm by myself or far away from others, I have no problem with it at all I mean, I _know_ that I'm less likely to be pushed off (as most people aren't complete monsters or that careless) than I am to slip and fall, but if I fall it's my own fault, and if I'm pushed its someone else's fault, and the idea of something bad happening to me as the result of my own actions is far more palatable to me then the idea of someone else doing it
I feel the same way on the platform at stations. When a train is coming, I tend to get as close to the wall as possible, in case some nutter is hanging around waiting to push me. It's probably irrational, but I always think that the cost (walking a few paces back) is so small that I'm happy to reduce the risk.
More than being scared of falling off, I’d be more paranoid about some crazy dude pushing me off while I was on the ledge. Actually think it’s surprising it has never happened before…
abcdefghilihgfedcba Probably because it _is_ such a tourist attraction, meaning that there's always plenty of witnesses around. It would be a remarkably risky way of killing someone.
ALAKTORN It wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do considering the victim would instinctively try to grab onto something and the closest “thing” would be the person trying to push him, so the most likely outcome would be both of them falling off the cliff.
Got there in April, when the whole upper area was covered in ice and snow and there was fog everywhere. The visual experience was way different than on a sunny day, but the feeling of unease when standing over the icebound edge and knowing that there's a 600 meter drop behind that fog was very much there.
That's a very tolkien-esque question. In his books because Elves basically lived forever they never really did anything. They just kind of stagnated and because humans lived "short" lives they accomplished things and moved the world forward. The lord of the rings takes place as the the magic in the world is ending and the age of man and their innovation is beginning.
That's basically the bio of every RPG game, Elves distrust the mortal races because they are in a hurry to do everything, you turn your back for a brief two centuries and another city has appeared somewhere. It is a very true thing though, the less time we have the more we do with it, look at terminally ill people with bucket lists, and yet we treat the few decades we have as "I'll get round to doing it tomorrow".
Certainly didn't intend to be like number 666... That said, the perspective that Tolkien provides is entirely to plausible, but is it that way because we think we accomplish alot and have been conditioned to think it would be different or because it really would be that way...
A further question: If we could live virtually immortal, would there be as much pressure day to day to actually "live?" The feeling of running out of time pushes us in a lot of different ways, but when there will quite literally "always be tomorrow," to do something, would we do it? Or would we just put it off to some arbitrary point in the future?
We might start out procrastinating a lot but I have to imagine we'd get insufferably bored of that after awhile. We'd still be tempted to do something productive just to keep us occupied.
I'm not sure base jumping off this rock is survivable, parachute or no. There might not be enough time for a deployed parachute to catch enough air to slow you down enough before you go splat.
@@hugebuffman3619 there are more games with such key bindings. Also, why the hell would you put quicksave and quickload buttons next to each other, that's literally recipe for disaster
knees weak arms are heavy, theres vomit on his sweater already. moms spaghetti hes nervous but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop BOMBS. BUT HE KEEPS ON FORGETTING WHAT HE WROTE DOWN, THE WHOLE CROWD GOES SO LOUD. HE OPENS HIS MOUTH BUT THE WORDS WONT COME OUT. HES CHOKING, HOW? EVERYBODYS CHOKING NOW. CLOCKS RAN OUT TIMES UP OVER BLOWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Preikestolen har en flere meter dyp sprekk tvers over platået som trolig også er et resultat av frostsprengninger. Geologer har konkludert med at Preikestolen er trygg selv om mange ugrunnet tror at fjellplatået vil dette ned når de ser sprekken. → The pulpit rock has a deep gap in the middle of it med most likely from frost heave. Geologists has concluded that the pulpit rock is safe even tough many people think that the rock will fall when they see the gap. btw i live just a couple kilometers from the pulpit rock
In case you didn't know, they've filmed Mission Impossible Fallout (in the movie they're supposed to be in the Himalayas) and Vikings at the Pulpit Rock
Oh god. Does anyone else get that thought, when looking over a huge drop, that "I could totally throw myself over, right here, right now, and kill myself." I would never act on that impulse, but the impulse is still there, y'know?
2 years late, but anyway: It's called the imp of the perverse. It's the thing that, when walking across a bridge with your phone in hand, makes you think "I could throw my phone in the water." Or standing in a high place: "I could jump."
Those are called intrusive thoughts. There is a super interesting paper that presents an evolutionary hypothesis for this kind of thoughts. It calls them "a psychological immune system". The general idea is that we evolved those kind of thoughts as a way of simulating those situations, and therefore exercising your own risk assessment. Not unlike how we believe play evolved as a way of training too (originating in animals play-fighting and such). There is, of course, no hard evidence for it, but it does sound like a very plausible scenario.
I've gone there and you get this tiny feeling when you're standing on the edge. You... Don't really get a chance to kill yourself in everyday life. That thought was scary af.
I'm willing to wager the death rate on Pulpit rock is so low because it's so scary, and the death rate of the drive to it is so high because it isn't scary. If we did an experiment where we gave people fear inhibitors before they went up pulpit rock we'd see a dramatic uptick in deaths. Likewise if we gave people fear enhancers on the drive to pulpit rock we'd see a drop in deaths. Kinda like risk compensation: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation But with perceived risks rather than actual risks.
@@_Vesper Fear is good at keeping people from dying. It is not good at getting those same people to be creative, productive, or inventive. In a state ruled through fear, you'll only ever get people doing just enough to scrape by.
The hike to Kjeragbolten, on the opposite side of the fjord, is actually much harder and also very rewarding! The attraction, though, is much more dangerous: it involves standing on a rock (without a flat surface) that's trapped in a crack in the mountain, around one kilometer above the ground!
