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Am I in the minority in thinking that if someone wants to go out into the wilderness with little or no preparation for months at a time, that it's no one else's

by sinker 6y ago

Am I in the minority in thinking that if someone wants to go out into the wilderness with little or no preparation for months at a time, that it's no one else's business? McCandless didn't ask for a book to be written about him. Why should anyone care one way or another that an individual they didn't know decided to do something for his own sake with little effect on anyone else. If I, or anyone, decide tomorrow they'd like to take a very long walk in the woods and not return for six months, why does society at large need to weigh in on that? It's not a question of moral or ethics. People are consistently smug, morally prescriptive, and hindsight-ridden whenever the topic of McCandless comes up.

saulrh 6y ago
From the root post: > but often, not before risking their > lives and/or spending a lot of > government money on helicopters > and overtime. Every search and rescue operation the forest service mounts is a bunch less actual work they can get done protecting and preserving nature for the rest of us.
- sinker 6y ago
  This response comes up every time, but it seems backwards to me and comes off more as rationalization for smugness than a legitimate point, something along the lines of, "Will someone think of the children?" Yes, it would be better if SAR services were never needed, but they serve the public, it's not the public that serves SAR when they decide to step outside. It'd be one thing if McCandless were willingly and flagrantly putting his life in danger with the expectation that he could dial a number and be rescued at any time - but that didn't happen did it? He played it out to the end starving to death.
  - bananabreakfast 6y ago
    He never intended to die out there. His journal makes that abundantly clear. He starved because he ate poison berries. He absolutely would have dialed a number to come rescue him if the technology was available, which it wasn't because it was 1992 in central Alaska. He also did require expensive rescue anyway. You think they just left his body in that bus after it was discovered? Absolutely not, plus there are no roads there anymore, so they had to fly his body out in a very expensive helicopter ride.
    - catalogia 6y ago
      He ate poison berries because he was starving. The poison berries sure as shit didn't help, but he was still generally clueless as to get food anyway and was in serious trouble. He didn't know what plants he could eat (hence the poison berries), didn't know how to clean and preserve animal meat, etc.
      - geoka9 6y ago
        > He ate poison berries because he was starving. I think the parent poster is right - he died because he ate poison berries: It might be said that Christopher McCandless did indeed starve to death in the Alaskan wild, but this only because he’d been poisoned, and the poison had rendered him too weak to move about, to hunt or forage, and, toward the end, “extremely weak,” “too weak to walk out,” and, having “much trouble just to stand up.” He wasn’t truly starving in the most technical sense of that condition. He’d simply become slowly paralyzed. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-chris-mccandless-died https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-chris-mccand...
        catalogia 6y ago
        Months before his death he killed a moose then let it rot because he didn't know what to do with it. He'd not have been eating those berries in the first place if he knew how to feed himself in that region. If he didn't have the poison berries, what would he have been eating? He had very little else. It's also quite possible the berries wouldn't have killed him if not for the fact that he was already starving. From wikipedia: > In 2013, a new hypothesis was proposed. Ronald Hamilton, a retired bookbinder at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania,[7] suggested a link between the symptoms described by McCandless and the poisoning of Jewish prisoners in the Nazi concentration camp in Vapniarca. He put forward the proposal that McCandless starved to death because he was suffering from paralysis in his legs induced by lathyrism, which prevented him from gathering food or hiking.[26] Lathyrism may be caused by ODAP poisoning from seeds of Hedysarum alpinum (commonly called wild potato). The ODAP, a toxic amino acid, had not been detected by the previous studies of the seeds because they had suspected and tested for a toxic alkaloid, rather than an amino acid, and nobody had previously suspected that Hedysarum alpinum seeds contained this toxin. The protein would be relatively harmless to someone who was well-fed and on a normal diet, but toxic to someone who was malnourished, physically stressed, and on an irregular and insufficient diet, as McCandless was.[27] and > The article notes that while occasional ingestion of foodstuffs containing ODAP is not hazardous for healthy individuals eating a balanced diet, "individuals suffering from malnutrition, stress, and acute hunger are especially sensitive to ODAP, and are thus highly susceptible to the incapacitating effects of lathyrism after ingesting the neurotoxin".[7]
jfengel 6y ago
I think the GP's post should be read as "He's not a romantic hero. He was just stupid, and he died because of it." That is, it's not addressed to McCandless himself, but to Jon Krakauer for painting him as having some kind of life lesson to teach. And to fans of the book who romanticize it. McCandless didn't ask for any of that, and I concur that he was welcome to commit suicide his own way. But it was suicidal, and everybody knew it, so it is necessary to add the cautionary tale whenever he's brought up. It would be best, as you say, if we all just ignored him.
- sinker 6y ago
  The romanticization is in the portrayal not the reality of it. Without Jon Krakauer, no one would know McCandless' name or story, because McCandless wasn't out to glorify himself or bring fame, money, etc. to himself. He really was just some kid looking to escape what he saw as a life of oppression. He wasn't asking to be looked upon as an model, and he most likely would have acted differently if he knew his life would be scrutinized by strangers decades after.
