6 ms·

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

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.
  - mindcrime 6y ago
    People can die trying to rescue others who are doing stupid stuff. That matters too. They can, and they do. One recent example from near where I live: https://www.firehouse.com/lodds/news/21137013/nc-rescue-squad-member-dies-in-fall-during-search https://www.firehouse.com/lodds/news/21137013/nc-rescue-squa...
    - cjbprime 6y ago
      Another: https://youtu.be/51njl0n_dvI https://youtu.be/51njl0n_dvI
- bananabreakfast 6y ago
  Yes indeed, embarking on extreme ventures are a fundamental part of humanity and an inevitability of the risk tolerance bell curve of personality matrices. I'm certainly in no way advocating for people to not participate in outdoor activities that could be considered risky. Rather, the most important key difference here is in the individual's preparation for these activities. Yes people wingsuit, but try going to any skydiving drop zone without having quite literally hundreds of jumps with dozens as formal training in a wing suit. They will first laugh at your stupidity then get extremely serious and curse you out of the building for being a dangerous fool. People who free solo mountains are not amateurs. They have thousands of hours of training and have climbed the exact same route safely so many times they know each hold my heart. McCandless was a reckless fool. Not only had he never been to where he went with someone who knew their way around before he went alone, but he had no training doing similar things in any other proper context and that staggering lack of knowledge cost him his life. If someone has never skydived, and they saunter up to a 2000ft cliff wearing a wingsuit and jump off thinking they are taking the same risk as the extensively trained professionals they've watched on youtube then that makes them a reckless fool as well.
  - sinker 6y ago
    People put up the same comments about Alex Honnold when the Free Solo documentary made the front page of HN. That he was an irresponsible jerk who lived only for himself. Ultimately, the individual pays the greatest price. There is a difference where you if you want to set the land-speed record on a public highway in rush hour versus going out alone into the wilderness or climbing a mountain without a rope. The difference is where you draw the line. I believe that if any individual desires to stake out into the wilderness, alone, live in nature, hunt, and forage without a whisper to society at large - that is precisely the place where you would go. If not in wilderness, then where?
    - obmelvin 6y ago
      >People put up the same comments about Alex Honnold when the Free Solo documentary made the front page of HN. That he was an irresponsible jerk who lived only for himself. There is a big difference between these two cases. Honnold's level of preparation is hardly even comparable to McCandless lack of even basic knowledge of his surroundings.
- CamperBob2 6y ago
  The free-soloing example is a good one, I think. Can anyone come up with a way to prohibit self-destructive people like Chris McCandless from thoughtlessly putting himself and others at risk, while also leaving room for an Alex Honnold to do his thing without state interference? My personal take is that no one is forced to be on a search/rescue team. Those guys and gals are invariably adrenaline junkies, just like the people they rescue, and they're equally passionate about adventure in the outdoors. The only real difference is that they have the professional qualifications needed to do their paid or volunteer work as safely as possible. And they need something to do, just like the rest of us.
  - EdwardDiego 6y ago
    ...There's not much adrenaline in searching for a lost hiker. It's laborious and methodical work. Now, alpine/cliff rescue, yep, that's a tad more exciting.
- nefitty 6y ago
  To me there’s a difference between a Chris McCandless and an Alex Honnold. If Honnold wasn’t so devoted to preparation it would be irresponsible to let him climb mountains without harnesses.
  - sinker 6y ago
    Who is the party that "lets" him climb mountains?
    - nefitty 6y ago
      Good point. I picture our friends and family having some sliver of responsibility for our wellbeing, however slight that burden may be.
      - antepodius 6y ago
        Responsibility, but not direct power (hopefully). If he really wants to endanger his life like that, how could you stop him?