Many would argue the attraction is going there and standing 8 meters away with knees shaking like Elvis Presley wondering how insane the people that actually dares to walk onto the actual kjeragbolten (the stone itself) would be. 😉 I was fortunate to hike there all alone as I did it in a weekday in mid October. It made it extra special that noone was around and then slowly crawling to the edge and look down from kjerag where the basejumpers jump. Despite I could visually see I was alone for at least hundreds of meters I was somewhat paranoid that someone would show up from behind 😀
"Only one person, in living memory, has died here" With a risk that great and almost certain death on the other side, and it being frequently visited, does that number not seem remarkably low? There are plenty other dangerous things, but they're very well regulated, and some incredibly safe things, that people die from, frequently. Is there something intrinsically linked with the evolution of our brains that makes this safer? For example, does the brain look at this and go "yup, that's death" and realise that it can look, but not touch? I'm interested by this... Does the brain have such a high level of risk/reward understanding?
I think it has to do with the ratio of real risk to perceived risk. In this case, the perceived risk is probably higher than the real risk, so folks are careful. When the perceived risk is lower than the real risk, that's when people start getting hurt.
I think that would be an interesting area of study, compare and contrast how we percieve "natural" risks that we could have evolved for (like lions or cliffs) vs "artificial" risks that we haven't had time to evolve a sense of (like driving cars, obesity, and air polution). For instance most people would probably know that drop is lethal and stand a "safe" distance back from the edge but some will gladly dangle their legs over the edge. Compare this to driving which is incredibly dangerous and yet many are complacent (which raises the risk even more) and few people fear driving/riding in a car compared to a 100ft cliff. Note: it has already been determined that having a sense of control (like when driving) increases risk tollerance by a factor of 1000 and that risk of death by disease is the cutoff for societally acceptable risks.
One of my favourite book series when I was a teen, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott, has a part in it where one immortal accuses another of merely "surviving" rather than living. His reasoning is the same as what Tom talks about: one of them is being very cautious and calculating to ensure that he remains alive, while the other is out taking more risks and having fun with his long life. (The two immortals in question are Billy the Kid and Niccolò Machiavelli. No prizes for guessing which is the reckless one. 😆)
Keep in mind, this rock only holds one "Accidental" death, but several more on purpose (suicide, etc.) It's also debated wether the accidental death was really accidental.
Another thing about risk Imagine cigarettes becoming perfectly safe, except for a defect, 1 in every x, will instantly kill, and there is no way to test. If the maths works out to keep the deaths by cigarette the same, and average life span of smoker the same, PEOPLE WOULD SMOKE LESS, even tough its just as harmful Which is why people care more about nuclear reactor explosions, then deaths by air pollution from fossil fuels, even though the latter is worse overall
to be fair the cigarette comparison is really off from reality because no one ever dies from smoking a single cigarette which is a possibility there, instead someone who smokes a ton of them will eventually slowly die (potentially), we do consider these things as different from each other because they are.
I don't find the risk of falling off and dying scary. It's the idea that my entire existence could end in under 5 seconds if I wanted it to. The power over life and death staring you in the face. For that brief moment you control life and death. Anyone else think about it this way?
OatmealTheCrazy - A very long time it must have been. Can you remind me on which part of RUclips we met before? ^^; (Don't worry, I've recognized commentators who didn't recognize me back as well.)
Oatmeal - It saddens me that I have forgotten about it, but I'm happy you came back to answer, even if it took you about four months :D (I'm a huge blabbermouth and never resist the urge to waste my time discussing minutae with strangers online :p )
Is it even theoretically possible to experience the heat death of the universe because having something as dense in energy as matter would surely mean it’s not the heat death if I understand that term correctly. So if you were immortal the heat death could not happen.
@@jaymercer4692 One immortal, alone, at the end of all time, using their physics defying ability to ignore entropy and power themselves, gathering all the material they can and applying work to it to give it potential... and this is how the next universe is born.
This reminds me of the Micromort unit of risk (1 being 1/million chance etc). Taking ecstacy? 0.5 units. Driving 230 miles? 1 unit. Base jumping? 430 units per jump, damn.
@@Hust91 ask people in qarentine how it feels, you might be sure they are not enjoiyng it... i'veen livin in a quasi-bunker for 2 and a half years btw... working online, oirdering food, etc... in the end you still need to get out sometimes
Weirdly I get shooting pains in my legs when watching someone get too close to a potentially deadly height. The older I get the worse it is. When we were young going hiking in the Lake District, Scotland and Switzerland,my brother would always get too close to the edge of something and it terrified me.
This was breathtaking in content. The context you pulled from the moment and expressed can easily be another definition of living. To be curious, and wonder, and question... and to guess and share and discuss... How more human could a being be?
Many years ago, back in my 20s, I climbed Half Dome and sat on the edge of the 'Diving Board,' a ledge similar to what the Asian dude is on. I even managed to cautiously peer over the edge and look straight down. (OMG!) By the time I reached 40, I don't think I would have done that. (Lower testosterone levels can definitely have a positive influence on one's longevity!) But now, at 52, I think I'd be game once more! With only 2~3 decades left, I find myself forcing a bit of risk here and there. And most times, I don't really have to push myself. I just do it. I can't say I'm entirely keen on mortality, but some small part of my brain seems to have accepted it to a degree.
This was really great, I think despite all your awesome videos, This one is my favourite so far. Thankyou for quality RUclips without the scumbag sponsorship plugs etc. Your a legend Tom Scott
I climbed up to the top of Pulpit Rock last weekend and it was completely covered in clouds & fog, I saw absolutely nothing. I had to come to this video to see what the view would've been like if I had been luckier with the weather! Thanks Tom.
"I've been thinking a lot about risk recently." - What does a scar on your face and a 600m drop have to do with a conquest strategy board game? :P P.s. as someone with crazy acrophobia (vertigo does not mean fear of heights!) I would nope right outta that place on the first train to Nopeville. Seriously, even if I'm on a pedestrian footbridge I have to carefully walk as far away from either edge as possible, and get all squeamish when people pass me.
It's an amazing place. There's a small crevice on the path to getting there that opens down under your feet and you can see the water at the bottom. Shame it started pouring a few minutes after we got there, would've loved to stay more.