- bilegeek 6y ago
  I agree that it would be best to ignore him, because I concur that the story of McCandless is seen too often as romantic instead of cautionary. However, it didn't seem to me that Krakauer painted McCandless as too rosy. He seemed to integrate both the accomplishments and the stupidity that led to those accomplishments pretty well. He seemed to show McCandless as a very capable and nice person, who in stubborn hubris abandoned and hurt his family and ended up dying. Not holding him up as a flawed hero like many fans of the book, and not sneering at him like many (rightly) do. A self-condemning tragedy, not an exultation or condemnation.
chrisbrandow 6y ago
It could be no one else's business in a world where park rangers don't have to assume that people want to be saved when they are in life-threatening danger. That's not the world we live in and there's no realistic way around that.
- sinker 6y ago
  That would be a valid point if McCandless had made a pact with rangers that if he were come into serious trouble, they should rescue him immediately. Of course, he made no pact. He went out alone, died alone and his body was found incidentally by a group of hunters.
  - bananabreakfast 6y ago
    It sounds like you have the whole social contract of society fundamentally backwards. _Everyone_ has a pact with rangers that they should be rescued immediately. That's literally what rangers do. The exact same thing works with a doctor or an EMT. You make it sound like if someone started choking in a restaurant you would expect the EMT to say "well he never made a pact with me to rescue him from choking to death" so the guy dies.
    - AdrianB1 6y ago
      I think you are right and wrong here: there is a pact that you get some services when you pay taxes, not for other reasons. At the same time people have the right to be left alone IF THEY WANT when they get lost, choke to death etc., but there is no way to differentiate, so the default is to try to save these people with the associated costs. Think about Do Not Resuscitate choice. There is no simple solution here.
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > That would be a valid point if McCandless had made a pact with rangers that if he were come into serious trouble, they should rescue him immediately. > Of course, he made no pact. That's incorrect. McCandless made that pact by being part of this society. The pact is implicit: it's the act of breaking it that requires effort (if it's even allowed at all).
tialaramex 6y ago
Sure, here's a thought experiment for you about how we could allow people that think your way to opt out: You go to a special facility and we explain how this works. You don't want to be part of the social contract in which, for example, you'd get rescued if you get lost in the wilderness and would otherwise die - and in exchange we agree that we'll accept that you want out of the contract. You get a period of time to think about it properly and make sure you want to go through with this before you have to make a final decision. Maybe there's a piece of paper to sign, or you just make a solemn declaration to a recording device. And then you're quietly euthenised and we incinerate the body. Because if you don't want to be part of the social contract then that's definitely the simplest way for us to handle it and you're clearly OK with that.
- cultofmetatron 6y ago
  why not just let them go into the wilderness and make sure they understand that no one is coming to rescue them?
  - bananabreakfast 6y ago
    That's not a thing that exists. You cannot go into the wilderness (at least not in America) and sign a DNR to not be rescued. Your safety is always the responsibility of the government no matter how suicidal you are.
    - AdrianB1 6y ago
      Your safety is NOT the responsibility of the government, SCOTUS said in several occasions.
    - cultofmetatron 6y ago
      well the alternative proposed by op was simply being euthanized...
- sinker 6y ago
  This is a nonsense reply that doesn't address what I actually said.
bananabreakfast 6y ago
It is absolutely a question of moral and ethics. This point of view regularly gets good people killed. Dead serious. You cannot wander off into the wilderness with no preparation expecting to cause no undue burden and danger to society for the exact same reason that you cannot jump off a building or shoot yourself in the middle of the street and expect it to be no one else's business. You are willfully endangering wilderness personnel and spending enormous sums of public money when you get in trouble or die in the wilderness because you were unprepared. There's no waiver you can sign and send to the forest service that says "Hey, I have no idea what I'm doing but I like it that way and don't bother rescuing me or recovering my body because I'm trying to be one with nature or something" Yours is a very dangerous attitude to have in the outdoors. It is not the 1700s anymore. It is literally always someone's job to do their absolute best (e.g. the government's best) to rescue you or to recover your body if you get in trouble no matter where you are on Earth, no matter how dangerous. It's incredibly irresponsible to think that you have no effect on the world around you in an age of GPS and helicopters.
- sinker 6y ago
  Heading out into the wilderness for months at a time alone is an extreme event. So is flying in a wingsuit, or downhill skiing in a remote location full or rocks, or free soloing a difficult mountain. One one hand, you can say, "Think of society, think of the people who would bear the responsibility of cleaning up after your death if you were to fail." On the other hand, there are always people who are going to pursue extreme ventures. But given how few people are willing to enter into life or death scenarios like I described, I don't find the the argument that these people have any noticeable effect on the economies of the state very convincing.
  - twblalock 6y ago
    > I don't find the the argument that these people have any noticeable effect on the economies of the state very convincing. People can die trying to rescue others who are doing stupid stuff. That matters too.
    - 6y ago
loosetypes 6y ago
Is it not a question of whether the given wilderness is a part of society?
- sinker 6y ago