- jcrawfordor 6y ago
  The concern is not primarily economic. In many areas, search and rescue personnel are primarily unpaid volunteers and the cost involved could be quite small. The larger issue is that searchers regularly expose themselves to personal risk in order to recover missing people. While searchers are better prepared, they often operate in large numbers and the realities of the situation require them to handle conditions which they would normally consider too dangerous (rough terrain, poor weather, etc). This makes injuries, and occasional fatalities, inevitable. Even without any injuries they spend a great deal of their time and energy on an effort that may have been unnecessary had the missing person taken better precautions. There is some nuance here: the reality is that well-prepared people doing the best they can do become lost or injured and require rescue. This is not a "bad" thing but simply the result of activities that are not risk-free, and everything from government agency capabilities to volunteer SAR exist to mitigate this risk. But there is a difference between a person who requires rescue despite their best efforts and a person who requires rescue due to their complete negligence. There is no "bright line" between these two groups, but it's often quite clear on the ground whether or not someone had the respect for the situation that they should have. Search and rescue operations for these individuals are often shorter and lower risk, anyway, because they leave behind information (or even carry communication devices) that make them easier to find, and their preparation may make their injuries less severe or better handled by the time rescuers arrive.
rcurry 6y ago
I go backpacking and stay overnight in White Sands, NM every few years. It’s a fun place, but also very treacherous if you’re not an experienced backpacker. I was rather happy this year that the rangers did a gear check on us when we asked for a permit to camp overnight because it was going to be below freezing. I was surprised to learn how many people try to go camp there without the right equipment.
- drdeadringer 6y ago
  This reminds me of "Tunnel In The Sky" by Robert Heinlein. Teenager goes on a "growing up quest" in the hopes of becoming some type of Ranger or "Space Colony Guide". He and a group of others wormhole out to some planet and have to survive for a time before being wormholed back. On the front end, you have to show up with equipment you think you'll need. Since you don't know anything about what environment you'll be warped in to, you have to do your absolute "Boy Scout Best". Main character shows up with a parka, a knife, this-and-that. "Don't worry kid, you don't need that parka. Today you're not going to some arctic desert so you don't need it. Keep the knife though. I had to turn away some poor shit for bringing a space suit; regulations clearly stated a habitable environment. All set? Step on through."
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
I find this conclusion to be very troubling from a moral perspective. First jumping off a building or shooting yourself in the middle of a busy street are bad analogies - by their very nature those acts are disruptive to those nearby. But going out into an uninhabited place, having no desire to be rescued if things go awry, nor making any requests to get rescued - if we have any personal freedom at all, how can we not have the freedom over our own bodies if we are not disturbing others?
- ethanwillis 6y ago
  "It is probably more illuminating to go a little bit further back, to the Middle Ages. One of its characteristics was that "reasoning by analogy" was rampant; another characteristic was almost total intellectual stagnation, and we now see why the two go together. A reason for mentioning this is to point out that, by developing a keen ear for unwarranted analogies, one can detect a lot of medieval thinking today." I think the problem is that people like the parent comment don't believe there is any thing such as personal freedom, not true personal freedom. That is, freedoms that are not only the ones we are prescribed by society at large.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Source: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1036.html https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/E...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway20148 6y ago