Love the ending. Reminds me of how I feel about reckless, nonsensical acts in comparison to most people. I think it depends on what you call "living". Some people seem to think that making most of life involves getting hammered, dancing to loud music and risking getting injured (and possibly dying - I'm curious what percentage of accidental deaths happen due to drugs...) - quite visceral. Personally, I prefer the more intellectual experience (depending on who you're with) of just chatting with people. I'm also reminded of the song "The Whole of the Moon"
I'll just leave this here: "I don't want to survive, I want to live!" P.S. I kept expecting that guy in the background to fall off. Especially when he does his "I'm King of the World!" pose.
The underlying principle of this comes under the study of psychopathy and the average person will assess a risk and if it is necessary they are more likely to do it. More people die per year crossing roads to go to the shop than die falling from a cliff. Yet people are more likely to walk across a road than stand on the edge of a cliff despite the higher risk involved.
But when you are at a cliff you are really carefull, because you are aware of the danger, while crossing a road is a daily thing. Even though I don't think you can compare those risks I still would not need a study to find that out. Of course people will asses a risk if it is necessary, because it is *necessary*. There is no other option. So you don't have to wonder why people are doing it.
"Ultimately, which is more human, the desire to experience or the desire to survive?" I think it's neither. The ability to chose between the two is the most human thing in my opinion.
You very rarely stumble, trip over, or fall over things. Yet when you're on a cliff- and being far more careful with every step- you worry you'll somehow fall off
Did you hear about the pilot who went to a psychic? The psychic told her that she would die in a plane crash on a particular date. So on that day she called in sick to work and stayed home. About two ours into the flight she would have been flying a plane from another airline crashed into her house and she was killed. The plane she would have been flying landed safely.
The point of the story you made up is not everything is clear cut. While you may be alerted and looking out for a certain risk and start preparing for that, you may still experience another risk because you spent too much time looking out for that one. Or yanno, ask the psychic for specifics xD
I genuinely couldn't watch beyond 30 seconds! Even hearing Tom say only 1 person has fallen, I got anxious just watching him bum-shuffle towards the edge 😱
People would crave this experience, especially after having lived for a very long time and gotten tired of the boredom caused by the endless cycle of repeating mondane everyday experiences.
I remember visiting the Grand Canyon when I was like 9 with my grandparents. I didn't go closer then 10 feet because I was scared to. I could imagine SO many potential scenarios like a sudden gust of wind, the ground giving, etc.
*Posthumanism* will allow _living_ with _virtually_ no risk due to the option of _respawning_ if needed. The possible experiences won't be so limited either; _base jumping_ for example will require no parachute, and could become more than _falling_ with a few tweaks to the local physics. BTW: You wouldn't get me on that ledge without a fight.
James - what's more traumatic?: 1) Jumping from a high place with not much more than a sheet tied to your back by long threads. 2) Jumping from a _virtually_ high _place_ where the physics have been tweaked to disallow harm by impact (no sheet required). Prehumanism was all about somewhat unknowingly taking risks for practicality's sake. Postpre-preposthumanism is all about experiences which are practically limited by evaluated risk. Posthumanism will be about practically limitless experience, without risk. Thrill seekers need not be disheartened; we'll be able to tweak our own reactions then too, and if we choose to, experience whatever risks we like, with all the trauma that entails. Personally, I'd rather forego the throwback adrenalin rush. For fun: Research _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ "simulated disability pills".
A great poet wrote: "The awful daring of a moment's surrender which an age of prudence can never retract by this, and only this, have we existed" from The Waste Land by T.S.Eliot.
I'm sorry Tom, this is perhaps the only video of yours that I cannot physically watch til' the end. That guy behind you, and all the shots over the edge... I can't. It makes me sick.
You see, i'm perfectly fine with being high up in an aircraft or in a skycraper, but this? Nope. Don't even wanna get close. When I visited the bell tower in Big Ben in London, It was pretty similar. I didn't want to leave the staircase, despite their being walls around each side. So it's not quite a fear of heights, what is it?
bigglessy Fear of edges? I dunno. I work atop grain silos, and am pretty comfortable with heights, but I tend to be wary of cliff edges. I don't trust 'em.
This video becomes a lot less unsettling when you remember that Tom went to a 90s-themed concert not long after. Just play Lou Bega's Mambo No. 5 over the top of this and see if it has the same tone.
Watching that scared me so much that I didn't get a word of your story. Even knowing that you didn't die, because this was 4 years ago and I just watched you in another video from today.
I was watching this video with the man sitting on the edge. I scrolled down to the comments and when I came back up, he was gone...
*uh oh*
Hey, you also watch this channel!
5 years later, this comment still makes me laugh
ahahahaahahaha same
Wow what i did not expect to see z3 cubing as the top comment! Awesome!
Tom's palpable anxiety about the guy sitting at the edge throughout the video makes this all the more enjoyable.
The addition of the word palpable in your comment would be the reason for at least 100 of the likes it got
Bold of you to assume Tom is the only one who's terrified. 0_0
I got severely sweaty palms looking at that guy.
not at, all i feel the same as tom
@@leandervr same i got genuine anxiety watching it. I have an atypical fear of heights but this situation definitely falls into it and this was brutal. I couldnt even focus on what Tom was talking about
That guy in the background is freaking me out.
YannickoYT Yeah, no kidding. I felt seriously uneasy when he put his arms up in the air just watching the video. Can't even imagine what it would be like actually being there. Yikes.
***** I one went there (I'm Norwegian so it wasn't to far to drive) and my brother (/my sister. can't remember) tryed to joke and pushed me a little. I almost fell over the ledge if he/she didn't hold me afterwards.
YannickoYT I think they were freaking Tom out too :D
I felt an urge to push him
if i were a parent for that kid, i'll be scared shitless and mad to all hell..
I went there a few years ago, and was astonished by how carefree everyone seemed there. There was a 9-10 year old kid who just walked out to the edge and stood there - maybe about 10 cm from the edge? I could help thinking about what would happen if a gust of wind made you take a step forward, or if you stumbled over a fold in the rock on the way to the edge.. it stressed me out a lot. It's unbelievable to me that only one person seems to ever have fallen off by accident.
