Scubaism

There was a heated discussion on Scubaboard recently when someone asked if he really needed a spare bottle. Many issues were discussed including buddy dependency, buddy communication skills and air consumption skills.

mattboy posted:

“Why do you think you’re going to run out of air?” You must answer that question first, and then think about the situation carefully. You’re going to find that in normal rec diving with normal OW training, a pony simply is a solution to a problem that does not exist. The spare air is worse, because it’s a false solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

I’m trying to come with an analogy, here’s a “sort of relevant” one: Many people attempt to climb very high mountains with O2 bottles. Certainly, for some people in trouble very high on a mountain O2 can save their life. But, overall, more people probably die at high altitude because they rely on the O2 to get them in places that they can’t get out of safely.