  That uninhabited place is stewarded by someone else. It and the people that travel to it are the responsibility of that steward. This often happens to be park rangers or logging companies or whatever. Even if we have been granted the privilege to roam on these lands we do not have a right to go act as we see fit on them. There are always rules. There is a lot of land that you can buy very dirt cheap and go live as you see fit on it without having to answer to anyone - minus some property taxes. There you can try to bushcraft to your hearts content.
donw 6y ago
I think you're overlooking the cost of regulation and safety-first thinking on society as a whole. Especially as we have a wealth of recent examples as to why the American regulatory regime has failed. Candidly, this attitude is precisely is how we got into the regulatory hell where we are now. In principle, I love the idea of licensing. I really do. Take a standardized, state-provided exam to show competence in some area where there is a compelling public interest for regulation, and this grants you the legal ability to exercise that skill. Want to practice medicine? Exam, plus some number of hours of supervised practice before you can treat patients independently. Note the complete lack of a schooling requirement -- if you can demonstrate the knowledge during examination, you should be permitted to apprentice under a licensed physician. In practice... this doesn't work, at least not right now. Americans as a whole no longer have any confidence in our regulatory frameworks, and rightly so, because they inevitably become weaponized against the very people they are supposed to safeguard, due to the combination of corporate lobbying, and a law enforcement system that rewards "finding and harshly punishing transgressions" over "serving the public interest" Imagine you want to open a restaurant. The way it should be is: take an exam to show that you understand how to safely prepare and serve food; have your kitchen, which could be in your home, inspected before you start operations; and at truly random intervals, an inspector will pop by to check in on things. The way it is: wade through months, if not years, of chasing down permits; buy expensive equipment mandated by constantly-changing laws pushed by massive corporate entities that can afford the compliance game; and deal with very-much-not-random inspection regime which can (practically) shut down your livelihood if you look at them funny. Until we fix oversight and our culture of punishment, we should be looking to remove regulations, not add more.
- labster 6y ago
  I like how you say we should remove regulations while at the same time proposing a new test, creating new methods for qualifying for a trade, and a different inspection regime. This is a good sign, though. What we really want is the right balance of regulations for safety that don’t favor large businesses too much but are easy for small business to follow. Apprenticing under a physician is a particularly poor example, given how much medical science changes in 20 years. Not to mention it makes it easier for quacks to reproduce. Instead, aim lower: cosmetology licensing. I think we can all agree that you don’t need months of training to cut someone’s hair. This is simply a protectionist guild.
perl4ever 6y ago
Well, all the people whose job it is to do their best to rescue people would get out of practice if the number of people to rescue dramatically dropped. They might even end up victim of budget cuts. I mean, really, are you gonna volunteer for a suicide hotline and tell people "you asshole, if you kill yourself, think of all the work people will have to do!"
ogurechny 6y ago
This is a pompous judgemental bureaucratic speech. It presupposes that this order of the present-day “society” is something occurring naturally. There are many places on Earth where none of those measures happen in similar cases. I suspect there are still places in North America where you can disappear, or even get shot, and no one would really give a damn. Moreover, the ability to commit suicide can't disappear because it's prohibited, and, obviously, the dead couldn't care less about the consequences. (It's not that it's a good choice, but still.) Pay attention to what is considered important and unimportant in that statement. Humans are not important. Official positions, regulations, and budgets are. Way too often, people start to worship the process and completely forget that it's just a mean to some end.