@Ian Visser Are you thinking it may have been suicide? It's certainly possible but why go to pulpit rock, it's brimming with tourists. And after googling it the person was a spanish tourist, so i'm not sure that theory holds.
that's just darwin's law in action. personally, i would account for all what you said and even if that wouldn't exist at all, i would not trust anybody there to not push me over, accidentally or willingly. i wouldn't go the the edge at all and if i had to, id lay down flat and rob on the ground until just my eyes could peak over.
@Ian Visser that wasn't really my point. I'm surprised at how few people have fallen off, not that someone has fallen off
@@hazardeur I wouldn't go to the edge either, but not because I don't trust in other people. When you stand at an intersection of a busy road waiting for a green light, anyone could push you in front of an oncoming car and kill you. Same at a trainstation. In reality, very few people are willing to kill another person and go to jail for life just for a moment's psychopathic amusement.
@@mandel94 everybodyy is different. myself, i always calculate in terms of risk if other people are around and there's something that could be dangerous, be it a intersection, a cliff, water, whatever
I'd be less afraid of falling and more afraid of someone pushing me off (intentionally or otherwise)
In fact, I'm hesitant to stand near high edges whenever there are people close behind me, but if I'm by myself or far away from others, I have no problem with it at all
I mean, I _know_ that I'm less likely to be pushed off (as most people aren't complete monsters or that careless) than I am to slip and fall, but if I fall it's my own fault, and if I'm pushed its someone else's fault, and the idea of something bad happening to me as the result of my own actions is far more palatable to me then the idea of someone else doing it
I know in the back of my head there’s something saying PUSH and I of I was anyone I wouldn’t trust me to be behind them.
I feel the same way on the platform at stations. When a train is coming, I tend to get as close to the wall as possible, in case some nutter is hanging around waiting to push me. It's probably irrational, but I always think that the cost (walking a few paces back) is so small that I'm happy to reduce the risk.
@@macronencer Damn thought I was the only weirdo doing that!
@@han5vk "You're never the only weirdo doing something" is probably a good rule of thumb in life :D
@@macronencer True that.
"Only one person has died here"- the Asian guy in the background drops down -" make that two "
JugglingGamer All the rest died below.
Rwededyet Well played!
The way he ran off suddenly, i was sure he was going to slip, fall and die at the bottom of the cliff.
I genuinely kept expecting him to fall off as well. Made me really nervous.
666 likes, im not gone like. satan!
tom casually discusses risk with the beautiful desktop wallpaper behind him
It's a picture-esc scene
How does this only have 2 replies
@@TANGOHEAD How does this 3-year-old comment have a reply from 6 hours ago?
@@abcdefg4570 idk how u replying after 3 years
Might download that screensaver later
More than being scared of falling off, I’d be more paranoid about some crazy dude pushing me off while I was on the ledge. Actually think it’s surprising it has never happened before…
abcdefghilihgfedcba Probably because it _is_ such a tourist attraction, meaning that there's always plenty of witnesses around. It would be a remarkably risky way of killing someone.
Nixitur And if you do push someone off, it would be really easy for someone to punish you for it! Immediately and severely.
ALAKTORN It wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do considering the victim would instinctively try to grab onto something and the closest “thing” would be the person trying to push him, so the most likely outcome would be both of them falling off the cliff.
+ALAKTORN Same, but I also think my mind will just go crazy and force my to jump off Xd
+RustyTube Exactly.
I like to imagine him there with no camera. Just talking intensely to the air.
Got there in April, when the whole upper area was covered in ice and snow and there was fog everywhere. The visual experience was way different than on a sunny day, but the feeling of unease when standing over the icebound edge and knowing that there's a 600 meter drop behind that fog was very much there.
0:55 I turned away for a couple seconds and when I turned back, the guy sitting on the ledge disappeared. It was a bit disturbing, lol.
lednerg While you weren't looking, Tom pushed him to make a point.
lednerg It's more scary when you see him again afterwards.
Xuan Bach I just figured someone who could survive that fall would have remarkable jumping skills as well.
lednerg I scrolled down to read your comment, and when I scrolled up he had gone.
+Cadde Perhaps, still one of the attractions of that place is that there isn't one. ;-)
I like this one particularly. It's a simple but beautiful monologue that says a lot about risk and the human condition.
Wow! Nice to see my favorite cartoon channel here.
Howdie!
Agree
Yh
I read this in your voice O_O
That's a very tolkien-esque question. In his books because Elves basically lived forever they never really did anything. They just kind of stagnated and because humans lived "short" lives they accomplished things and moved the world forward. The lord of the rings takes place as the the magic in the world is ending and the age of man and their innovation is beginning.
That's basically the bio of every RPG game, Elves distrust the mortal races because they are in a hurry to do everything, you turn your back for a brief two centuries and another city has appeared somewhere. It is a very true thing though, the less time we have the more we do with it, look at terminally ill people with bucket lists, and yet we treat the few decades we have as "I'll get round to doing it tomorrow".
Someone might give you your 100th like by the close of the fourth age.
Asimov talks about that issue too.
"elves never really did anything"
legolas: press X for doubt
Certainly didn't intend to be like number 666...
That said, the perspective that Tolkien provides is entirely to plausible, but is it that way because we think we accomplish alot and have been conditioned to think it would be different or because it really would be that way...
A further question: If we could live virtually immortal, would there be as much pressure day to day to actually "live?" The feeling of running out of time pushes us in a lot of different ways, but when there will quite literally "always be tomorrow," to do something, would we do it? Or would we just put it off to some arbitrary point in the future?
We might start out procrastinating a lot but I have to imagine we'd get insufferably bored of that after awhile. We'd still be tempted to do something productive just to keep us occupied.
I love how the guy in the background doing risky stuff while Tom was talking made this video so much better with that timing
Knowing my luck, the rock would collapse when I went to see it.
That would be awesome, tell me when you are going!