  Wilderness is a special designation, different from public lands, national forest, state parks. It's one of the last places in the US where you can be close to being free. Public lands often border private property. National forests have strict rules on usage and have roads paved through them like theme parks. State parks often require fees for entry and design areas for easy camping/eating/leaving waste. Wilderness areas are a "part of society." But wilderness is an idea as much as it is a place, and the only place you can engage in the idea of "wilderness" is in geographical wilderness. Your statement suggests that the rules of domestic life should apply in wilderness, but it's our domestic laws that say that there should be some territory where the spirit of domestic life doesn't prevail.
tw04 6y ago
>with little effect on anyone else. I'm guessing the two hunters who had to find his decomposing body, and the officers who had to remove it, might feel slightly different than you do. That's ignoring his parents and sibling(s). It's easy to say "it's my own business" but to pretend like his actions didn't affect any others is awfully self-centered of him and you.
- sinker 6y ago
  Isn't it also self-centered to feel entitled to curtail another person's freedom because of your limited sensibilities?
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > Isn't it also self-centered to feel entitled to curtail another person's freedom because of your limited sensibilities? It's far more self-centered to stupidly get yourself into a dangerous situation that others will be obligated to rescue you from. And it's even more self-centered (to the point of arrogance) to dismiss that as the result of "limited sensibilities."
    - sinker 6y ago
      Isn't it far more self centered to criticize a person's own personal choices from a time period of over two decades ago when they were in their early twenties, had almost no money, friends, or place to call home, escaping an abusive household, and decided that their intention in life was not to rob, beg, or harm anyone, but to escape into the wilderness, and not just any place, but into the most remote place in the US where he would bear the total cost of the consequences of his actions.
  - EdwardDiego 6y ago
    How many dead bodies have you personally dealt with, out of curiosity? Because your rather glib dismissal would indicate not many, if any.
    - 6y ago
mumblemumble 6y ago
I couldn't say whether you're in the minority, but I would say that the reasoning you give for your position strikes me as specious. This is a complex issue with many facets that need to be unpacked. For example, your implication that a person walking off into the woods leads to no additional demands on others only follows if you also feel that a person's decision also waives family's and friends' right to request a search and rescue operation. Because, as that article points out, it's typically not just their business. Search and rescue is dangerous and may put additional people's lives at risk. And I would, in turn, say that that position is only tenable in cases where someone has done something like filed a signed affidavit saying, "Yes, this is my attention," with the local authorities. Otherwise there's not necessarily any tenable way for authorities to tell to worried loved ones, "No, this is what they wanted, so we can't get involved." And it's clear from McCandless's own actions - especially leaving a note on the bus asking for help - that he did not really understand what he was getting into, and did ultimately desire help from others. So, ultimately, even he himself did not believe that his fate was nobody else's business. Finally, despite your assertion that, "It's not a question of moral or ethics," your entire position is inescapably an ethical position. Because one's opinion on whether society has a responsibility to attempt to protect these people, or whether it's better to simply leave them to their fate, is, by definition, an ethical position.
- wonderlg 6y ago
  We haven’t gotten there as a society yet, but there should be a “don’t look for me if I’m lost/captured” checkbox somewhere. It’s my life. If I want to sail around Africa and I’m held for ransom, leave me to it. If I want to hike a deadly trail, don’t come rescue me and then blame me for it. Because of the people who died looking for this bus, nobody else can now see it. As a traveler, I see this happening too often: I see a place, I do something, 5 years later you can’t anymore because someone hurt themselves. My idea is: put up a sign saying “5 people died here” and let new visitors figure it out for themselves.
  - Marsymars 6y ago
    > My idea is: put up a sign saying “5 people died here” and let new visitors figure it out for themselves. Hanakapiai Beach: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanakapiai_Beach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanakapiai_Beach
rcurry 6y ago
No, you’re not. I was a mine buff for a long time and used to go out to desolate places and rappel down into old mines to explore them. Now days a lot of these old mines have been sealed off. My opinion is that if you really want to drive 30 miles off-road into the Mojave and fall down a mine shaft, well, knock yourself out. Hundreds of kids die in swimming pools each year, I don’t see the Corps of Engineers going around filling people’s pools with cement. The wild is the wild, leave it alone - let responsible people enjoy it, and let irresponsible people learn To respect it.
- sinker 6y ago
  I don't think there's a consensus to be reached. Part of why this story gets attention so frequently is because there's approximately two camps with points that aren't even contradictory logically, but are contradictory in spirit. A. McCandless was negligent, his neglect was bordering mal-intent. He should be made an example of, not for his search of freedom, but for behaving stupidly as to put the lives of search and rescue workers in danger, or at the very least putting them to work and depleting funds from the state that could have gone elsewhere. He had an ill-effect on his family and friends, and should have put them foremost before venturing out with little preparation. B. McCandless engaged in an act of personal liberation. Even if he ultimately died, he at least had the courage to embrace his own version of freedom. I don't think the people in camp (A) are wrong, but ultimately it's not how I want to live my life - where I have to value the peripheral concerns of society above my most intrinsic desires.
