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Intrade CEO dies climbing Mt. Everest

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Re: Intrade CEO dies climbing Mt. Everest

#61

Post by nbertram »

gamble wrote: post #59
joshklein wrote: post #4

Can't reach the page, but the submission title made me want to share an on-topic book recommendation - Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster, by Jon Krakauer. [1] It's a very sad, but thrilling, account of a catastrophic journey up Everest. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Into-Thin-Air-Personal-Disaster/dp/067...

It is a great book. Sadly, the hostile reaction toward the Everest climbers expressed after the disaster seems to also be present in many of the comments on this thread.

Agreed, fantastic book.

Re: Intrade CEO dies climbing Mt. Everest

#62

Post by vixen99 »

Entaroadun wrote: post #49
peterbraden wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happen to believe that criticizing people that cannot defend themselves is tasteless, and judging situations that I know nothing about is misguided. I'm sure there is a lot of this story that we will never know, criticism is not going to change anything and if anything is offensive to the bereaved.

Tasteless? I don't think you're getting it. He risked his life completely unnecessarily while he needed to be a father. What he has done is categorically selfish. Your defense of his actions is that "It was his lifelong ambition." If you believe that then you already acknowledge that his action is selfish; his ambition caused him to abandon his responsibilities as a father and husband. I don't see it as much as criti…

How about that we remain silent.on matters of which we are ignorant? We are not party to this man's innermost thoughts and family conversations indeed such is none of our business and it is more than a touch offensive to offer up judgments. Let's leave the family to mourn their loss, shall we?

Re: Intrade CEO dies climbing Mt. Everest

#63

Post by raganwald »

jemfinch wrote: post #25
raganwald wrote: post #18

I am not sad for him personally. We all die, he chose his time and place. Attempting to summit Everest is meaningful in part because one out of every ten climbers making the final push doesn't make it home alive. Compare and contrast his death to Bob Parsons' cowardly choice of shooting an elephant. Bob was never in any meaningful danger, where is the courage in killing an animal that can't shoot back? I am sorry for…

John Delaney left behind two sons and a pregnant wife pursuing a meaningless accomplishment. Bob Parsons killed an elephant who was destroying crops and fed an African village. I'm troubled by your use of "meaningful" in describing danger. Danger is not meaningful in itself. An act does not become meaningful because 10% of the people who attempt it die. Acts are meaningful based on their impact on the world around th…

Sorry, that's YOUR definition, and good for you that you consider altruism more meaningful than courage. But yours is not the only definition, as I'm sure you are perfectly aware.

Now as to Mr. Parsons, don't be suckered into equating his killing an elephant with the question of whether elephants should be culled. Culling an elephant involves game wardens. What he did was murder tourism, big difference.

Re: Intrade CEO dies climbing Mt. Everest

#64

Post by mmaunder »

pessimist wrote: post #9

Sad. But I have to say - climbing Everest when your wife is due to give birth - not cool. Overall death rate for Everest climbers is pretty close to 3% - pretty high (although its been falling). Edit: 3% is for climbers above base camp - for summit climbers its close to 10%! According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Mount_Everest_disaster

Same situation with Rob Hall in 1996 (a very bad and very famous season on Everest) and his 7 month pregnant wife Jan Arnold. She was also a climber and physician who had submitted Everest with Hall in the past. He called her via sat phone from the summit to say goodbye.

Re: Intrade CEO dies climbing Mt. Everest

#65

Post by tres »

jemfinch wrote: post #25
raganwald wrote: post #18

I am not sad for him personally. We all die, he chose his time and place. Attempting to summit Everest is meaningful in part because one out of every ten climbers making the final push doesn't make it home alive. Compare and contrast his death to Bob Parsons' cowardly choice of shooting an elephant. Bob was never in any meaningful danger, where is the courage in killing an animal that can't shoot back? I am sorry for…

John Delaney left behind two sons and a pregnant wife pursuing a meaningless accomplishment. Bob Parsons killed an elephant who was destroying crops and fed an African village. I'm troubled by your use of "meaningful" in describing danger. Danger is not meaningful in itself. An act does not become meaningful because 10% of the people who attempt it die. Acts are meaningful based on their impact on the world around th…

>> Bob Parsons killed an elephant who was destroying crops and fed an African village.

The most instructive part of that video was the end where the crop Bob Parsons was trying to "save" was totally destroyed by people trying to get at the elephant. Those people did much more damage to the crop than the elephants.

So a lump of rotting flesh that will spoil in days takes the place of a field of grain that could have lasted a season. Not very meaningful. The farmer/village sure didn't benefit from Bob Parson's "help."

Saying that Bob Parsons did anything meaningful isn't being honest about what he did. Some people take pleasure in killing things; that's the basis of hunting as a sport. I'm not really interested in it one way or another. What does pique my interest is the idea that Bob Parsons was doing anything meaningful.

If he takes pleasure in killing things, he should go ahead and be honest about it. He shouldn't try excusing himself with some antiquated colonial view of white man helping some poor impoverished people with a big gun. That's the repulsive part of the whole thing.