Type of dude to get struck by lightning 6 times but never even win $5 from the lottery.
J well, there is a major crack in it, and it is destined to fall, but geologists estimate it will take at least 2000-3000 years before it falls
like London bridge.
At least you do not get struck by lightning while recovering from another lightning strike.
In Germany there would be a fence 2 meters away from the edge. And warning signs everywhere
Have you even seen Australia? You would have to wear a harness.
In Britain? Armed guards at the base, probably. Wearing hi-vi...
Don't forget the 6 meter tall and 1½ meter wide concrete wall with barbed wire and highly skilled soldiers with long range riffles guarding it.
in Jordan, they will assign people to take your money and bank accounts and then push you 😂😂😂😂....jk
Hans Schülein so there should be
They should make a movie called "Unrisky Business" where functionally immortal Tom Cruise lives in a bunker, terrified of the world.
Sounds more like a movie for Tom Hanks
Requios and directed by Wes Anderson and written by Bryan Fuller
That's actually one of the story arcs of What Remains of Edith Finch. Except from the immortality part.
You could call it 'Mission: Impossible, Xenu's Return'
Isn't that being a scientologist means?
"I've been thinking a lot about risk recently", and by recently I mean the last five seconds I've been siting on this rock.
Imagine, you're on this rock, terrified... And someone just *jumps* - with his parachute but you don't notice it.
I'm not sure base jumping off this rock is survivable, parachute or no. There might not be enough time for a deployed parachute to catch enough air to slow you down enough before you go splat.
Just looked it up, base jumps are frequently made from less than 148 m so I suppose this rock is plenty high enough to base jump off of.
@@JohnBehrens118 did you forget to change accounts?
i'mma do that
@@radioanon4535 No I just corrected myself after doing the research
immortality can be greatly improved with a save button
F5 and F9, sucka!
dear sir @@krashd what is wrong with you
dont accidentaIIy save instead of Ioading
@@AndewMole the elder scrolls is wrong with him (i assume)
@@hugebuffman3619 there are more games with such key bindings. Also, why the hell would you put quicksave and quickload buttons next to each other, that's literally recipe for disaster
My hands are sweaty by just *watching*...
+Khorps But on the surface he looks calm and ready
I want to lie flat on the floor...
knees weak arms are heavy, theres vomit on his sweater already. moms spaghetti hes nervous but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop BOMBS. BUT HE KEEPS ON FORGETTING WHAT HE WROTE DOWN, THE WHOLE CROWD GOES SO LOUD. HE OPENS HIS MOUTH BUT THE WORDS WONT COME OUT. HES CHOKING, HOW? EVERYBODYS CHOKING NOW. CLOCKS RAN OUT TIMES UP OVER BLOWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Same 😂
*MOM'S SPAGHETTI*
I'd have named it "Nope Rock"
Sounds about right if you ask me.
same
it is not that scary
Congratulations. You're not normal!
Preikestolen har en flere meter dyp sprekk tvers over platået som trolig også er et resultat av frostsprengninger. Geologer har konkludert med at Preikestolen er trygg selv om mange ugrunnet tror at fjellplatået vil dette ned når de ser sprekken. → The pulpit rock has a deep gap in the middle of it med most likely from frost heave. Geologists has concluded that the pulpit rock is safe even tough many people think that the rock will fall when they see the gap. btw i live just a couple kilometers from the pulpit rock
What an amazing monologue, Tom is a genius writer and producer
In case you didn't know, they've filmed Mission Impossible Fallout (in the movie they're supposed to be in the Himalayas) and Vikings at the Pulpit Rock
I thought it looked familiar!
Yeah, I'm positive you will NEVER run into me there.
If someone would I hope you don't run to fast so one or both of you fall off :)
EddyGurge you and I think very differently... =)
EddyGurge i have been there twice. it's an amazing view.
EddyGurge has
I have been there before, it's not that bad, it's kinda surreal, as if your brain doesn't realise it's real and you're just watching a tv screen.
Oh god.
Does anyone else get that thought, when looking over a huge drop, that "I could totally throw myself over, right here, right now, and kill myself."
I would never act on that impulse, but the impulse is still there, y'know?
2 years late, but anyway:
It's called the imp of the perverse.
It's the thing that, when walking across a bridge with your phone in hand, makes you think "I could throw my phone in the water." Or standing in a high place: "I could jump."
I get that on train platforms!
Those are called intrusive thoughts. There is a super interesting paper that presents an evolutionary hypothesis for this kind of thoughts. It calls them "a psychological immune system". The general idea is that we evolved those kind of thoughts as a way of simulating those situations, and therefore exercising your own risk assessment. Not unlike how we believe play evolved as a way of training too (originating in animals play-fighting and such). There is, of course, no hard evidence for it, but it does sound like a very plausible scenario.
I've gone there and you get this tiny feeling when you're standing on the edge. You... Don't really get a chance to kill yourself in everyday life. That thought was scary af.
'"call of the void" or "lapel du vide"
sorry, i didn't listen to a word you said for most of this.... that guy....
same here
"Ultimately: which is more human? The desire to experience, or the desire to survive?"
I hate sitting on high ledges bc my brain says
_J U M P_
or if someone is in front of me it says:
_P U S H_
Pls stay away from ppl and lock yourself at home
@@bluecat5669 stop
l'appel du vide
Same.
I'd like to ask someone with tourette's how they think they'd act in that situation, if they'd trust themselves.
This is less "Things you might not know" and more "Things you might not think about"
Yep. Although I think Pulpit Rock fits into the first category, so I went with it!
@@TomScottGo hi
@@damncat2793 you are 5 years late, my friend
@@namansoood well, so are you and I
twiced
I'm willing to wager the death rate on Pulpit rock is so low because it's so scary, and the death rate of the drive to it is so high because it isn't scary.
If we did an experiment where we gave people fear inhibitors before they went up pulpit rock we'd see a dramatic uptick in deaths.
Likewise if we gave people fear enhancers on the drive to pulpit rock we'd see a drop in deaths.