  - rcurry 6y ago
    I have to admit that I don't like how some people romanticize the poor kid's story. At the same time I don't want to make fun of him - he was just a naive kid who thought he was going on the adventure of his lifetime. It still took a lot of guts to do what he did, even if he didn't understand how dangerous it was actually going to be. If anything he might serve as a cautionary tale and thereby save a few lives over time.
  - barrenko 6y ago
    Lives are hollow little things that end in death, you can make an example of him, but you can't do jack sh to him personally.
wantoncl 6y ago
> Am I in the minority in thinking that if someone wants to go out into the wilderness with little or no preparation for months at a time, that it's no one else's business? You are in the minority, and it is absolutely someone else's business. At least it's their job to ensure that you're safe. It doesn't even have to be for months at a time, just a simple wrong way turn in a national park on their way someplace else: https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/ https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu... (Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12019567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12019567) While that's a long story (and well worth reading), it illustrates how even the simplest things going wrong could lead to an entire family dying, within walking distance of paved roads, certainly less remote than Alaska. There were multiple SAR teams/missions that put their own lives at risk, even when it wasn't their job, that took responsibility to find out what happened. Anyone who wants to "go out into the wilderness" has to remember that, it isn't just their own life at stake.
- sinker 6y ago
  This is overstated and someone else addressed it further down. SAR work is slow, methodical, done in coordinated groups with medical, communication, and navigation technology. I'm not disputing that SAR workers are useful and necessary, only that the work is dangerous at the extremes.
MaximumYComb 6y ago
Most countries take the stance that protecting their people, even at the cost of impeding on personal freedoms, is a good thing.
- AdrianB1 6y ago
  That can be considered a form of tyranny, but that is a completely different discussion.
- ByteJockey 6y ago
  Sure, but does that make arguing that at least one country should not automatically illegitimate? Is something automatically good because a lot of countries do it?
chasd00 6y ago
the problem is it costs a lot of money to rescue some clueless dumbass from themselves.
alasdair_ 6y ago
>Am I in the minority in thinking that if someone wants to go out into the wilderness with little or no preparation for months at a time, that it's no one else's business? I agree, but there are a remarkably large number of people that do this (or go sailing in the ocean, or who go spelunking etc.) without preparation and then end up calling for a rescue. Some people do it several times. THAT is the main issue.
SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
I’m an EMT and on search and rescue. If you want to walk in off into the woods unskilled and unprepared, be my guest! But... the likelihood is you will eventually ruin my weekend :)
ChuckMcM 6y ago
I don’t know which point of view has more adherents today vs say in the 1950’s or the 1850’s. The moral/philosophy question is this; Person expresses to you the intent to do something that will likely result in their own death and possibly the death of others, what is your responsibility to that person and the others they may intentionally or unintentionally cause to die? As a diagnostic tool, the question illuminates a lot of constructs in the morality, empathy, and objectivity of a person. You can play around with it in a number of ways, is there “intent”? Is there malice? Forethought? The debate over seatbelts, helmet laws, and other traffic laws often falls into this debate. Would it be different if you could say that insurance companies don’t have to pay the medical bills of people who become injured after not wearing a belt? Can you take vehicular homicide off the table if a DUI driver kills someone by hitting their car and they aren’t wearing seat belts? Especially if its provable that if they were wearing belts they would not have died? Because the consequences of the choices the person makes impacts others, does the group have the authority to limit those choices to protect itself from harm? I think my freshman philosophy class spent like 4 weeks on just this topic.
Ansil849 6y ago
> Am I in the minority in thinking that if someone wants to go out into the wilderness with little or no preparation for months at a time, that it's no one else's business? The quote in the GP explicitly mentions why it is someone else's, namely the taxpayer's, literal business: > spending a lot of government money on helicopters and overtime If you choose to go off into the wilderness ill-equipped, that is indeed your choice. But if you do so, I trust you then have no expectation of being rescued should you come into trouble, and I trust you made this clear to any friends or family ahead of time.
- ethanwillis 6y ago
  It's the taxpayer's choice to rescue these people right? Meanwhile taxpayers somehow don't always make it their literal business to get every citizen out of harm's way when they're kidnapped abroad. Something that member of society actually should always be rescued from.
dredmorbius 6y ago
How does one determine intent? What if intent changes? "The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans" (2012) https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/ https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...
gregd 6y ago
Nobody has an issue with you walking into the woods with little to no prep...and RETURNING. As someone who used to be a firefighter, the issue is that walking into the woods with little to no prep, means that there is an extremely high likelihood that you'll need to be rescued. This of course puts a lot of other lives in danger (during the rescue or recovery operation) because you decided to not be prepared.

