I think you’re massively misunderstanding me here. Watching people do incredible things is awesome, you bring up some great examples here. Watching someone do something with a high probability of catastrophic failure is just nerve wracking. When I watch skiers jump 10 m in the air in a slopestyle comp, I know that they’re doing things that they land successfully > 99/100 times. Even when they fall, there’s a good chance they get off with only minor injuries. None of these things make those enormous athletic feats any less awesome to watch.

I don’t think I would be able to watch someone do something like this, where they’ve never done it before, and just a minor mistake means I will be watching a person splatter on the ground at terminal velocity, both because the sight would likely be horrendous, and because I would get way to nervous just thinking about the possibility that they could miss.