Kinda like risk compensation: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation
But with perceived risks rather than actual risks.
Which is why the best societies are those ruled by a leader who uses fear
@@_Vesper Fear is good at keeping people from dying. It is not good at getting those same people to be creative, productive, or inventive. In a state ruled through fear, you'll only ever get people doing just enough to scrape by.
@@_Vesper Yes I'm sure you have plenty of evidence to back that statement up
@@_Vesper "good society" + "leader who uses fear" = oxymoron
The hike to Kjeragbolten, on the opposite side of the fjord, is actually much harder and also very rewarding! The attraction, though, is much more dangerous: it involves standing on a rock (without a flat surface) that's trapped in a crack in the mountain, around one kilometer above the ground!
Many would argue the attraction is going there and standing 8 meters away with knees shaking like Elvis Presley wondering how insane the people that actually dares to walk onto the actual kjeragbolten (the stone itself) would be. 😉
I was fortunate to hike there all alone as I did it in a weekday in mid October. It made it extra special that noone was around and then slowly crawling to the edge and look down from kjerag where the basejumpers jump. Despite I could visually see I was alone for at least hundreds of meters I was somewhat paranoid that someone would show up from behind 😀
"Only one person, in living memory, has died here"
With a risk that great and almost certain death on the other side, and it being frequently visited, does that number not seem remarkably low?
There are plenty other dangerous things, but they're very well regulated, and some incredibly safe things, that people die from, frequently. Is there something intrinsically linked with the evolution of our brains that makes this safer? For example, does the brain look at this and go "yup, that's death" and realise that it can look, but not touch? I'm interested by this... Does the brain have such a high level of risk/reward understanding?
I think it has to do with the ratio of real risk to perceived risk. In this case, the perceived risk is probably higher than the real risk, so folks are careful. When the perceived risk is lower than the real risk, that's when people start getting hurt.
now there's a topic for ur psych doctorate
I think that would be an interesting area of study, compare and contrast how we percieve "natural" risks that we could have evolved for (like lions or cliffs) vs "artificial" risks that we haven't had time to evolve a sense of (like driving cars, obesity, and air polution).
For instance most people would probably know that drop is lethal and stand a "safe" distance back from the edge but some will gladly dangle their legs over the edge. Compare this to driving which is incredibly dangerous and yet many are complacent (which raises the risk even more) and few people fear driving/riding in a car compared to a 100ft cliff.
Note: it has already been determined that having a sense of control (like when driving) increases risk tollerance by a factor of 1000 and that risk of death by disease is the cutoff for societally acceptable risks.
One of my favourite book series when I was a teen, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott, has a part in it where one immortal accuses another of merely "surviving" rather than living. His reasoning is the same as what Tom talks about: one of them is being very cautious and calculating to ensure that he remains alive, while the other is out taking more risks and having fun with his long life.
(The two immortals in question are Billy the Kid and Niccolò Machiavelli. No prizes for guessing which is the reckless one. 😆)
*Michael Scott:* No! No! No please no! No.... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The asian guy runs back when he hears you talk about it.
It is not the fear that you might fall, it is the fear that you might JUMP!
High Place Phenomenon is one of psychologies biggest mysteries.
Rob Fraser the call of the void
@@gyumii you beat me to it.
I’m getting sweaty hands just thinking about that
right ? makes you wanna jump ! sound cool until you die , wich isn't even a problem for most people anyway , would still go to the edge
Last time I was on pulpit rock I hurt myself getting down.
Take care. Use proper foot ware.
I just go down the fast way...the _really_ fast way
Keep in mind, this rock only holds one "Accidental" death, but several more on purpose (suicide, etc.)
It's also debated wether the accidental death was really accidental.
I've been there... if anything would've killed me, it wasn't the drop, it was the several hours long uphill climb x_x
Kinda disappointed you didn't try to pronounce the Norwegian name :p
I learned my lesson with "Hurtigruten" a while back…
+Magnus Vier he knows, made a video about it
Tom is quite a bit smarter than he looks.
Vegard Berg Norwegian pronounciations are easy compared to Icelandic
Jakob Frisvoldsen Icelandic is the closest language to Old Norse, and it really shows
Another thing about risk
Imagine cigarettes becoming perfectly safe, except for a defect, 1 in every x, will instantly kill, and there is no way to test.
If the maths works out to keep the deaths by cigarette the same, and average life span of smoker the same, PEOPLE WOULD SMOKE LESS, even tough its just as harmful
Which is why people care more about nuclear reactor explosions, then deaths by air pollution from fossil fuels, even though the latter is worse overall
wrong comparison, fossil burning cannot annihalite a whole continent, and if it would there would be easy solutions
@@jonathandaniel7321 that's my point, it doesn't annihilate, it kills and harms slowly
@@Somerandomdude-ev2uh it would never kill everyone like a nuclear reactor could
@@jonathandaniel7321 it does kill many people, just slower and over more time
to be fair the cigarette comparison is really off from reality because no one ever dies from smoking a single cigarette which is a possibility there, instead someone who smokes a ton of them will eventually slowly die (potentially), we do consider these things as different from each other because they are.
That was the most stressful video I've ever seen! ;P
You don't really see skydive videos?
If I had to choose between skydiving and standing on this mountain, hand me the parachute.
that's the spirit !
No, the guy who changes lightbulbs at the top of towers.
I can't even watch that without my palms sweating.
Have you watched videos by the channel “on the roof”?
ABSOLUTELY LEGENDARY
THAT CLOSING LINE THAT VOICE THAT *STARE*
How does someone fit so much perfection in 3 minutes
I don't find the risk of falling off and dying scary. It's the idea that my entire existence could end in under 5 seconds if I wanted it to. The power over life and death staring you in the face. For that brief moment you control life and death.
Anyone else think about it this way?
I wouldn't live in a bunker but I wouldn't take crazy risks either. My curiosity is great, and in order to sate it I'd have to survive.