by sinker 6y ago

saulrh 6y ago

From the root post: > but often, not before risking their > lives and/or spending a lot of > government money on helicopters > and overtime. Every search and rescue operation the forest service mounts is a bunch less actual work they can get done protecting and preserving nature for the rest of us.

sinker 6y ago
This response comes up every time, but it seems backwards to me and comes off more as rationalization for smugness than a legitimate point, something along the lines of, "Will someone think of the children?" Yes, it would be better if SAR services were never needed, but they serve the public, it's not the public that serves SAR when they decide to step outside. It'd be one thing if McCandless were willingly and flagrantly putting his life in danger with the expectation that he could dial a number and be rescued at any time - but that didn't happen did it? He played it out to the end starving to death.
- bananabreakfast 6y ago
  He never intended to die out there. His journal makes that abundantly clear. He starved because he ate poison berries. He absolutely would have dialed a number to come rescue him if the technology was available, which it wasn't because it was 1992 in central Alaska. He also did require expensive rescue anyway. You think they just left his body in that bus after it was discovered? Absolutely not, plus there are no roads there anymore, so they had to fly his body out in a very expensive helicopter ride.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    He ate poison berries because he was starving. The poison berries sure as shit didn't help, but he was still generally clueless as to get food anyway and was in serious trouble. He didn't know what plants he could eat (hence the poison berries), didn't know how to clean and preserve animal meat, etc.
    - geoka9 6y ago
      > He ate poison berries because he was starving. I think the parent poster is right - he died because he ate poison berries: It might be said that Christopher McCandless did indeed starve to death in the Alaskan wild, but this only because he’d been poisoned, and the poison had rendered him too weak to move about, to hunt or forage, and, toward the end, “extremely weak,” “too weak to walk out,” and, having “much trouble just to stand up.” He wasn’t truly starving in the most technical sense of that condition. He’d simply become slowly paralyzed. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-chris-mccandless-died https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-chris-mccand...
      - catalogia 6y ago
        Months before his death he killed a moose then let it rot because he didn't know what to do with it. He'd not have been eating those berries in the first place if he knew how to feed himself in that region. If he didn't have the poison berries, what would he have been eating? He had very little else. It's also quite possible the berries wouldn't have killed him if not for the fact that he was already starving. From wikipedia: > In 2013, a new hypothesis was proposed. Ronald Hamilton, a retired bookbinder at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania,[7] suggested a link between the symptoms described by McCandless and the poisoning of Jewish prisoners in the Nazi concentration camp in Vapniarca. He put forward the proposal that McCandless starved to death because he was suffering from paralysis in his legs induced by lathyrism, which prevented him from gathering food or hiking.[26] Lathyrism may be caused by ODAP poisoning from seeds of Hedysarum alpinum (commonly called wild potato). The ODAP, a toxic amino acid, had not been detected by the previous studies of the seeds because they had suspected and tested for a toxic alkaloid, rather than an amino acid, and nobody had previously suspected that Hedysarum alpinum seeds contained this toxin. The protein would be relatively harmless to someone who was well-fed and on a normal diet, but toxic to someone who was malnourished, physically stressed, and on an irregular and insufficient diet, as McCandless was.[27] and > The article notes that while occasional ingestion of foodstuffs containing ODAP is not hazardous for healthy individuals eating a balanced diet, "individuals suffering from malnutrition, stress, and acute hunger are especially sensitive to ODAP, and are thus highly susceptible to the incapacitating effects of lathyrism after ingesting the neurotoxin".[7]

jfengel 6y ago

I think the GP's post should be read as "He's not a romantic hero. He was just stupid, and he died because of it." That is, it's not addressed to McCandless himself, but to Jon Krakauer for painting him as having some kind of life lesson to teach. And to fans of the book who romanticize it. McCandless didn't ask for any of that, and I concur that he was welcome to commit suicide his own way. But it was suicidal, and everybody knew it, so it is necessary to add the cautionary tale whenever he's brought up. It would be best, as you say, if we all just ignored him.

