The reason he says it’s impossible is because he thinks it’s based on subtle aspects of personality traits which are ephemeral and impossible to grasp.
Of course you can predict who will go insane. There are specific biochemical pathways that are responsible. In the future when we have mastered them we will probably find that there are certain obvious traits that correlate strongly to the disposition. It is often the case that the simple truth was hiding right in front of us.
- "10. He is well liked by his associates"
- "12. He is stable and well adjusted"
- "13. In restricted living and working conditions, he is not a source of friction"
- "19. He has no distasteful personal characteristics"
- "20. I would select him to live and work with under adverse field conditions"
Those questions don't seem crazy to me at all for a normal office environment. We called it the "airport test" in evaluating candidates for hire: would you enjoy being stuck at an airport with a delayed flight with this person?
The short answer: They were all expected to chip in and help entertain their fellow shipmates and keep up morale. In addition to music and songs, they'd write and perform skits, tell stories, have holiday contests between ships (usually they sailed in a group of at least two) and more.
Here's the man himself: https://youtu.be/KhsxTSbsVeo
So, sailors would organize plays and skits as you said, concerts, athletic competitions, etc.
Even so, if you read the resources and the ship's logs they reference, there was a LOT of petty crime, crimes of passion like assaults, murders, etc during those blockades.
Enough so that it was notable even in the height of the unwilling drafts of any man with a pulse that strayed close enough to the water.
Hardly surprising given a lot of the men before the mast were impressed (ie effectively kidnapped) merchant sailors and sometimes criminals offloaded out of prisons so that counties could fill their quota of seamen the government demanded. Having said that, apparently there were lots of volunteers despite the harsh conditions as the Navy was still better than some of their lives on land!
Getting there and living there will produce even more extreme psychological and emotional pressures. But the people at the sharp end of them will be more used to 24/7 access to memes, selfies, and virtual dramas.
Even the most stable are likely to have limited experience of entertaining and supporting each other in person in a low-drama way without easy access to external support.
And eventually the ketchup is going to run out.
For most of my life I was told it was Scott's fault for bad leadership. Recent research shows otherwise, and blames a bad lieutenant.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171005102638.h...
Fascinating stories, that gave me fuel to be an adventurer. Shackleton is one of my great heroes and I cannot recommend highly enough becoming familiar with the story of the Endurance. Crushed in ice, far from anywhere yet all survived. Incredible incredible tale.
Shackleton's journey to South Georgia in an open boat across the most hostile ocean and subsequent first ever crossing of the mountains of that island has to be one of the most incredible feats in the history of navigation. I don't think it's unreasonable to predict in a thousand years from now people will still learn about Endurance's sinking as one of the truly great survival stories.
Apsley Cherry-Garrard did take the dog team to meet the returning polar party. Maybe the orders he was given by Evans didn't match what Scott wanted but the article doesn't state this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RRS_Discovery#Discovery_Point,...
Temperamentally he was a weak man, and might very easily have been an irritable autocrat. As it was he had moods and depressions which might last for weeks, and of these there is ample evidence in his diary. The man with the nerves gets things done, but sometimes he has a terrible time in doing them. He cried more easily than any man I have ever known.
