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That's totally untrue! Not how they're created, but there 'always' being rocks at the bottom. Fun Fact: People jump off cliffs all the time every day for fun in every part of the world that has a warm season.
So it's wrong to assume that cliffs are always more dangerous when most water beneath bridges is shallow. Even when the bridge is high. Notice I said 'most'. Not all.
That's totally untrue! Not how they're formed, but how there are 'always' rocks at the bottom. Fun Fact: People jump off cliffs for fun every day all the time in every part of the world that has a warm season. That's because there most certainly are not 'always' rocks at the bottom of cliffs. Maybe not even half the time, especially due to erosion from the ocean, lake or river.
So it's incorrect to say they're 'always' more dangerous then jumping off a bridge, especially since most water underneath bridges is shallow so that it's easy to build the bridge.
It's a hell of a lot more probable than at the floor of the bridge to find sharp rocks. It's also a hell of a lot more probable that you'll have water to land in when jumping off any given bridge as opposed to any given cliff.
What makes you say that? Not all bridges are built over water and not all cliffs form over water either.
The difference is that bridges are built for travel and live only around 100 years unless a super structure. All cliffs, on the other hand, are hundreds of years old. Assuming that both the bridge and cliff in question have water underneath them, then it's more likely that the bridge has shallower water and that the cliff has deeper water, because the bottom of the cliff has succumbed to errosion for decades longer then the bridge has existed, and the bridge is more likely to be built over shallow water so that building it is easier and cheaper.
Not all bridges are built over water and not all cliffs form over water either.
Exactly my point. The probability of bridges spanning water is greater than a cliff harboring water at it's base.
The difference is that bridges are built for travel and live only around 100 years unless a super structure. All cliffs, on the other hand, are hundreds of years old.
This has no relevancy. I shan't be testing out the bridge's stability in this hypothetical, and, were you to claim the bridge could fault, that is a completely undisclosed variable to the equasion. Also, implying that the water under the bridge has only been around for as long as the bridge itself, is illogical, for a bridge is built over a preexisting obstacle, of which a duration of existence is as well undetermined.
Assuming that both the bridge and cliff in question have water underneath them, then it's more likely that the bridge has shallower water and that the cliff has deeper water, because the bottom of the cliff has succumbed to errosion for decades longer then the bridge has existed, and the bridge is more likely to be built over shallow water so that building it is easier and cheaper.
A bridge over shallow water likely isn't so high, and a cliff is notorious for it's height. The speed that you are entering a volume of water is crucial to understanding the odds of survival.
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Frankly, you described no conditions to this hypothetical and are using these undisclosed variables falsely to your advantage. We must look at probabilities because of this. It is more likely that a jump off of a random bridge will be safer than a jump off a random cliff, all variables considered.
Then the only real question is which random scenario is more likely to harbor safe water: A man made structure with a short lifespan that is usually built for convenient travel (because my point of it having shallower water is totally relevent considering that water is a HUGELY expensive obstacle when building the actual bridge) which has been in design for the last 2000 or less years, or a nature-made structure with a nearly infinite lifespan that has been a forming natural design for the billions of years this planet has had liquid water and solid, stable ground.
Thusly, this is a draw, because neither of us can do the math to determine the probability nor can either of us list all the hundreds of variables that would be included in the calculation to proove either of our points.
Time is the only factor that actually shows that both our points are uncalcuable and therefore equal, because time works for and against both our points, evening it all out inevitably.
Again, the stability of the structure is irrelevant to the issue, falling a distance of unknown height into an unknown base. I would jump off a shanty plank if I thought it saver than a bridge or a cliff, that is unimportant, do you see?
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And yes, the incalculable nature of our debate makes it foolish for one of us to claim one is more preferrable than the other, and therefore the only appropriate response can come from stigmas of both what a cliff looks like and what a bridge looks like, relative to the individual, and thereby forming and voicing an opinion based on these archetype mental fabrications.
Age of the bridge has nothing to do with the stability, but the difference in between it's age and the cliff. Erosion does factor for the cliff's chances of safe water, and the cost of building and maintaining the bridge in deep water factors against it's safe water chances (since it's built for convenience due to it's relatively short lifespan).
But right, like I said, it's totally incalcuable. The first images to my head for the bridge and cliff were A. The bridge in my local town which is suspended above 2 inches of water and B. The only cliff I saw in person in the Pennsylvannia mountain-parks which was very large and formed over a very, very deep river.
I assume your mental images were reversed, which was the whole point of your objection to my original objection.
In my town, it is nearly accepted to jump off of our many bridges spanning a deep river, and all images of cliffs are formed by thoughts of staggering plateaus.
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Game called on account of variables. I've never heard of a zwah, so I'm bound to piss you off to find out.
Back when I went to Pennsylvannia, everyone in the hiking party jumped off the cliff accept me, because I have poor health, but it was still a nice sight. In my town though, there are litteraly ghost stories about the bridge I live near by, because, even though it's very short, people have still committed suicide at it because of the 2 inches of water. Not very pretty.
You called it, so you don't get a zwah, sorry. I play fair when you do.
if it's deep enough you won't hurt yourself that bad.
I'm going to refute this for both here and the one above. If you fall for long enough, the force of hitting the water will be the same has hitting concrete.
The terminal velocity for a pencil-diving human is around 300 mph, which equates to around 44 feet per second. That gives you less than 0.15 seconds for you to push a column of water 6 ft by 2 ft (depending on how thin you are, and sort of rounding off the width of shoulders to the thin depth of the body) out of your way.
And yet people still jump off cliffs for fun every day all the time and fall of bridges to their death.
The chances of there being safe water and a safe fall below a bridge and cliff is totally random and undeterminable even when factoring in terminal veloctiy, especially since both bridges and cliffs can be very high or fairly low.
Not only that, but falling for more then a few seconds is a long time when you're falling. People don't generally reach terminal velocity unless jumping off the tallest cliffs of the world, though they can hurt themselves if they don't jump in a proper way off a somewhat tall one, since people jump of oceanic cliffs all the time as a recreational activity and live like it's nothing.
But ultimately, look at the other refuted conversation against my argument. It was a stalemate, because no matter how much math you do, you'll never be able to use it to unbalance the random probability of whether a cliff is safer or a bridge is safer when you jump off it.
I'm not saying that any cliff is deadly to jump off of. I've done my fair share of leaping for 15- to 20-foot-high cliffs, but those falls are quite short (and still hurt if you hit flat-footed). But when you're talking about a 20-second fall, there's no way you'd survive that.
For the sake of this particular discussion, I'd say jumping off a bridge is better. A) I'd have already checked to make sure it was safe. B) I'd be willingly jumping off it.
For the cliff, falling generally indicates no will in the situation. And the majority of cliffs (if taken from a grab-bag of the world's cliffs) probably aren't safe to jump/fall from.
