- Last Chance
- Dec 31, 2004
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Alright well I guess if we're doubling up on numbers I'll go with 13. If we're not, then nevermind because all the plausible numbers are taken.
Have you heard of the Titanic? You know how the ship has become the most well-known standard for human hubris? Like, you just have to say "the Titanic" and everyone who you say it to understands immediately that you're referring to a historic disaster that was completely avoidable and that happened because of supreme overconfidence collided with incompetence, and the whole affair was salted with a hefty dose of lingering Victorian-values class injustice, what with the rich people getting lifeboats and the poor people getting to drown?
Well, Everest is like if, after the Titanic disaster, thousands of people just kept on making more Titanics and blithely sailing them into a bunch of iceburgs, over and over and over, never adding lifeboats, never changing the design, never learning from the experience, and meanwhile most of their families and friends and co-workers and the media just praised them for their bravery and perseverance and ignored the enormous waste of money, resources, the litter of sunk Titanics accumulating in the north Atlantic, made movies about it, and the governing body, I dunno let's pretend it's NATO, kept charging an exhorbitant fee for Titanic sailing permits because the impoverished people of Greenland need that money pretty badly due to the ongoing injustice of enormous disparities of resources between the rich and poor countries of the world.
And in this extended analogy, the people posting in this threads are the ones standing around at the docs going "hey you stupid fuckers, stop building Titanics, no you idiots don't get on that boat! It's gonna crash into an iceburg maybe, you might die, there's not enough lifeboats!" But people just won't listen, and eventually the crowds just settle down and start making bets on which Titanics are gonna crash and sink and hoping that it's mostly the rich idiots paying for passage that die and not the poor cockney-speaking ignorant bastards manning the engine rooms because the pay from one round trip voyage will feed their extended families for a year.
And you, Faux-rear end Nonsense, are I guess just wandering up to the docks and seeing the jeering crowds and shaking your head in disgust at us, because I guess you're just completely missing the context and thinking that we're the ones with the problem, what with the death pools and the schadenfraude etc.
But no man, it's not us, we're just posting on a forum. Kindly reserve your disdain for the profitable, established industry of "tour guide" companies who take rich people's money in exchange for hoisting them up a deathtrap mountain in order that they can experience a few days of oxygen-deprived delierium and tedious walking through snow at night strapped to a safety line while two or three locals whose economic situation is so dire that $20 a day is worth maybe dying for. Direct your scorn, goon sir, at the conga-line of starry-eyed Westerners who have convinced themselves that walking to the top of this mountain, for $60k to $100k, will add meaning to their lives, give them a sense of accomplishment they can achieve in no other way, earn them the accolades and admiration of their families and peers, and present them with a worthy challenge, none of which they can achieve in their otherwise apparently meaningless lives by doing much less stupid and normal things.
Marvel at the incredible lack of imagination it must take, to come to the conclusion that standing at the top of a big hunk of rock is worth a ~10% chance of death and a small fortune, when instead they could dedicate their efforts and financial resources to accomplishing something perhaps less immediately spectacular to the casual observer, but in the long run far more worthwhile to all of humanity: like, say, joining a NGO and traveling to an impoverished third world country as a volunteer to help build clean sustainable water supplies, or going to school, getting some medical training, and joining Doctors Without Borders to travel to a war zone and save the lives of kids who got their limbs blown off by land mines. You know, the sort of personal challenge that takes years of training and dedication, selflessness, and raw human grit to face, the kind of achievement truly worthy of respect and admiration, an undertaking involving some degree of personal danger, a facing of internal demons, genuine human bravery.
Redirect your sneer, please, for the people who actually deserve it, for needlessly wasting their lives and resources on a completely pointless and meaningless journey that directly endangers not only their own lives, but the lives of the people who they must hire to enable them to accomplish something that, if they actually tried to do on their own, would require decades of accumulated experience that they're simply not willing to go to the trouble of acquiring. Why, after all, should they obtain actual mountain-climbing skills, when they can just pay some very poor foreigners to do all the heavy lifting for them?
Check yourself, oh goon. It is you, and not we, who appears the fool now.
you are loving insane
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Feb 4, 2016 23:35
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May 9, 2024 08:03
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- Last Chance
- Dec 31, 2004
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people died, good job everyone
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Jun 7, 2016 19:09
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- Last Chance
- Dec 31, 2004
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if a goon dies on everest, there will forever be the biggest of all stairs in his house
:/
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Jun 25, 2016 00:10
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- Last Chance
- Dec 31, 2004
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those graphs look like mountains!!!
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Jan 6, 2017 05:59
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- Last Chance
- Dec 31, 2004
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I always enjoy these threads, but making fun of people for dying always seemed a little crass IMHO and i don't usually participate in them anymore because of the dumb "blood for the blood god" stuff littering the threads
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Feb 6, 2017 18:05
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- Last Chance
- Dec 31, 2004
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Touching The Void is a bonkers crazy awesome documentary and is on Netflix (last time I checked). If you don't already know the story, don't spoil yourself.
Oh my god, seconding this. I had a few beers, watched this and had no idea what I was in for. My mouth hung open in shock by the end.
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May 30, 2017 20:07
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- Last Chance
- Dec 31, 2004
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Nah, climbing mountains (even if you're not peak bagging) that are above treeline and even camping up there is a fun and unique experience. Not one that I'd risk my health for if I was having bad reactions to altitude, but I disagree with your assertions that lower altitude mountains are as good or better, if we're taking altitude sickness out of the equation. Also plenty of trails that are easily hikeable without any special equipment go above the treeline and are immensely enjoyable and safe if you are OK with the altitude.
It probably depends on what you like
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Aug 31, 2017 20:00
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- Last Chance
- Dec 31, 2004
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You’re the mountaineer now, dog.
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Dec 28, 2017 06:16
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- Last Chance
- Dec 31, 2004
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Whenever i get too high up in altitude i need to have a beer to soothe the old nerves
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Jun 1, 2019 04:33
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May 9, 2024 08:03
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- Last Chance
- Dec 31, 2004
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"hmm, why yes, i think i 'd like to push my luck some more" - mountain clamorers
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Jul 25, 2019 13:22
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Feb 4, 2016 23:35