sinker 6y ago
The romanticization is in the portrayal not the reality of it. Without Jon Krakauer, no one would know McCandless' name or story, because McCandless wasn't out to glorify himself or bring fame, money, etc. to himself. He really was just some kid looking to escape what he saw as a life of oppression. He wasn't asking to be looked upon as an model, and he most likely would have acted differently if he knew his life would be scrutinized by strangers decades after.
bilegeek 6y ago
I agree that it would be best to ignore him, because I concur that the story of McCandless is seen too often as romantic instead of cautionary. However, it didn't seem to me that Krakauer painted McCandless as too rosy. He seemed to integrate both the accomplishments and the stupidity that led to those accomplishments pretty well. He seemed to show McCandless as a very capable and nice person, who in stubborn hubris abandoned and hurt his family and ended up dying. Not holding him up as a flawed hero like many fans of the book, and not sneering at him like many (rightly) do. A self-condemning tragedy, not an exultation or condemnation.

chrisbrandow 6y ago

It could be no one else's business in a world where park rangers don't have to assume that people want to be saved when they are in life-threatening danger. That's not the world we live in and there's no realistic way around that.

sinker 6y ago
That would be a valid point if McCandless had made a pact with rangers that if he were come into serious trouble, they should rescue him immediately. Of course, he made no pact. He went out alone, died alone and his body was found incidentally by a group of hunters.
- bananabreakfast 6y ago
  It sounds like you have the whole social contract of society fundamentally backwards. _Everyone_ has a pact with rangers that they should be rescued immediately. That's literally what rangers do. The exact same thing works with a doctor or an EMT. You make it sound like if someone started choking in a restaurant you would expect the EMT to say "well he never made a pact with me to rescue him from choking to death" so the guy dies.
  - AdrianB1 6y ago
    I think you are right and wrong here: there is a pact that you get some services when you pay taxes, not for other reasons. At the same time people have the right to be left alone IF THEY WANT when they get lost, choke to death etc., but there is no way to differentiate, so the default is to try to save these people with the associated costs. Think about Do Not Resuscitate choice. There is no simple solution here.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > That would be a valid point if McCandless had made a pact with rangers that if he were come into serious trouble, they should rescue him immediately. > Of course, he made no pact. That's incorrect. McCandless made that pact by being part of this society. The pact is implicit: it's the act of breaking it that requires effort (if it's even allowed at all).

tialaramex 6y ago

Sure, here's a thought experiment for you about how we could allow people that think your way to opt out: You go to a special facility and we explain how this works. You don't want to be part of the social contract in which, for example, you'd get rescued if you get lost in the wilderness and would otherwise die - and in exchange we agree that we'll accept that you want out of the contract. You get a period of time to think about it properly and make sure you want to go through with this before you have to make a final decision. Maybe there's a piece of paper to sign, or you just make a solemn declaration to a recording device. And then you're quietly euthenised and we incinerate the body. Because if you don't want to be part of the social contract then that's definitely the simplest way for us to handle it and you're clearly OK with that.

cultofmetatron 6y ago
why not just let them go into the wilderness and make sure they understand that no one is coming to rescue them?
- bananabreakfast 6y ago
  That's not a thing that exists. You cannot go into the wilderness (at least not in America) and sign a DNR to not be rescued. Your safety is always the responsibility of the government no matter how suicidal you are.
  - AdrianB1 6y ago
    Your safety is NOT the responsibility of the government, SCOTUS said in several occasions.
  - cultofmetatron 6y ago
    well the alternative proposed by op was simply being euthanized...
sinker 6y ago
This is a nonsense reply that doesn't address what I actually said.

bananabreakfast 6y ago

It is absolutely a question of moral and ethics. This point of view regularly gets good people killed. Dead serious. You cannot wander off into the wilderness with no preparation expecting to cause no undue burden and danger to society for the exact same reason that you cannot jump off a building or shoot yourself in the middle of the street and expect it to be no one else's business. You are willfully endangering wilderness personnel and spending enormous sums of public money when you get in trouble or die in the wilderness because you were unprepared. There's no waiver you can sign and send to the forest service that says "Hey, I have no idea what I'm doing but I like it that way and don't bother rescuing me or recovering my body because I'm trying to be one with nature or something" Yours is a very dangerous attitude to have in the outdoors. It is not the 1700s anymore. It is literally always someone's job to do their absolute best (e.g. the government's best) to rescue you or to recover your body if you get in trouble no matter where you are on Earth, no matter how dangerous. It's incredibly irresponsible to think that you have no effect on the world around you in an age of GPS and helicopters.

sinker 6y ago
Heading out into the wilderness for months at a time alone is an extreme event. So is flying in a wingsuit, or downhill skiing in a remote location full or rocks, or free soloing a difficult mountain. One one hand, you can say, "Think of society, think of the people who would bear the responsibility of cleaning up after your death if you were to fail." On the other hand, there are always people who are going to pursue extreme ventures. But given how few people are willing to enter into life or death scenarios like I described, I don't find the the argument that these people have any noticeable effect on the economies of the state very convincing.
- twblalock 6y ago
  > I don't find the the argument that these people have any noticeable effect on the economies of the state very convincing. People can die trying to rescue others who are doing stupid stuff. That matters too.
  - 6y ago

loosetypes 6y ago

Is it not a question of whether the given wilderness is a part of society?

