WHAT CRACK ARE YOU ON!?!?! The entire history of the sport is moving towards more safety!!
Fam have you read any significant amount of climbing literature?
Outside of modern hard sport climbing, danger almost always has a presence in cutting edge ascents. Highball bouldering, hard trad climbs, bold ice climbs, winter ascents, mammoth alpine routes (and let's be honest, alpine climbing in general), speed records/FKTs on classic routes and traverses, hard aid ascents, etc.
You can only push these disciplines so far before the question becomes "how much danger am I willing to accept in order to push myself or the sport as a whole. "
But how could you possibly say those people were not interested in safety. Yeah safety had to take a back seat to accomplishing goals, but it is still an ever present factor and everything is done as safe as possible.
The history of climbing has been pushing the limits of what's possible. Outside of modern sport climbing, that usually means balancing safety with a bunch of other things. Context is key here because safety exists on a huge spectrum. If I'm climbing on a steep snow slope or under a serac, should I rope up and be slow but "secure," or solo it because moving too slow could mean being getting caught in an avalanche? If I'm putting up a trad route at my limit, do I place a piece from a strenuous position, or run it out 15 more feet to a good rest? It's a balancing act and "safety," in the traditional sense, does not always top of the list of priorities.
Even in sport climbing, people will sometimes skip bolts in order to send because it's that close to their limit.
And people die and get injured in even the most mundane settings. Gyms, toproping, sport climbing, etc. If you want to be safe all the time, don't rock climb.
This goes way deeper than retro bolting old routes, but I hope I was clear in my messaging.
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u/Dotrue 23d ago
Fam have you read any significant amount of climbing literature?
Outside of modern hard sport climbing, danger almost always has a presence in cutting edge ascents. Highball bouldering, hard trad climbs, bold ice climbs, winter ascents, mammoth alpine routes (and let's be honest, alpine climbing in general), speed records/FKTs on classic routes and traverses, hard aid ascents, etc.
You can only push these disciplines so far before the question becomes "how much danger am I willing to accept in order to push myself or the sport as a whole. "