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You're completely right to point this out, but this particular subject and individual seems to be a fulcrum for the sort of people who say things like, "kids th

You're completely right to point this out, but this particular subject and individual seems to be a fulcrum for the sort of people who say things like, "kids these days...". The most common thing I hear, by far, from members of the public at search and rescue fundraisers is, "why do you go to all that trouble for stupid people?" It's a question almost always delivered with the self-satisfied smugness of someone who has no idea that they're already suffering the atrophying effects of not venturing outside of familiar territory often enough. McCandless surely made mistakes and errors in judgement. He certainly underestimated what he was getting in to. In that, he has something in common with hundreds of thousands of casual hikers, mountain bikers, kayakers, and visitors to national parks every year. There are vanishingly few entries in the annual Accidents of North American Mountaineering where the people involved are unimpeachable in terms of their preparedness or skill. In almost every case, there's something that someone could point to that the victim did wrong, and if not, then there's always the fallback that they were dumb to be doing it to begin with. If he hadn't died, nobody would know his name. Statistics caught up to him. Statistics will catch a few other people every year while far more visitors to the same area will escape without consequence. The dynamics of this subject on HN in particular are really sort of obvious, given that McCandless has come up at least half-a-dozen times on HN over the years, a site not known for its enthusiasm for the outdoors. The treatment here is often about as embarrassing as someone might imagine the topic of machine learning to be on a forum for mushroom pickers.

grecy 6y ago
No doubt it's a polarizing topic, and I understand why people (especially Alaskans) get angry about him going into the wilderness unprepared. The bus was moved for "public safety", which raises a bigger question of safety, and personal choice. Should we stop people climbing mountains, paddling whitewater, skydiving or even just eating bacon all in the name of "public safety"? Who gets to decide that we're much better off sitting at a desk for life and never doing anything "risky"? Some people have decided a long life is better than going after your dreams, even if that long life is unfulfilling and full of regrets. That's fine with me. I'm perfectly happy to let people live whatever life they choose, and it feels strange people won't let me (or get angry about Chris) living the life we want. We all have many choices in this life, and it seems people get angry when others make different choices than themselves.
- riffraff 6y ago
  Please consider that when people put themselves at risk it's rarely just them. There are collective costs to people getting hurt and needing to be saved, and it's not a black/white thing: we enforce safety belts, we remove dangerous rocks and trees looming on roads and so on all the time. The bus was evaluated as an hazard that encourages unprepared people to do something and get hurt, it may be a bad call, but it's not just a restriction of "people should be free to choose".
  - AdrianB1 6y ago
    You are mixing things that should never be mixed: when you pay taxes, road maintenance - including removal of rocks and trees - is a service that you paid for and you have to get. Enforcing safety belts is not a service for you, it is a measure imposed by coercion by the state that believes it knows better. There is no similarity between these.
    - riffraff 6y ago
      Of course they are not the same thing, they are just instances of the authorities deciding that X is unsafe. Also, the fact you pay for road maintenance does not indicate what maintenance is. People could be on the "I like looming rocks, they give character to this road, instead use my money to lay new asphalt instead of wasting it on landscape" camp. But the state thinks it knows better than you that exploding looming rocks is more important than letting you drive faster.
- greenshackle2 6y ago
  Your "personal choice" may end up risking the lives of search and rescue personnel, and costing the public hundreds of thousands of dollars. You get the benefits of your risky fun but a large part of the costs are externalized. I don't want to live in a risk-less, fun-less society either but there are limits. As long as society is footing the bill, society has an interest in imposing limits. I'm perfectly happy letting you do whatever you want, as long as you are not endangering the public, and you bear the costs. I'd be all for a system where you can opt out of health and safety restrictions, with the caveat that it also opts you out of health and safety programs, like publicly-funded search and rescue.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
I'm on a forum that's very outdoorsy (it's for an outdoor hobby and most of the best locations to do it are in BFE) and this story hit there too. While there's less ivory tower smugness, possibly a reflection of user demographics, McCandless is not exactly a popular figure over there either. It's understandable for an amateur to be under-prepared because you don't know what you don't know. It's understandable to be experienced and get into a crap situation because you planned to wing it and one of the variables you based your assumptions on changed. It's much less forgivable to be an amateur and also plan on winging it. The dude knew he hadn't lived in that environment before. He knew that he couldn't get food the ways he was accustomed to. He tried to dodge the stupid tax but he was so flagrant about it that luck couldn't justify not auditing him.
shkkmo 6y ago
The quote is from an essay by an Alaskan Park Ranger not a "member of the public". When people get into trouble, there is usually a something that could been done either in preparation or by exercising better judgement. McCandless didn't just miss a couple of esoteric preparation steps, he failed to take extremely basic precautions like bringing a map or sanity checking your plans with someone who has experience in the area. As explained in the essay that quote is from, Alaskans get frustrated by the glorification of McCandless because he didn't show basic respect for the wilderness he claimed to love. > The dynamics of this subject on HN in particular are really sort of obvious, given that McCandless has come up at least half-a-dozen times on HN over the years, a site not known for its enthusiasm for the outdoors. The treatment here is often about as embarrassing as someone might imagine the topic of machine learning to be on a forum for mushroom pickers. Give the comments in this thread a read rather than projecting your own misconceptions and you will find there are a number of people with personal experience with wilderness and the Alaskan wilderness is specific.
ghaff 6y ago
>In almost every case, there's something that someone could point to that the victim did wrong In fact, with many accidents, it's often a matter of compounding mistakes. (The victim didn't have a lot of experience, went out in worsening weather, lost the trail, and didn't have the gear to survive overnight.) On the other hand, it's easy to identify "mistakes" in retrospect. Someone got caught in an avalanche so they "clearly" shouldn't have been somewhere that they could get caught in an avalanche--even if the danger was just moderate and the danger in that particular area is often moderate. Which also speaks to your statistics comment of course. There are various levels of danger to many activities and you can reasonably reduce your chances of something going wrong but not eliminate them. And, also of course, many people who don't participate in many of those activities see them as unreasonably dangerous. And, depending upon their political views, may think rescuing mountain climbers or even winter hikers as a waste of societal resources.
- thaumaturgy 6y ago
  > In fact, with many accidents, it's often a matter of compounding mistakes. Yep! One of my favorite elements to many backcountry accidents is what mountaineers call "summit fever". It's a prevalent bug in human psychology. It gets people into trouble in the wilderness all the time, and it has a close cousin in tech circles, the "sunk cost fallacy".
  - wool_gather 6y ago
    I was on a day hike up a mountain several years back with a group of friends and acquaintances. Some of the folks had really been wanting to get to the top of this particular mountain -- it's known for its views. It was late spring, and we had beautiful weather until we got maybe 3-4 miles in, closing in on the top. At that point there was thick snow still on the ground, it started to get foggy, and (I can't remember exactly why) the trail became harder to recognize. We were equipped for a quick afternoon hike, nothing more -- some of us I think just had t-shirts and shorts -- and some of us started to get nervous. Others really wanted to keep going to the top, especially since we knew we were close (though not how close). We did end up turning around and heading down after just a few hundred feet of walking in the snow. I wonder about our decision from time to time -- were we smart or overly cautious? Would it have been fine or a disaster? I guess there's no easy answer -- you can't know what would have happened.
echlebek 6y ago
I don't think this was just a case of statistics where someone caught a bad break. He had no workable plan for surviving out there, and he had no resources for self rescue. In my mind, a good outcome would have been the statistical oddity.