sinker 6y ago
Wilderness is a special designation, different from public lands, national forest, state parks. It's one of the last places in the US where you can be close to being free. Public lands often border private property. National forests have strict rules on usage and have roads paved through them like theme parks. State parks often require fees for entry and design areas for easy camping/eating/leaving waste. Wilderness areas are a "part of society." But wilderness is an idea as much as it is a place, and the only place you can engage in the idea of "wilderness" is in geographical wilderness. Your statement suggests that the rules of domestic life should apply in wilderness, but it's our domestic laws that say that there should be some territory where the spirit of domestic life doesn't prevail.

tw04 6y ago

>with little effect on anyone else. I'm guessing the two hunters who had to find his decomposing body, and the officers who had to remove it, might feel slightly different than you do. That's ignoring his parents and sibling(s). It's easy to say "it's my own business" but to pretend like his actions didn't affect any others is awfully self-centered of him and you.

sinker 6y ago
Isn't it also self-centered to feel entitled to curtail another person's freedom because of your limited sensibilities?
- ardy42 6y ago
  > Isn't it also self-centered to feel entitled to curtail another person's freedom because of your limited sensibilities? It's far more self-centered to stupidly get yourself into a dangerous situation that others will be obligated to rescue you from. And it's even more self-centered (to the point of arrogance) to dismiss that as the result of "limited sensibilities."
  - sinker 6y ago
    Isn't it far more self centered to criticize a person's own personal choices from a time period of over two decades ago when they were in their early twenties, had almost no money, friends, or place to call home, escaping an abusive household, and decided that their intention in life was not to rob, beg, or harm anyone, but to escape into the wilderness, and not just any place, but into the most remote place in the US where he would bear the total cost of the consequences of his actions.
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  How many dead bodies have you personally dealt with, out of curiosity? Because your rather glib dismissal would indicate not many, if any.
  - 6y ago

mumblemumble 6y ago

I couldn't say whether you're in the minority, but I would say that the reasoning you give for your position strikes me as specious. This is a complex issue with many facets that need to be unpacked. For example, your implication that a person walking off into the woods leads to no additional demands on others only follows if you also feel that a person's decision also waives family's and friends' right to request a search and rescue operation. Because, as that article points out, it's typically not just their business. Search and rescue is dangerous and may put additional people's lives at risk. And I would, in turn, say that that position is only tenable in cases where someone has done something like filed a signed affidavit saying, "Yes, this is my attention," with the local authorities. Otherwise there's not necessarily any tenable way for authorities to tell to worried loved ones, "No, this is what they wanted, so we can't get involved." And it's clear from McCandless's own actions - especially leaving a note on the bus asking for help - that he did not really understand what he was getting into, and did ultimately desire help from others. So, ultimately, even he himself did not believe that his fate was nobody else's business. Finally, despite your assertion that, "It's not a question of moral or ethics," your entire position is inescapably an ethical position. Because one's opinion on whether society has a responsibility to attempt to protect these people, or whether it's better to simply leave them to their fate, is, by definition, an ethical position.

wonderlg 6y ago
We haven’t gotten there as a society yet, but there should be a “don’t look for me if I’m lost/captured” checkbox somewhere. It’s my life. If I want to sail around Africa and I’m held for ransom, leave me to it. If I want to hike a deadly trail, don’t come rescue me and then blame me for it. Because of the people who died looking for this bus, nobody else can now see it. As a traveler, I see this happening too often: I see a place, I do something, 5 years later you can’t anymore because someone hurt themselves. My idea is: put up a sign saying “5 people died here” and let new visitors figure it out for themselves.
- Marsymars 6y ago
  > My idea is: put up a sign saying “5 people died here” and let new visitors figure it out for themselves. Hanakapiai Beach: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanakapiai_Beach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanakapiai_Beach

rcurry 6y ago

No, you’re not. I was a mine buff for a long time and used to go out to desolate places and rappel down into old mines to explore them. Now days a lot of these old mines have been sealed off. My opinion is that if you really want to drive 30 miles off-road into the Mojave and fall down a mine shaft, well, knock yourself out. Hundreds of kids die in swimming pools each year, I don’t see the Corps of Engineers going around filling people’s pools with cement. The wild is the wild, leave it alone - let responsible people enjoy it, and let irresponsible people learn To respect it.