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.
- mindcrime 6y ago
  People can die trying to rescue others who are doing stupid stuff. That matters too. They can, and they do. One recent example from near where I live: https://www.firehouse.com/lodds/news/21137013/nc-rescue-squad-member-dies-in-fall-during-search https://www.firehouse.com/lodds/news/21137013/nc-rescue-squa...
  - cjbprime 6y ago
    Another: https://youtu.be/51njl0n_dvI https://youtu.be/51njl0n_dvI
bananabreakfast 6y ago
Yes indeed, embarking on extreme ventures are a fundamental part of humanity and an inevitability of the risk tolerance bell curve of personality matrices. I'm certainly in no way advocating for people to not participate in outdoor activities that could be considered risky. Rather, the most important key difference here is in the individual's preparation for these activities. Yes people wingsuit, but try going to any skydiving drop zone without having quite literally hundreds of jumps with dozens as formal training in a wing suit. They will first laugh at your stupidity then get extremely serious and curse you out of the building for being a dangerous fool. People who free solo mountains are not amateurs. They have thousands of hours of training and have climbed the exact same route safely so many times they know each hold my heart. McCandless was a reckless fool. Not only had he never been to where he went with someone who knew their way around before he went alone, but he had no training doing similar things in any other proper context and that staggering lack of knowledge cost him his life. If someone has never skydived, and they saunter up to a 2000ft cliff wearing a wingsuit and jump off thinking they are taking the same risk as the extensively trained professionals they've watched on youtube then that makes them a reckless fool as well.
- sinker 6y ago
  People put up the same comments about Alex Honnold when the Free Solo documentary made the front page of HN. That he was an irresponsible jerk who lived only for himself. Ultimately, the individual pays the greatest price. There is a difference where you if you want to set the land-speed record on a public highway in rush hour versus going out alone into the wilderness or climbing a mountain without a rope. The difference is where you draw the line. I believe that if any individual desires to stake out into the wilderness, alone, live in nature, hunt, and forage without a whisper to society at large - that is precisely the place where you would go. If not in wilderness, then where?
  - obmelvin 6y ago
    >People put up the same comments about Alex Honnold when the Free Solo documentary made the front page of HN. That he was an irresponsible jerk who lived only for himself. There is a big difference between these two cases. Honnold's level of preparation is hardly even comparable to McCandless lack of even basic knowledge of his surroundings.
CamperBob2 6y ago
The free-soloing example is a good one, I think. Can anyone come up with a way to prohibit self-destructive people like Chris McCandless from thoughtlessly putting himself and others at risk, while also leaving room for an Alex Honnold to do his thing without state interference? My personal take is that no one is forced to be on a search/rescue team. Those guys and gals are invariably adrenaline junkies, just like the people they rescue, and they're equally passionate about adventure in the outdoors. The only real difference is that they have the professional qualifications needed to do their paid or volunteer work as safely as possible. And they need something to do, just like the rest of us.
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  ...There's not much adrenaline in searching for a lost hiker. It's laborious and methodical work. Now, alpine/cliff rescue, yep, that's a tad more exciting.
nefitty 6y ago
To me there’s a difference between a Chris McCandless and an Alex Honnold. If Honnold wasn’t so devoted to preparation it would be irresponsible to let him climb mountains without harnesses.
- sinker 6y ago
  Who is the party that "lets" him climb mountains?
  - nefitty 6y ago
    Good point. I picture our friends and family having some sliver of responsibility for our wellbeing, however slight that burden may be.
    - antepodius 6y ago
      Responsibility, but not direct power (hopefully). If he really wants to endanger his life like that, how could you stop him?
jcrawfordor 6y ago
The concern is not primarily economic. In many areas, search and rescue personnel are primarily unpaid volunteers and the cost involved could be quite small. The larger issue is that searchers regularly expose themselves to personal risk in order to recover missing people. While searchers are better prepared, they often operate in large numbers and the realities of the situation require them to handle conditions which they would normally consider too dangerous (rough terrain, poor weather, etc). This makes injuries, and occasional fatalities, inevitable. Even without any injuries they spend a great deal of their time and energy on an effort that may have been unnecessary had the missing person taken better precautions. There is some nuance here: the reality is that well-prepared people doing the best they can do become lost or injured and require rescue. This is not a "bad" thing but simply the result of activities that are not risk-free, and everything from government agency capabilities to volunteer SAR exist to mitigate this risk. But there is a difference between a person who requires rescue despite their best efforts and a person who requires rescue due to their complete negligence. There is no "bright line" between these two groups, but it's often quite clear on the ground whether or not someone had the respect for the situation that they should have. Search and rescue operations for these individuals are often shorter and lower risk, anyway, because they leave behind information (or even carry communication devices) that make them easier to find, and their preparation may make their injuries less severe or better handled by the time rescuers arrive.