grecy 6y ago

No doubt it's a polarizing topic, and I understand why people (especially Alaskans) get angry about him going into the wilderness unprepared. The bus was moved for "public safety", which raises a bigger question of safety, and personal choice. Should we stop people climbing mountains, paddling whitewater, skydiving or even just eating bacon all in the name of "public safety"? Who gets to decide that we're much better off sitting at a desk for life and never doing anything "risky"? Some people have decided a long life is better than going after your dreams, even if that long life is unfulfilling and full of regrets. That's fine with me. I'm perfectly happy to let people live whatever life they choose, and it feels strange people won't let me (or get angry about Chris) living the life we want. We all have many choices in this life, and it seems people get angry when others make different choices than themselves.

riffraff 6y ago
Please consider that when people put themselves at risk it's rarely just them. There are collective costs to people getting hurt and needing to be saved, and it's not a black/white thing: we enforce safety belts, we remove dangerous rocks and trees looming on roads and so on all the time. The bus was evaluated as an hazard that encourages unprepared people to do something and get hurt, it may be a bad call, but it's not just a restriction of "people should be free to choose".
- AdrianB1 6y ago
  You are mixing things that should never be mixed: when you pay taxes, road maintenance - including removal of rocks and trees - is a service that you paid for and you have to get. Enforcing safety belts is not a service for you, it is a measure imposed by coercion by the state that believes it knows better. There is no similarity between these.
  - riffraff 6y ago
    Of course they are not the same thing, they are just instances of the authorities deciding that X is unsafe. Also, the fact you pay for road maintenance does not indicate what maintenance is. People could be on the "I like looming rocks, they give character to this road, instead use my money to lay new asphalt instead of wasting it on landscape" camp. But the state thinks it knows better than you that exploding looming rocks is more important than letting you drive faster.
greenshackle2 6y ago
Your "personal choice" may end up risking the lives of search and rescue personnel, and costing the public hundreds of thousands of dollars. You get the benefits of your risky fun but a large part of the costs are externalized. I don't want to live in a risk-less, fun-less society either but there are limits. As long as society is footing the bill, society has an interest in imposing limits. I'm perfectly happy letting you do whatever you want, as long as you are not endangering the public, and you bear the costs. I'd be all for a system where you can opt out of health and safety restrictions, with the caveat that it also opts you out of health and safety programs, like publicly-funded search and rescue.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