sinker 6y ago
I don't think there's a consensus to be reached. Part of why this story gets attention so frequently is because there's approximately two camps with points that aren't even contradictory logically, but are contradictory in spirit. A. McCandless was negligent, his neglect was bordering mal-intent. He should be made an example of, not for his search of freedom, but for behaving stupidly as to put the lives of search and rescue workers in danger, or at the very least putting them to work and depleting funds from the state that could have gone elsewhere. He had an ill-effect on his family and friends, and should have put them foremost before venturing out with little preparation. B. McCandless engaged in an act of personal liberation. Even if he ultimately died, he at least had the courage to embrace his own version of freedom. I don't think the people in camp (A) are wrong, but ultimately it's not how I want to live my life - where I have to value the peripheral concerns of society above my most intrinsic desires.
- rcurry 6y ago
  I have to admit that I don't like how some people romanticize the poor kid's story. At the same time I don't want to make fun of him - he was just a naive kid who thought he was going on the adventure of his lifetime. It still took a lot of guts to do what he did, even if he didn't understand how dangerous it was actually going to be. If anything he might serve as a cautionary tale and thereby save a few lives over time.
- barrenko 6y ago
  Lives are hollow little things that end in death, you can make an example of him, but you can't do jack sh to him personally.

wantoncl 6y ago

> Am I in the minority in thinking that if someone wants to go out into the wilderness with little or no preparation for months at a time, that it's no one else's business? You are in the minority, and it is absolutely someone else's business. At least it's their job to ensure that you're safe. It doesn't even have to be for months at a time, just a simple wrong way turn in a national park on their way someplace else: https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/ https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu... (Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12019567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12019567) While that's a long story (and well worth reading), it illustrates how even the simplest things going wrong could lead to an entire family dying, within walking distance of paved roads, certainly less remote than Alaska. There were multiple SAR teams/missions that put their own lives at risk, even when it wasn't their job, that took responsibility to find out what happened. Anyone who wants to "go out into the wilderness" has to remember that, it isn't just their own life at stake.

sinker 6y ago
This is overstated and someone else addressed it further down. SAR work is slow, methodical, done in coordinated groups with medical, communication, and navigation technology. I'm not disputing that SAR workers are useful and necessary, only that the work is dangerous at the extremes.

MaximumYComb 6y ago

Most countries take the stance that protecting their people, even at the cost of impeding on personal freedoms, is a good thing.

AdrianB1 6y ago
That can be considered a form of tyranny, but that is a completely different discussion.
ByteJockey 6y ago
Sure, but does that make arguing that at least one country should not automatically illegitimate? Is something automatically good because a lot of countries do it?

chasd00 6y ago

the problem is it costs a lot of money to rescue some clueless dumbass from themselves.

alasdair_ 6y ago

>Am I in the minority in thinking that if someone wants to go out into the wilderness with little or no preparation for months at a time, that it's no one else's business? I agree, but there are a remarkably large number of people that do this (or go sailing in the ocean, or who go spelunking etc.) without preparation and then end up calling for a rescue. Some people do it several times. THAT is the main issue.

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago

I’m an EMT and on search and rescue. If you want to walk in off into the woods unskilled and unprepared, be my guest! But... the likelihood is you will eventually ruin my weekend :)

ChuckMcM 6y ago

I don’t know which point of view has more adherents today vs say in the 1950’s or the 1850’s. The moral/philosophy question is this; Person expresses to you the intent to do something that will likely result in their own death and possibly the death of others, what is your responsibility to that person and the others they may intentionally or unintentionally cause to die? As a diagnostic tool, the question illuminates a lot of constructs in the morality, empathy, and objectivity of a person. You can play around with it in a number of ways, is there “intent”? Is there malice? Forethought? The debate over seatbelts, helmet laws, and other traffic laws often falls into this debate. Would it be different if you could say that insurance companies don’t have to pay the medical bills of people who become injured after not wearing a belt? Can you take vehicular homicide off the table if a DUI driver kills someone by hitting their car and they aren’t wearing seat belts? Especially if its provable that if they were wearing belts they would not have died? Because the consequences of the choices the person makes impacts others, does the group have the authority to limit those choices to protect itself from harm? I think my freshman philosophy class spent like 4 weeks on just this topic.

Ansil849 6y ago

> Am I in the minority in thinking that if someone wants to go out into the wilderness with little or no preparation for months at a time, that it's no one else's business? The quote in the GP explicitly mentions why it is someone else's, namely the taxpayer's, literal business: > spending a lot of government money on helicopters and overtime If you choose to go off into the wilderness ill-equipped, that is indeed your choice. But if you do so, I trust you then have no expectation of being rescued should you come into trouble, and I trust you made this clear to any friends or family ahead of time.

ethanwillis 6y ago
It's the taxpayer's choice to rescue these people right? Meanwhile taxpayers somehow don't always make it their literal business to get every citizen out of harm's way when they're kidnapped abroad. Something that member of society actually should always be rescued from.

dredmorbius 6y ago

How does one determine intent? What if intent changes? "The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans" (2012) https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/ https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...

gregd 6y ago

Nobody has an issue with you walking into the woods with little to no prep...and RETURNING. As someone who used to be a firefighter, the issue is that walking into the woods with little to no prep, means that there is an extremely high likelihood that you'll need to be rescued. This of course puts a lot of other lives in danger (during the rescue or recovery operation) because you decided to not be prepared.