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Comment by rosser | Hacker News Reader

I'm sorry, but if you think you can climb Everest without oxygen, and die in the attempt, you were a dumb-ass. Full stop.

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And if you don't die?

Folks like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Boukreev, who are certainly not dumb-asses, have what seems to be an arguably reasonable viewpoint on supplementary oxygen: It gives you a very false sense of security, and that false sense of security (because of oxygen or whatever) is what really kills people.

Luckily there are plenty of people that don't agree with you, who are willing to try and push the limits of what humanity can do.

We're all going to die, you know.

Stats on deaths with/without oxygen: http://faculty.washington.edu/hueyrb/pdfs/jama.pdf

Contemplating, or perhaps risking (at one's choice), death brings appreciation of life. And possibly, what's important.

Given that over a thousand people have climbed Everest at this point, it seems to me that climbing Everest is about the most boring/pretentious thing I could imagine doing (compared to all the other interesting things you can do in this world)

Ironically, this post makes you sound rather pretentious

You're joking. It's still an amazing feat of endurance. People still die making the attempt. And there are 7 billion people in the world. So that means that 0.0000000142857143% of the world have done the climb.

In your case, I would focus on learning how to do math with percentages first, THEN climb Everest.

Oops, forgot to times by 100. My bad. That's 0.000014285571%.

But then we can remove over 7 billion people who have never made a basic mathematical error, as you're right - the ability to do arithmetic is a critical skill in extreme mountaineering.

This leaves us with a world population of 1. It must feel great to be the only inerrant mathematical mountaineer in the world - was that skill learned, or is it innate?

I admit making fun of your math was a bit trollish of me :)

Every comment from the first one you made in this thread has been trollish.

What have you done that less than a thousand people have done? I'm always interested in learning about awesome things to do.

We all do things like this everyday... And these probably do more to help make the world a better/more interesting place than another person climbing Everest.

When you say "we all do things like this everyday", what precisely do you do on a daily basis that is the equivalent of climbing the highest mountain on earth?

We all do things like help teach children, or create online resources for others, or add some detail to a small corner of science or other area of human knowledge. These are all more valuable than risking your life and littering a landmark and then telling people you're the 1473rd person to climb Everest.

(Mt. Everest's filthy secret: It's a dump http://theweek.com/article/index/244854/mt-everests-filthy-s...)

You have a point. In the grand scheme of life, you are right. While I do volunteer to help others, I also like to occasionally do things for myself. That is what I was asking about.

Interesting article too, thank you for sharing.

If you are Edmund Hillary, then knock yourself out. Climbing Everest today isn't pushing the limits of humanity. It is no more admirable than playing Russian Roulette.

It sounds like we're implying we should all either do something off the scale epic (like Hillary, or Felix jumping from space, or Amundsen) or we should all do mundane stuff for our entire lives.

I personally think people need to get out there and have their own adventures. For person 1 an adventure might be getting outside their comfort zone and talking to a stranger they find attractive in their apartment building. For person 2 adventure might be doing a 5 mile day-hike in a National Park, where-as for person 3 an adventure might be sailing around the world.

The fact all of those have been done before doesn't diminish the scale of the adventure for the individual, nor does it give us any right to comment on whether we think it's a worthy pursuit or in fact "adventure" at all.

Everybody needs to do what's right for them, with the level of planning and preparedness that's right for them.

Problem is this completely ignores the native peoples who view the mountain as sacred, and the workers that attempt to either save you or remove your remains from the mountain.

Yes, what a noble way to go! Except for the poor saps that have to deal with your mess after you're gone.

> workers that attempt to either save you or remove your remains from the mountain

The Sherpas are paid to maintain the mountain for the tourists who climb there. Customers negotiate for whatever services the Sherpas are willing to provide. If you want to find injustices you'll have to look deeper than a simple choice to attempt to summit without oxygen.

People die on Everest, regardless of how well they were prepared physically, mentally, or materially. Not taking oxygen is not the worst way to be unprepared, it likely only means you will give up sooner. The sooner you give up on the attempt on the peak, the more likely you are to survive it.

> The sooner you give up on the attempt on the peak, the more likely you are to survive it.

Are you implying giving up (or in fact not trying at all) is the best approach?

Are you implying that surviving is more important that reaching the summit?

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