not cool
> In recent years, he made headlines of a different sort with controversial political statements, criticizing German and Austrian migration policies and opining that a "moderate dictatorship" would be preferable to a democracy, in which "you can't move anything."
> In 2016, he recommended Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for the Nobel Peace Prize and endorsed a right-wing populist candidate for the Austrian presidency.
Obviously I would not be surprised if he was a typical asshole about things like this. I just don't like the usage of those political opinions in particular as "this is a bad person" evidence.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44597171
[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Baumgartner#Umstrittene_...
Of course "dictatorship", moderate or otherwise, is a scary word to hear from a German/Austrian. But simply the idea that there could be something in-between democracy and dictatorship? That doesn't sound insane. Just daunting. Also, he doesn't even seem married to the idea. The summary mentions his admiration of direct democracy.
That guy achieved some pretty amazing stuff, and I loved watching him, but then he starts publicly talking political bullshit to the media and it gets a bit hard to ignore that he is an asshole.
A lot of accomplished people are probably assholes in private, but they don't talk about it in public.
I wish Baumgartner would have just stuck to talking about the stuff he really knew very well.
Grow up. One isn't an automatic asshole just because they don't share your worldview.
There's some things I know a bit about... But if I was spouting off about skydiving when I know little about it, that makes me an asshole. Especially, to extend the metaphor, if I was spreading misinformation that led to people being hurt.
Anyways, like I always say, parachutes are optional really.
Also, an opinion that doesn't tick all the check boxes of pro-immigration and open borders isn't automatically "hurtful misinformation" You should really qualify that particular line of censorious bullshit. More recently, the biggest fans of narratives about hurtful misinformation that I've seen tend to be authoritarians on the right, curiously enough.
Do you want to be known as a legendary skydiver? Then talk about the amazing achievements and plans for the future you made.
Do you want to be known as a former athlete with questionable political views? Then go talk to the media doubling down on stupid memes you posted on facebook.
I have no interest in learning more about the latter. I guess that's why most of us eventually forgot about him until he tragically passed away today.
Like any human being, an athlete can have other opinions on other things and all the right in the world to express them without having to be a certified expert. You're doing the same now, as did the comment above. That's the only qualification necessary.
You don’t need everyone to appreciate you, just enough people to love you and throw their money/interest back at you.
That's putting it mildly. The full quote [1] is:
> Wie weit sind wir bereit unsere Identität und unsere Kultur aufzugeben und sie zu vermischen mit einer völlig anderen Religion und Ideologie?
or translated:
> How ready are we to give up our identity and culture and to mix it with a completely different religion and ideology?
That is 1:1 naked "great replacement" theory, the stuff that the vilest of the vile of the far-right believe in [2].
On top of that, he believed that domestic violence is acceptable in disciplining children [3].
[1] https://www.sn.at/salzburg/chronik/felix-baumgartner-wird-po...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement_conspiracy_t...
[3] https://www.diepresse.com/1433977/felix-baumgartner-ohrfeige...
"Great replacement" is not a theory but a fact.
https://www.wien.gv.at/english/social/integration/facts-figu...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement_conspiracy_t...
You call it demographic shift, Wikipedia calls it Great Replacement.
Edit:
It was conspiracy theory in 2010, that became recently fact.
So what?
edit: unexpected unconsciousness is not a medical event?
Whether "medical event" was prior to or resulted from risk-taking adventure,
and hence culpability, will await forensics I imagine. If those are possible.
That determination aside however,
risk-taking that puts others at risk (e.g., flying over other people) is morally and in many jurisdictions legally prohibited for obvious reasons.
I suspect that the story here is that until things went wrong nobody expected that this was a risk-taking activity in the first place (any more so than paragliding in general is). Do we have reason to believe he was doing it unsafely before disaster struck and he lost control?
After CBT he was able to tolerate the suit and complete the jump.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/skydiver-felix-baumgartner-ove...
You maybe don't think it's a big thing but try sitting one minute without touching your face.
It was effortless.
Edit: wait, I've been in an MRI machine for over an hour where I can't move my arms from my side. How can you think one minute is anything?
I've also read that many astronauts put strips of adhesive Velcro in their helmet for this purpose: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/42012/nose-scratch...
Why is this relevant in a eulogy? It reminds me of a Soviet encyclopedia for kids that had an obligatory part in every bio about what a person used to think about communism or some assumption what they would think if communism was invented during their lifetime
Disgusting.
If you want a eulogy I'd suggest seeking out the eulogy his family probably published, not a death announcement from DW.
First he got famous for the Sky Dive from space
Then he made headlines for his facebook posts, sharing questionable opinions with the media, and supporting right wing politician like Strache (who is currently on trial for embezzling party money to fund his lavish lifestyle).
It's a part of his public persona, not mentioning it would be weird. It's not like he shared his questionable views in private.
"On 13 July 2016, Facebook deleted his fan page of 1.5 million fans. Baumgartner subsequently claimed that he must have become "too uncomfortable" for "political elites".[48]"
Because of his pro-right viewpoints. For one thing, it's slightly amusing considering Zuckerberg's own politically convenient pirouettes on politics and management. Secondly, it reminds me why the argument was very much on the mark that social media in those days absolutely did work hard to shut don all kinds of opinions that didn't fit with dominant groupthink.
It's idiotic that a famous figure should be subject to such a deletion as soon as they deviate from a specific progressive discourse, even if one disagrees with its opposite in so many ways.
toomuchtodo•4h ago
https://felixbaumgartner.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Stratos
https://www.redbull.com/int-en/projects/red-bull-stratos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYw4meRWGd4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raiFrxbHxV0