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You know, they used to say the same thing about big mountains, right? Here's a slightly older take on it from that era: """ People ask me, 'What is the use o
by q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
You know, they used to say the same thing about big mountains, right?
Here's a slightly older take on it from that era:
"""
People ask me, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?' and my answer must at once be, 'It is of no use.'
There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behaviour of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation.
But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron...
If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go.
What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for.
"""
(That's from George Mallory, for the curious.)
- gnarbarian 4y agoyou get it.
- HopenHeyHi 4y agoSo does William Shatner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU2ftCitvyQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU2ftCitvyQ
- someweirdperson 4y ago> """[...] What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. [...]""" (That's from George Mallory, for the curious.) For many who are climbing the highest mountains that sheer joy turns into literal end if life. Wikipedia is trying to collect a list of them [0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_died_climbing_Mount_Everest https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_died_clim...
- Intermernet 4y agoWhich is fine. As much as it's a cliché to say "they died doing what they loved", most people die in absolutely horrible circumstances. Death is death. I've had a few friends die mountaineering, BASE jumping, climbing etc. and once I've grieved I actually admit that they did, in reality, die doing what they loved. I may miss them, and call them selfish for engaging in dangerous activities, but I respect and admire the drive to push limits that border on the impossible. There are many more deaths that are purely senseless, easily preventable and just as tragic. No one other than the friends and family of those people seems to care or comment on the circumstances of those deaths.
- brookst 4y agoFor many people, loss of life is not the overriding concern.
- jiggawatts 4y agoThere's adventure you fund yourself, and then there's adventure that taxpayers fund to the tune of several trillion dollars.
- Chathamization 4y agoYeah, if a huge chunk of DARPA's budget was spent sending people to climb mountains "Because it's there," people wouldn't be happy. The NASA budget for aeronautics is 1/8th the budget devoted to sending people into space "because it's there." Yet the aeronautics research is much more likely to have an actual positive impact on people's lives.