If Bob Parsons really wanted to do something other than kill an animal, he could have given a micro-loan or grant to all those people to help them out of subsistence.

Re: Intrade CEO dies climbing Mt. Everest

#66

Post by bhickey »

hugh3 wrote: post #52
pitdesi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI - the overall rate is ~9% but has been declining significantly in recent years... http://www.mounteverest.net/story/MountEverestKillerMountain... "To date, there have been 1,924 ascents of Mount Everest (more than 1,300 different climbers), and 179 people have died. The overall fatality rate is thus about 9% (fatality rate is defined as successful summits compared to fatalities). However, since 1990 there has bee…

Interesting. Though I imagine that a lot of people who die climbing Everest die because they did something stupid. What's the death rate for people who are sensible? (This guy doesn't seem to have done anything stupid, his brain just didn't like the altitude). I wouldn't do it. But I do want to climb Mt Kilimanjaro sometime (much less dangerous).

Dying on Everest isn't a matter of sensibility. Most people who die are stricken with altitude sickness[1]. HACE and HAPE move fast, and the only effective treatment is reduction in altitude. Hyperbaric chambers can buy time, diamox isn't shown to be effective for HACE and HAPE.

Acute mountain sickness (AMS) can strike even lower. A friend of mine was in Nepal with the Discovery Channel this past Fall. One of the producers was evacuated due to AMS when they were under 6000m. Altitude is a lottery. For my part, there's plenty of climbing near sea level that kicks my butt.

[1] http://news.softpedia.com/news/Leading-Causes-of-Death-In-th...

Re: Intrade CEO dies climbing Mt. Everest

#67

Post by jemfinch »

raganwald wrote: post #63
jemfinch wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Delaney left behind two sons and a pregnant wife pursuing a meaningless accomplishment. Bob Parsons killed an elephant who was destroying crops and fed an African village. I'm troubled by your use of "meaningful" in describing danger. Danger is not meaningful in itself. An act does not become meaningful because 10% of the people who attempt it die. Acts are meaningful based on their impact on the world around th…

Sorry, that's YOUR definition, and good for you that you consider altruism more meaningful than courage. But yours is not the only definition, as I'm sure you are perfectly aware. Now as to Mr. Parsons, don't be suckered into equating his killing an elephant with the question of whether elephants should be culled. Culling an elephant involves game wardens. What he did was murder tourism, big difference.

My definition? If your definition of "meaningful" doesn't take into account an act's impact on the external world, I don't know what to say; we probably have very little to discuss. I have no interest in arguing against what effectively amounts to solipsism.

"Murder" is the intentional killing of humans. Hunting elephants, licitly or otherwise, is not and never can be "murder tourism". But since you seem intent in this discussion on using words with meanings other than their commonly accepted ones, perhaps we should go our separate ways now.

Re: Intrade CEO dies climbing Mt. Everest

#68

Post by brk »

codexon wrote: post #55
tcdent wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from possibility of interest in the exposed query, what's the point of copying as pasting the error you just got?

As oxtopus said, this is something I never hope to see on a trading site. Especially just for counting views. And really? 5 downvotes for saying that the link does't work? This community has really declined.

I'm just guessing, but I'm thinking the code that runs their forum is vastly different from the code that runs their business.

Re: Intrade CEO dies climbing Mt. Everest

#69

Post by kloncks »

pessimist wrote: post #9

Sad. But I have to say - climbing Everest when your wife is due to give birth - not cool. Overall death rate for Everest climbers is pretty close to 3% - pretty high (although its been falling). Edit: 3% is for climbers above base camp - for summit climbers its close to 10%! According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Mount_Everest_disaster

I don't understand all this harsh judgement, especially from the HN crowd.

Who are you to say what he should or shouldn't do? He essentially died from a freak accident that couldn't be predicted ahead of time.

Telling him that he shouldn't do something because he's married with children is like someone telling you you shouldn't pursue a dream (whether that be climbing a mountain or trying an innovative startup with a high chance of failure) just because you happen to be married.

You don't know his situation. I don't know his situation.

Can't we just stop this judging and simply feel bad about an unfortunate death?

Re: Intrade CEO dies climbing Mt. Everest

#70

Post by AJ007 »

kloncks wrote: post #69
pessimist wrote: post #9

Sad. But I have to say - climbing Everest when your wife is due to give birth - not cool. Overall death rate for Everest climbers is pretty close to 3% - pretty high (although its been falling). Edit: 3% is for climbers above base camp - for summit climbers its close to 10%! According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Mount_Everest_disaster

I don't understand all this harsh judgement, especially from the HN crowd. Who are you to say what he should or shouldn't do? He essentially died from a freak accident that couldn't be predicted ahead of time. Telling him that he shouldn't do something because he's married with children is like someone telling you you shouldn't pursue a dream (whether that be climbing a mountain or trying an innovative startup with a…

1 in 10 chance isn't a freak accident, its called being reckless and I don't see anything to feel bad about.
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