I was always under the impression that phobias develop due to our own insecurities and learned responses through social interactions. That's probably because the last time I read a psychology textbook was circa age 17. As it turns out, at least with select phobias, our fears are based in our genetic makeup. For example, the fear of spiders, or arachnophobia, is part of evolution. Acrophobia, or fear of heights, is the third most common fear in humans (with only arachnophobia and fear of snakes topping it). Apparently, that's not so much true with these guys who climbed the Shenzhen Tower in China. My theory is that we know some phobias stem from biology, it stands to reason some people are born without that specific gene, right? (Science: I don't really know it.) These guys were definitely born without it. Or possibly without any common sense.
The daredevil duo, collectively known as On The Roofs and individually known as Russian men Vadim Makhorov and Vitaliy Raskalov, sure have a penchant for high elevations. They scaled Shanghai Tower February of last year, a structure that, although still under construction, is estimated to rise to over 2,000 feet by completion. This new installment of Climbing Very Tall Things features the men tackling a 115-story skyscraper in the Guangdong province China. Although it isn't exactly finished being built just yet, plans land the financial center the second-place title to Burj Khalifa in Dubai. So, uh, trust that Makhorov and Raskalov's journey upwards was probably a doozy:
To be clear, even though the building is not completely done, that doesn't mean it isn't already reaching pretty dizzying heights. By the time the twosome took it on, the structure stretched up to about 2,165 feet. To add to this insane clarity, that's about the length of six football fields—except in this scenario they're stacked upwards.
What On the Roofs does specifically is an extreme sport called buildering (it's a pun off bouldering, the more legal version that usually involves rocks and stuff). Essentially, it's climbing on things you probably shouldn't be climbing on—as it seems most of the vertical challenges they conquer are far from a designated rock or climbing gym. In high school, a good friend of mine who liked mountains and rock faces eventually branched out to scaling to the tops of various buildings around our hometown. It was my first introduction to buildering, and witnessing his gruesome, ensuing injuries firsthand secured my hunch that I'd never actually attempt myself. Still, it's pretty cool to watch as someone else takes all the risks and you can watch securing from your computer in your safe safe apartment. Check out some examples in London:
And some guy buildering on a library at UC Berkley (much more in line with the type of coverage my buddy did around FSU):
Images: YouTube (2)
