Wow, you explained this very eloquently. Sometimes I've heard this called intrinsic vs extrinsic risk. Alex generally chooses activities with intrinsic risks in

Wow, you explained this very eloquently. Sometimes I've heard this called intrinsic vs extrinsic risk. Alex generally chooses activities with intrinsic risks instead of extrinsic, and mitigates them. It's more responsible than playing around in avalanche zones or at deadly altitudes. By the way, I talked to him about his recent antarctic expedition and he said it was pretty sketchy at times -- there were extrinsic risks he couldn't control, and he didn't like that.