I'm on a forum that's very outdoorsy (it's for an outdoor hobby and most of the best locations to do it are in BFE) and this story hit there too. While there's less ivory tower smugness, possibly a reflection of user demographics, McCandless is not exactly a popular figure over there either. It's understandable for an amateur to be under-prepared because you don't know what you don't know. It's understandable to be experienced and get into a crap situation because you planned to wing it and one of the variables you based your assumptions on changed. It's much less forgivable to be an amateur and also plan on winging it. The dude knew he hadn't lived in that environment before. He knew that he couldn't get food the ways he was accustomed to. He tried to dodge the stupid tax but he was so flagrant about it that luck couldn't justify not auditing him.

shkkmo 6y ago

The quote is from an essay by an Alaskan Park Ranger not a "member of the public". When people get into trouble, there is usually a something that could been done either in preparation or by exercising better judgement. McCandless didn't just miss a couple of esoteric preparation steps, he failed to take extremely basic precautions like bringing a map or sanity checking your plans with someone who has experience in the area. As explained in the essay that quote is from, Alaskans get frustrated by the glorification of McCandless because he didn't show basic respect for the wilderness he claimed to love. > The dynamics of this subject on HN in particular are really sort of obvious, given that McCandless has come up at least half-a-dozen times on HN over the years, a site not known for its enthusiasm for the outdoors. The treatment here is often about as embarrassing as someone might imagine the topic of machine learning to be on a forum for mushroom pickers. Give the comments in this thread a read rather than projecting your own misconceptions and you will find there are a number of people with personal experience with wilderness and the Alaskan wilderness is specific.

ghaff 6y ago

>In almost every case, there's something that someone could point to that the victim did wrong In fact, with many accidents, it's often a matter of compounding mistakes. (The victim didn't have a lot of experience, went out in worsening weather, lost the trail, and didn't have the gear to survive overnight.) On the other hand, it's easy to identify "mistakes" in retrospect. Someone got caught in an avalanche so they "clearly" shouldn't have been somewhere that they could get caught in an avalanche--even if the danger was just moderate and the danger in that particular area is often moderate. Which also speaks to your statistics comment of course. There are various levels of danger to many activities and you can reasonably reduce your chances of something going wrong but not eliminate them. And, also of course, many people who don't participate in many of those activities see them as unreasonably dangerous. And, depending upon their political views, may think rescuing mountain climbers or even winter hikers as a waste of societal resources.

thaumaturgy 6y ago
> In fact, with many accidents, it's often a matter of compounding mistakes. Yep! One of my favorite elements to many backcountry accidents is what mountaineers call "summit fever". It's a prevalent bug in human psychology. It gets people into trouble in the wilderness all the time, and it has a close cousin in tech circles, the "sunk cost fallacy".
- wool_gather 6y ago
  I was on a day hike up a mountain several years back with a group of friends and acquaintances. Some of the folks had really been wanting to get to the top of this particular mountain -- it's known for its views. It was late spring, and we had beautiful weather until we got maybe 3-4 miles in, closing in on the top. At that point there was thick snow still on the ground, it started to get foggy, and (I can't remember exactly why) the trail became harder to recognize. We were equipped for a quick afternoon hike, nothing more -- some of us I think just had t-shirts and shorts -- and some of us started to get nervous. Others really wanted to keep going to the top, especially since we knew we were close (though not how close). We did end up turning around and heading down after just a few hundred feet of walking in the snow. I wonder about our decision from time to time -- were we smart or overly cautious? Would it have been fine or a disaster? I guess there's no easy answer -- you can't know what would have happened.

echlebek 6y ago

I don't think this was just a case of statistics where someone caught a bad break. He had no workable plan for surviving out there, and he had no resources for self rescue. In my mind, a good outcome would have been the statistical oddity.