+Άλκης Δ. Oh hey, long time no see
OatmealTheCrazy - A very long time it must have been. Can you remind me on which part of RUclips we met before? ^^;
(Don't worry, I've recognized commentators who didn't recognize me back as well.)
Oatmeal - It saddens me that I have forgotten about it, but I'm happy you came back to answer, even if it took you about four months :D
(I'm a huge blabbermouth and never resist the urge to waste my time discussing minutae with strangers online :p )
Άλκης Δ.
Heh, sorry. Someone liked my post and I saw it again. Glad you're alright though :D
if you survive literally everything but still feel pain imagine how boring and cold the heat death of the universe would be
Well at that point you would starve and thus die anyways.
KaosFireMaker What about ”survive literally anything” did you not understand?
@@maxitaxi6484 bruh
Is it even theoretically possible to experience the heat death of the universe because having something as dense in energy as matter would surely mean it’s not the heat death if I understand that term correctly. So if you were immortal the heat death could not happen.
@@jaymercer4692 One immortal, alone, at the end of all time, using their physics defying ability to ignore entropy and power themselves, gathering all the material they can and applying work to it to give it potential... and this is how the next universe is born.
You just made me realise why the Elves in The Lord of the Rings are so useless
That's why Rivendell is so magnificent. To escape boredom.
@@Maxxplayne it didnt work out in the end... they leave because of their boredom anyways
*Legolas has entered the chat.*
Why? They aren't living in total safety in a "bunker", they are living their normal lives, just like the men.
@@ano_nym Rivendell and maybe Lothorien it's the closest you can get to a bunker in middle earth
I come back to this video every now and then.... It is actually kind of inspiring!
Thank you
I'd sit in my bunker and wait for someone else to make a 3D scan of the rock. "Longer living through VR"
Lmao
This reminds me of the Micromort unit of risk (1 being 1/million chance etc).
Taking ecstacy? 0.5 units.
Driving 230 miles? 1 unit.
Base jumping? 430 units per jump, damn.
gunshot to the head: 999000 micromorts probably
"In the end, it's not about the years in your life, but the life in your years"
-Abraham Lincoln
+Kemu Of course, in the age of the internet, especially things like online dating and meetups, you could have quite a life in a bunker system.
@@Hust91 ask people in qarentine how it feels, you might be sure they are not enjoiyng it... i'veen livin in a quasi-bunker for 2 and a half years btw... working online, oirdering food, etc... in the end you still need to get out sometimes
the goal is to get as much life per year as possible
Well, besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
No can't watch this video while that guy is sitting there.
Weirdly I get shooting pains in my legs when watching someone get too close to a potentially deadly height. The older I get the worse it is. When we were young going hiking in the Lake District, Scotland and Switzerland,my brother would always get too close to the edge of something and it terrified me.
0:41 The way that guy slides back after Tom mentions the danger though. Hilarious.
This was breathtaking in content. The context you pulled from the moment and expressed can easily be another definition of living. To be curious, and wonder, and question... and to guess and share and discuss... How more human could a being be?
Many years ago, back in my 20s, I climbed Half Dome and sat on the edge of the 'Diving Board,' a ledge similar to what the Asian dude is on. I even managed to cautiously peer over the edge and look straight down. (OMG!) By the time I reached 40, I don't think I would have done that. (Lower testosterone levels can definitely have a positive influence on one's longevity!) But now, at 52, I think I'd be game once more! With only 2~3 decades left, I find myself forcing a bit of risk here and there. And most times, I don't really have to push myself. I just do it. I can't say I'm entirely keen on mortality, but some small part of my brain seems to have accepted it to a degree.
The timing of that guy laying down by the edge was too perfect for words. ^_^
This was really great, I think despite all your awesome videos, This one is my favourite so far. Thankyou for quality RUclips without the scumbag sponsorship plugs etc. Your a legend Tom Scott
I climbed up to the top of Pulpit Rock last weekend and it was completely covered in clouds & fog, I saw absolutely nothing. I had to come to this video to see what the view would've been like if I had been luckier with the weather! Thanks Tom.
"I've been thinking a lot about risk recently." - What does a scar on your face and a 600m drop have to do with a conquest strategy board game? :P
P.s. as someone with crazy acrophobia (vertigo does not mean fear of heights!) I would nope right outta that place on the first train to Nopeville. Seriously, even if I'm on a pedestrian footbridge I have to carefully walk as far away from either edge as possible, and get all squeamish when people pass me.
Don't Look At My Profile Picture Bruh, fear of heights (acrophobia) is super common.
Well to be fair recently they have tried desperately to monetise it for a new generation with all sorts of versions....
It's an amazing place. There's a small crevice on the path to getting there that opens down under your feet and you can see the water at the bottom.
Shame it started pouring a few minutes after we got there, would've loved to stay more.
i completely agree with your conclusion at the end. take enough risk to live, but not enough to die.
control a robot body remotely, solved!
More relevant today than ever before. Brilliant assessment! (As always!)
Love the ending. Reminds me of how I feel about reckless, nonsensical acts in comparison to most people.
I think it depends on what you call "living".
Some people seem to think that making most of life involves getting hammered, dancing to loud music and risking getting injured (and possibly dying - I'm curious what percentage of accidental deaths happen due to drugs...) - quite visceral.
Personally, I prefer the more intellectual experience (depending on who you're with) of just chatting with people.
I'm also reminded of the song "The Whole of the Moon"
I'll just leave this here: "I don't want to survive, I want to live!"
P.S. I kept expecting that guy in the background to fall off. Especially when he does his "I'm King of the World!" pose.
Wall-E
Haha Tom at the end - that's exactly how I feel when I go to the cliffs :p !
The underlying principle of this comes under the study of psychopathy and the average person will assess a risk and if it is necessary they are more likely to do it.
More people die per year crossing roads to go to the shop than die falling from a cliff. Yet people are more likely to walk across a road than stand on the edge of a cliff despite the higher risk involved.