rcurry 6y ago

I go backpacking and stay overnight in White Sands, NM every few years. It’s a fun place, but also very treacherous if you’re not an experienced backpacker. I was rather happy this year that the rangers did a gear check on us when we asked for a permit to camp overnight because it was going to be below freezing. I was surprised to learn how many people try to go camp there without the right equipment.

drdeadringer 6y ago
This reminds me of "Tunnel In The Sky" by Robert Heinlein. Teenager goes on a "growing up quest" in the hopes of becoming some type of Ranger or "Space Colony Guide". He and a group of others wormhole out to some planet and have to survive for a time before being wormholed back. On the front end, you have to show up with equipment you think you'll need. Since you don't know anything about what environment you'll be warped in to, you have to do your absolute "Boy Scout Best". Main character shows up with a parka, a knife, this-and-that. "Don't worry kid, you don't need that parka. Today you're not going to some arctic desert so you don't need it. Keep the knife though. I had to turn away some poor shit for bringing a space suit; regulations clearly stated a habitable environment. All set? Step on through."

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

I find this conclusion to be very troubling from a moral perspective. First jumping off a building or shooting yourself in the middle of a busy street are bad analogies - by their very nature those acts are disruptive to those nearby. But going out into an uninhabited place, having no desire to be rescued if things go awry, nor making any requests to get rescued - if we have any personal freedom at all, how can we not have the freedom over our own bodies if we are not disturbing others?

ethanwillis 6y ago
"It is probably more illuminating to go a little bit further back, to the Middle Ages. One of its characteristics was that "reasoning by analogy" was rampant; another characteristic was almost total intellectual stagnation, and we now see why the two go together. A reason for mentioning this is to point out that, by developing a keen ear for unwarranted analogies, one can detect a lot of medieval thinking today." I think the problem is that people like the parent comment don't believe there is any thing such as personal freedom, not true personal freedom. That is, freedoms that are not only the ones we are prescribed by society at large.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Source: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1036.html https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/E...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
throwaway20148 6y ago
That uninhabited place is stewarded by someone else. It and the people that travel to it are the responsibility of that steward. This often happens to be park rangers or logging companies or whatever. Even if we have been granted the privilege to roam on these lands we do not have a right to go act as we see fit on them. There are always rules. There is a lot of land that you can buy very dirt cheap and go live as you see fit on it without having to answer to anyone - minus some property taxes. There you can try to bushcraft to your hearts content.

donw 6y ago

I think you're overlooking the cost of regulation and safety-first thinking on society as a whole. Especially as we have a wealth of recent examples as to why the American regulatory regime has failed. Candidly, this attitude is precisely is how we got into the regulatory hell where we are now. In principle, I love the idea of licensing. I really do. Take a standardized, state-provided exam to show competence in some area where there is a compelling public interest for regulation, and this grants you the legal ability to exercise that skill. Want to practice medicine? Exam, plus some number of hours of supervised practice before you can treat patients independently. Note the complete lack of a schooling requirement -- if you can demonstrate the knowledge during examination, you should be permitted to apprentice under a licensed physician. In practice... this doesn't work, at least not right now. Americans as a whole no longer have any confidence in our regulatory frameworks, and rightly so, because they inevitably become weaponized against the very people they are supposed to safeguard, due to the combination of corporate lobbying, and a law enforcement system that rewards "finding and harshly punishing transgressions" over "serving the public interest" Imagine you want to open a restaurant. The way it should be is: take an exam to show that you understand how to safely prepare and serve food; have your kitchen, which could be in your home, inspected before you start operations; and at truly random intervals, an inspector will pop by to check in on things. The way it is: wade through months, if not years, of chasing down permits; buy expensive equipment mandated by constantly-changing laws pushed by massive corporate entities that can afford the compliance game; and deal with very-much-not-random inspection regime which can (practically) shut down your livelihood if you look at them funny. Until we fix oversight and our culture of punishment, we should be looking to remove regulations, not add more.

labster 6y ago
I like how you say we should remove regulations while at the same time proposing a new test, creating new methods for qualifying for a trade, and a different inspection regime. This is a good sign, though. What we really want is the right balance of regulations for safety that don’t favor large businesses too much but are easy for small business to follow. Apprenticing under a physician is a particularly poor example, given how much medical science changes in 20 years. Not to mention it makes it easier for quacks to reproduce. Instead, aim lower: cosmetology licensing. I think we can all agree that you don’t need months of training to cut someone’s hair. This is simply a protectionist guild.

perl4ever 6y ago

Well, all the people whose job it is to do their best to rescue people would get out of practice if the number of people to rescue dramatically dropped. They might even end up victim of budget cuts. I mean, really, are you gonna volunteer for a suicide hotline and tell people "you asshole, if you kill yourself, think of all the work people will have to do!"

ogurechny 6y ago

This is a pompous judgemental bureaucratic speech. It presupposes that this order of the present-day “society” is something occurring naturally. There are many places on Earth where none of those measures happen in similar cases. I suspect there are still places in North America where you can disappear, or even get shot, and no one would really give a damn. Moreover, the ability to commit suicide can't disappear because it's prohibited, and, obviously, the dead couldn't care less about the consequences. (It's not that it's a good choice, but still.) Pay attention to what is considered important and unimportant in that statement. Humans are not important. Official positions, regulations, and budgets are. Way too often, people start to worship the process and completely forget that it's just a mean to some end.