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Can't say that I love the praise over Chris McCandless, given the amount of deliberate self-sabotage and the fact that hikers have literally died trying to recr

Can't say that I love the praise over Chris McCandless, given the amount of deliberate self-sabotage and the fact that hikers have literally died trying to recreate his pilgrimage. > We’ve all got this theory that we’re not just meant to be confined to buildings and work. And [McCandless] was experiencing life. Real life. Social media and phones are not real life. I'm nitpicking, just think there are way healthier examples. Overall I love the mentality and really hope the next generation or two embraces a major shift away from tech addiction. Feels like growing pains from head-spinningly rapid technological innovation and availability.

voisin 4y ago
> given the amount of deliberate self-sabotage I never got the impression that it was deliberate self sabotage. I understood that he simply had over confidence going into the woods, and that he stayed a bit too long in an unfamiliar area and consequently couldn’t make his way back due to snowmelt flooding.
- Anthony-G 4y ago
  I loved film Into the Wild and read up on McCandless afterwards. If I remember correctly, he died within a day’s hike from a road but had he decided to bring a map with him, he would have known how to get to the road. I got the impression that he wanted to see how well he could survive on his own with the least amount of help from society. While I admire the spirit of the man and can sympathise with the romanticism of his endeavours, I would consider not bringing a map of the area or preparing adequately for life in the wilderness to be deliberate self-sabotage.
didericis 4y ago
What people describe as "tech addiction" is I think better described as "consumer product addiction". Technology has created an unprecedented opportunity for us to turn the world into a human friendly imaginative playground. That opportunity is squandered by people who think in the short term about control and money and status and grievance. Call me what you will, but I have a hard time watching old videos like this and not getting emotional -> https://youtu.be/Uz__bJTlOjk?t=37 https://youtu.be/Uz__bJTlOjk?t=37 Great engineers using the most advanced technology of the day to make childhood fantasies a reality is one of the most beautiful uses of our time on Earth I can think of. Tech could make the world the ultimate fantasy adventure. We have so much capacity to alleviate material want and create amazing dreamworlds and make people happy, but laziness, greed, ego, jealousy, and resentment all get in the way. Technological complexity obfuscates and entrenches a lot of existing problems and creates lots of room for abuse, but at root most modern problems are not fundamentally tech related. They're rooted in our difficulties cooperating with each other.

voisin 4y ago

> given the amount of deliberate self-sabotage I never got the impression that it was deliberate self sabotage. I understood that he simply had over confidence going into the woods, and that he stayed a bit too long in an unfamiliar area and consequently couldn’t make his way back due to snowmelt flooding.

Anthony-G 4y ago
I loved film Into the Wild and read up on McCandless afterwards. If I remember correctly, he died within a day’s hike from a road but had he decided to bring a map with him, he would have known how to get to the road. I got the impression that he wanted to see how well he could survive on his own with the least amount of help from society. While I admire the spirit of the man and can sympathise with the romanticism of his endeavours, I would consider not bringing a map of the area or preparing adequately for life in the wilderness to be deliberate self-sabotage.

didericis 4y ago

What people describe as "tech addiction" is I think better described as "consumer product addiction". Technology has created an unprecedented opportunity for us to turn the world into a human friendly imaginative playground. That opportunity is squandered by people who think in the short term about control and money and status and grievance. Call me what you will, but I have a hard time watching old videos like this and not getting emotional -> https://youtu.be/Uz__bJTlOjk?t=37 https://youtu.be/Uz__bJTlOjk?t=37 Great engineers using the most advanced technology of the day to make childhood fantasies a reality is one of the most beautiful uses of our time on Earth I can think of. Tech could make the world the ultimate fantasy adventure. We have so much capacity to alleviate material want and create amazing dreamworlds and make people happy, but laziness, greed, ego, jealousy, and resentment all get in the way. Technological complexity obfuscates and entrenches a lot of existing problems and creates lots of room for abuse, but at root most modern problems are not fundamentally tech related. They're rooted in our difficulties cooperating with each other.