I don't think you can quite compare those two risks
Why not? They both pose risk of death? I mean falling 100m down a cliff can be just as deadly as being hit by a car at 70kph
But when you are at a cliff you are really carefull, because you are aware of the danger, while crossing a road is a daily thing.
Even though I don't think you can compare those risks I still would not need a study to find that out. Of course people will asses a risk if it is necessary, because it is *necessary*. There is no other option. So you don't have to wonder why people are doing it.
Per capita? As in how many people out of 100 die in crossing the road? And how many people in 100 die in cliff based endeavours.
As in "Of the total deaths recorded in 2015 in the UK, x were from road crossings and y were from falling off cliffs"
This video gave me anxiety to such a degree, that I couldn't even watch a whole minute of it.
honestly, jumping off that cliff with a parachute onto a waiting ship would be an epic scene in any movie
So we can start calling you "Scarface Scott" now? (grinning, ducking, running...)
I'm scared of heights and I starting literally choking 47 seconds into this video.
"Ultimately, which is more human, the desire to experience or the desire to survive?" I think it's neither. The ability to chose between the two is the most human thing in my opinion.
You very rarely stumble, trip over, or fall over things. Yet when you're on a cliff- and being far more careful with every step- you worry you'll somehow fall off
there's wind bro
Well, this video just proved how risk-averse I am... just WATCHING that guy in the background was giving me SERIOUS ANXIETY!
Tom: "...but you could be hit by a car or fall off a very high rock"
Dude in the background: *aight imma head out*
Is there a specific word for “getting vertigo from someone else’s experience instead of your own?”
pathetic?
Reasonable human empathy?
Did you hear about the pilot who went to a psychic? The psychic told her that she would die in a plane crash on a particular date. So on that day she called in sick to work and stayed home. About two ours into the flight she would have been flying a plane from another airline crashed into her house and she was killed. The plane she would have been flying landed safely.
Is there a moral to this story?
Mitigate Keeps
You can't see it?
elevown
It's not even that. It is a story I made up to prove a point.
+Mitigate Keeps its that there is a risk no matter what
The point of the story you made up is not everything is clear cut. While you may be alerted and looking out for a certain risk and start preparing for that, you may still experience another risk because you spent too much time looking out for that one. Or yanno, ask the psychic for specifics xD
I genuinely couldn't watch beyond 30 seconds! Even hearing Tom say only 1 person has fallen, I got anxious just watching him bum-shuffle towards the edge 😱
People would crave this experience, especially after having lived for a very long time and gotten tired of the boredom caused by the endless cycle of repeating mondane everyday experiences.
Guy in the background is making me nervous. Stop that!
I was like Nopenopenopenope.
I just see n open open open open
I'm freaked out just thinking about going there.
I remember visiting the Grand Canyon when I was like 9 with my grandparents. I didn't go closer then 10 feet because I was scared to. I could imagine SO many potential scenarios like a sudden gust of wind, the ground giving, etc.
You can usually get 95% of the experience with about 5% of the risk... Tom and the other guy on the edge demonstrates this beautifully.
*goes to a semi dangerous tourist destination*
Some creepy guy shows up behind you talking about death
*Posthumanism* will allow _living_ with _virtually_ no risk due to the option of _respawning_ if needed.
The possible experiences won't be so limited either; _base jumping_ for example will require no parachute, and could become more than _falling_ with a few tweaks to the local physics.
BTW: You wouldn't get me on that ledge without a fight.
To keep you from jumping off?
The "tweak" or the "fight"?
Fred Gandt Except the traumatisation and post-traumatic stress that comes with it, followed by deep depression, possibly suicidal.
James - what's more traumatic?:
1) Jumping from a high place with not much more than a sheet tied to your back by long threads.
2) Jumping from a _virtually_ high _place_ where the physics have been tweaked to disallow harm by impact (no sheet required).
Prehumanism was all about somewhat unknowingly taking risks for practicality's sake.
Postpre-preposthumanism is all about experiences which are practically limited by evaluated risk.
Posthumanism will be about practically limitless experience, without risk.
Thrill seekers need not be disheartened; we'll be able to tweak our own reactions then too, and if we choose to, experience whatever risks we like, with all the trauma that entails.
Personally, I'd rather forego the throwback adrenalin rush.
For fun: Research _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ "simulated disability pills".
Press 3, wait a few seconds, then press 4... that dude totally fell to his death.
A great poet wrote:
"The awful daring of a moment's surrender
which an age of prudence can never retract
by this, and only this, have we existed"
from The Waste Land by T.S.Eliot.
Tom's reactions amplified my own watching the video, I'm such a light weight - sweaty palms !
I feel sick watching this, heights scare the hell out of me.
I'm sorry Tom, this is perhaps the only video of yours that I cannot physically watch til' the end. That guy behind you, and all the shots over the edge... I can't. It makes me sick.
You see, i'm perfectly fine with being high up in an aircraft or in a skycraper, but this? Nope. Don't even wanna get close. When I visited the bell tower in Big Ben in London, It was pretty similar. I didn't want to leave the staircase, despite their being walls around each side. So it's not quite a fear of heights, what is it?
bigglessy Fear of edges? I dunno. I work atop grain silos, and am pretty comfortable with heights, but I tend to be wary of cliff edges. I don't trust 'em.
Short version: it's not fear of heights, it's fear of falling from heights.
This video becomes a lot less unsettling when you remember that Tom went to a 90s-themed concert not long after. Just play Lou Bega's Mambo No. 5 over the top of this and see if it has the same tone.
i'm getting that tingling in my feet just watching this video.
in fact, the video is over now and i'm still feeling it from thinking about that cliff.
Your heart was saying, "go on, move to the edge....further"
Your mind was saying, "get us down off this rock, this minute."
I for one would not be dangling my feet
Watching that scared me so much that I didn't get a word of your story. Even knowing that you didn't die, because this was 4 years ago and I just watched you in another video from today.
What an amazing take on the setting. I'll never think the same about immortality
I've been there! Sat on the edge and even laid on my back with my head over the abyss 😂 my mother hated me for it