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Being stupid and selfish should not be celebrated at all but warned against!

He did not understand bears, just saw them how he wanted them to be and actually did them a severe disservice!

Going outside of you comfort zone is valuable though, but only if done with knowledge of your own limits and consequences!

e.g. I live in the Alps and we have much too many stupid tourists' emergencies in the mountains due to ignorance than should be. They know nothing about the mountains, the tour, how weather is up there, what equipment and clothing to bring and wear and completely disregard advice of locals. Then Mountain Rescue risk their lives and health to get them down. Most of them volunteers no less!

> and actually did them a severe disservice!

I can't imagine what disservice was done. A guy hung around bears for a while, and one ate him and his girlfriend.

To the bears literally nothing happened of note.

Two of the bears that ate him and his girlfriend got killed.

Had you read the article, you would have known that two bears were put down, as a direct result of all this.

The bears were shot and killed.

Reputation damage

> To the bears literally nothing happened of note.

They ate an exotic meal.

> they are willing to go into the unknown

But how is it the unknown if anyone with half a brain can predict what will happen to them?

> these people actually lived in these places and experienced these things in a way the vast majority of modern humanity never will

That is true, but it is not like the only way to experience the wilderness is by being reckless. There is a ton of people enjoying this kind of thing without getting bears killed for no good reason.

Being reckless and going off unprepared is a different type of experience. You can't have the same experience if you come prepared.

Yes, you might die, but while you're alive you're really living.

I'm quite comfortable living an ordinary comfortable life and preparing in advance for novel experiences, but I'm glad some people throw caution to the wind and chance it. It takes all sorts to make the world.

> Yes, you might die, but while you're alive you're really living.

You're very privileged to be able to think this way. And very naïve.

A lot of people in our world spend a lot of time trying not to die, and they don't think, "wow, this is really living" while they're scrabbling for survival.

I've been in a few situations where death was close and I don't think "wow, I was really living then".

At best I thought "well that fucking sucked", at worst I spent years recovering from PTSD.

> Yes, you might die, but while you're alive you're really living.

Now this is pod-racing.

I'm sorry you feel you've been missing out by living a safe and comfortable life, but you really haven't missed out at all.

But shit, just go skydiving or mountaineering, get this weird mindset out of your system.

There's a big difference between putting yourself in a dangerous situation by choice and being in one out of necessity.

That's not "really living", what you're talking about takes time, and people like these are often really short of it.

> They are trying to experience the world as humans throughout history have experienced the world.

There was a critical difference between these cases. Early humans grew up within nature so they had a lot of skill and knowledge. I loved Into the Wild and thought I identified with Christopher McCandless too. But the way he packed was not conducive with survival. He sadly didn’t know enough to know how much danger he put himself in.

There is a lot to mourn and a lot to learn. But there’s really nothing to celebrate - these were complicated people who behaved like they had a death wish. Early humans had a survival wish and while it didn’t always work out, the motivation was different.

>> They were real hackers in a way most on this site cannot really comprehend.

Oh we all know what this was. It was someone doing something stupid and filming it. He can pretend that he was studying behavior but he broke that mirror when he started interacting with bears. This was someone creating footage in order to market that footage and support his lifestyle, no different than people in wingsuits doing dangerous stunts for clicks. Both were "experts" in the thing they were doing, right up until that thing killed them.

I don't say I identify with him but I have some respect and even admiration for McCandless, because I think I understand his feelings from what I've read and watched about him, but I don't have the same feeling for Treadwell though

They were both ill-prepared and harmed their environment. Anybody who gets help for their mental health problems deserves more admiration.

To be fair to McCandles, who was generally extremely foolish in what he did too, at least his idiocy and lack of really basic preparation didn't get anyone else killed.

Yeah, but someone had to handle his corpse. I mean, SAR people can get kinda used to it, but it's still going to ruin your day a little.

We should make it illegal to die

Civilized people walk into the incinerator alive.

