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Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

kathmandupost.com

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Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#81

Post by valarauko »

698969 wrote: post #71
embedding-shape wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very next sentence from that quote sounds a lot worse and harder to explain away though: > In at least one case cited in the investigation, baking powder was mixed into food to make tourists physically unwell.

In Nepal, my parents always warned me before eating at some rest stops because they said the food was doctored with baking soda to make you feel fuller, guess it was true after all and not just an urban legend heh.

I've sometimes used baking soda to accelerate softening of beans, and I imagine the effect is more appreciable at higher altitudes perhaps? Some of the usage of baking soda could be innocent enough.

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#82

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

valarauko wrote: post #81
698969 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Nepal, my parents always warned me before eating at some rest stops because they said the food was doctored with baking soda to make you feel fuller, guess it was true after all and not just an urban legend heh.

I've sometimes used baking soda to accelerate softening of beans, and I imagine the effect is more appreciable at higher altitudes perhaps? Some of the usage of baking soda could be innocent enough.

Try using it on meat. Turns it into pink slurry.

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#83

Post by MengerSponge »

valarauko wrote: post #81
698969 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Nepal, my parents always warned me before eating at some rest stops because they said the food was doctored with baking soda to make you feel fuller, guess it was true after all and not just an urban legend heh.

I've sometimes used baking soda to accelerate softening of beans, and I imagine the effect is more appreciable at higher altitudes perhaps? Some of the usage of baking soda could be innocent enough.

No reasonable person would be confused by use of baking soda as an ingredient in cooked food (reasonable) vs the addition of baking soda after cooking as an adulterant.

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#84

Post by linkjuice4all »

tomaskafka wrote: post #2

“Wasn’t the system supposed to be fixed?“ Why would it be fixed? Insurance companies aren’t willing to invest in oversight, and everyone else profit, there is no incentive for changing the system.

Just include helicopter rides in the ticket. These aren't adventures anymore - just "natural" theme parks for monied elites that need talking points and social media posts flexing their wealth. Does Six Flags charge your insurance for security to drive you back to your car?

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#86

Post by papercrane »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #82
valarauko wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've sometimes used baking soda to accelerate softening of beans, and I imagine the effect is more appreciable at higher altitudes perhaps? Some of the usage of baking soda could be innocent enough.

Try using it on meat. Turns it into pink slurry.

You're using too much! Its commonly used to improve meat texture, especially in Chinese cuisine. It's called "velveting".

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#87

Post by jltsiren »

bell-cot wrote: post #38
WarmWash wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely the insurers would quickly become aware of this, I mean, there are people whose job it is to monitor all claims and adjust prices accordingly. So while it might feel like the insurers were getting fleeced, it was almost certainly the insured who didn't get the copter ride.

Not an insurance underwriter - but wouldn't the obvious counter-move be to exclude coverage for medical assistance/transportation when you're climbing mountains overseas, spelunking, within X miles of the north or south pole, traveling in a submarine, or have otherwise ventured into "high-dollar extraction" territory?

In my experience, it's only the cheap insurance policies bundled with credit cards and various memberships that consider high-altitude hiking a high-risk activity. Any travel insurance you buy as individual should cover it. If there is an altitude limit, it's usually 6000 m, so Everest Base Camp and Kilimanjaro would be covered but Aconcagua wouldn't. And any actual mountaineering would also be high-risk, regardless of altitude.

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#88

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

valarauko wrote: post #81
698969 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Nepal, my parents always warned me before eating at some rest stops because they said the food was doctored with baking soda to make you feel fuller, guess it was true after all and not just an urban legend heh.

I've sometimes used baking soda to accelerate softening of beans, and I imagine the effect is more appreciable at higher altitudes perhaps? Some of the usage of baking soda could be innocent enough.

Did we discover a new diet hack?

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#89

Post by torhorway »

papercrane wrote: post #86
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try using it on meat. Turns it into pink slurry.

You're using too much! Its commonly used to improve meat texture, especially in Chinese cuisine. It's called "velveting".

you're thinking of corn starch

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#90

Post by adolph »

It is a surprise to me that anyone summiting has access to insurance at all. I suppose that if the fraud rate is as low as 3.5% and insurance is contracted specifically for the trip, then a rational payor will raise rates and carry on.

On the whole, there is finite capacity of certain assets, like helicopters. If the emergency carrying capacity is X and true emergencies are .6 X then there is spoiled capacity of .4 X, in which fraudulent emergencies are placed, keeping everyone in the system whole so that when true emergencies approach .9 X there is no need for fraud. This follows the "optimal amount of fraud is non-zero" and eliminating this fraud might remove the margin needed for the system to exist at all.

  An anecdote tells of the British government's bounty on dead Indian cobras 
  giving locals the perverse incentive to start breeding the snakes, to be able 
  to kill more of them and collect more bounty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
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