I'd rather take my chance at being renewed in carousel than be terminated as a runner.

someone is going to have to handle everyones

Retrieving him was a choice. This attitude that we have to rescue everybody from the backcountry whether dead or alive is silly. We could just leave the fools out there. At the very least, then we wouldn't have to put up with all these arguments about what you should or shouldn't do in the backcountry because of the externalities incurred when SAR gets involved.

Nah, McCandless deserves no respect or admiration at all. He was arrogant, and he died, and someone else had to drag his decomposed corpse out of the bus.

At least he didn't get his girlfriend eaten by a bear I suppose.

> someone else had to drag his decomposed corpse out of the bus.

That will happen with all of us probably, whether it's a bus, a bathtub, or a senior living apartment. When I read Into the Wild I had the same feelings that this arrogant idiot deserved to die.

Now that I'm older and I can feel the heat death of me and everything I've touched I'm starting to second guess that feeling. We're all arrogant, ignorant, and selfish, and dying is going to most likely hurt no matter how it happens. Why not be a fool?

Upvote, though I'm not a fan of "can't comprehend"

But broadly, Nassim Nicholas Taleb's work changed my thinking a bit on when I see people doing brave (and/or perhaps goddamn stupid) stuff like this. Skin in the game is powerful.

There is something to be said for -- "as long as you're ONLY putting yourself in harm's way, do your thing."

Again, I think playing around with bears is dumb as all hell, but for (an admittedly different) example, I no longer make fun of the Lifelock guy. Went from idiot to hero in my book.

> every normie

Wow, really.

Supertramp wasn't "going outside the comfort zone of normies", he was making very bad, very stupid decisions that inflicted suffering on those he loved.

Oh, and the people who had to recover his corpse.

Yeah, fuck those normies and their "maps" and "bushcraft relevant to their ecosystem", this guy was the real deal huh.

No point in learning from others, just wing it and die a pointless needless death.

> I think it's worth exploring and celebrating.

I feel that this points to a certain existential angst you may be feeling, but please let me assure you that dying alone and scared like these two munters is not the way to resolve it.

And for the love of all that's holy, please stop romanticising selfish idiots.

The only nice thing I can say about Supertramp is that he didn't directly endanger anyone else, unlike the guy who got his girlfriend eaten by bears.

>They are trying to experience the world as humans throughout history have experienced the world.

Except this isn't really true. Humans throughout history are invariably tribal, not solitary. Their solitary pursuits are in many ways profoundly modern and in keeping with the entire tradition of solipsistic modernity.

> these people actually lived in these places and experienced these things in a way the vast majority of modern humanity never will.

But...so? The same could be said if they moved to any developing country (I live in a developing country) but nobody is valorising that in the same way.

This silly reddit narrative, invented to push a political viewpoint, is utter hogwash. There have always been individuals living a solitary lifestyle- explorers and homesteaders, scouts, traders, hunters and fishermen.

And yet humans are absolutely social animals. The science is clear.

What a cute cop out

You ever wonder if your life's purpose is simply to serve as a warning sign for others?

I don't identify with it at all, but I'm glad some people do.

When we finally get our shit together and send people to Mars despite that being a one-way trip, I'm glad there will be volunteers who will sign up for that and go be pioneers. I hope they get a school named after them.

Except these "Grizzly Men" and Supertramps of the world can only do what they do because society has enabled them to do that. Try living that life without any technology, transportation, modern outdoor equipment, drugs/medications, etc. It's an unproductive and essentially narcissistic way of living, whereas hackers create. This is precisely why Timothy had to build this ridiculous fantasy of him being the protector of these bears, whereas in fact it was him who needed the bears to satisfy his egomania.

Meh- people have done without the trappings of modern society, with varying levels of comfort, for thousands of years.

Yep, and how did humans survive this? By going out alone into the wilderness? That would be incredibly stupid. You die out there alone.

So here's what they did: they formed a group and worked together. You might even call it "society".

That was not always the case, contrary to what you want to believe.

Fortunately, you provide some cold hard facts that counter my beliefs.

nobody is concerned with your beliefs lol

“It is not the critic who counts..."

Eh, I’m fairly certain that point was passed many seasons before he finally got eaten.

Good point though!