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How Chris McCandless Died

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Re: How Chris McCandless Died

#111

Post by _mulder_ »

I'm disappointed by the hypocrisy of most of these negative HN comments.

How can you be so quick to rubbish what McCandless achieved, calling him stupid and unprepared, then go straight back to reading the next "Why I sold my home to Bootstrap my dating App" blog post to grace the front page or "How I finally achieved my dream" and then be full of praise and admiration.

Don't you see, McCandless was a young guy with a dream and a philosophy and actually had the balls to go and try it for himself. He's become a bit of a cult icon because he showed exactly the same disregard for the rules and society norms that make Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Richard Branson such heroes.

To everyone commenting along these lines, I look forward to not-reading your next blog post; "How I could have done x, if only I'd tried"

Re: How Chris McCandless Died

#112

Post by lrm242 »

scott_s wrote: post #62
lrm242 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a break. The guy was most certainly not an independent thinker. Nor was he a critical thinker. Nor did he have any respect for the challenge he was taking on. He was an angst ridden teenage boy captured in an twenty something's body that never learned the difference between fantasy and reality. Most importantly, he never learned that in the real world there are consequences for stupid actions.

Nor did he have any respect for the challenge he was taking on. The conclusion is that he died from a specific set of circumstances that few people knew were deadly. I think that directly counters the notion that he "he had no respect for the challenge" because I believe people arrive at that conclusion backwards: he died doing it, so he must have been foolhardy.

He went into the Alaskan wilderness without a map. That demonstrates a complete lack of respect for nature AND his own life.

Re: How Chris McCandless Died

#113

Post by drcode »

chris_wot wrote: post #104
drcode wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that over a thousand people have climbed Everest at this point, it seems to me that climbing Everest is about the most boring/pretentious thing I could imagine doing (compared to all the other interesting things you can do in this world)

You're joking. It's still an amazing feat of endurance. People still die making the attempt. And there are 7 billion people in the world. So that means that 0.0000000142857143% of the world have done the climb.

In your case, I would focus on learning how to do math with percentages first, THEN climb Everest.

Re: How Chris McCandless Died

#114

Post by drcode »

Casseres wrote: post #109
drcode wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that over a thousand people have climbed Everest at this point, it seems to me that climbing Everest is about the most boring/pretentious thing I could imagine doing (compared to all the other interesting things you can do in this world)

What have you done that less than a thousand people have done? I'm always interested in learning about awesome things to do.

We all do things like this everyday... And these probably do more to help make the world a better/more interesting place than another person climbing Everest.

Re: How Chris McCandless Died

#115

Post by chris_wot »

drcode wrote: post #113
chris_wot wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're joking. It's still an amazing feat of endurance. People still die making the attempt. And there are 7 billion people in the world. So that means that 0.0000000142857143% of the world have done the climb.

In your case, I would focus on learning how to do math with percentages first, THEN climb Everest.

Oops, forgot to times by 100. My bad. That's 0.000014285571%.

But then we can remove over 7 billion people who have never made a basic mathematical error, as you're right - the ability to do arithmetic is a critical skill in extreme mountaineering.

This leaves us with a world population of 1. It must feel great to be the only inerrant mathematical mountaineer in the world - was that skill learned, or is it innate?

Re: How Chris McCandless Died

#116

Post by chris_wot »

drcode wrote: post #114
Casseres wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What have you done that less than a thousand people have done? I'm always interested in learning about awesome things to do.

We all do things like this everyday... And these probably do more to help make the world a better/more interesting place than another person climbing Everest.

When you say "we all do things like this everyday", what precisely do you do on a daily basis that is the equivalent of climbing the highest mountain on earth?

Re: How Chris McCandless Died

#117

Post by rdtsc »

chris_wot wrote: post #105
rdtsc wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those people are not considered dumb asses. Wait. Why exactly are they not considered dumb asses? I sure do consider them that.

Such a stupid insult.

Guy goes into the wilderness unprepared. Dies. People say he is a dumb ass. Most agree.

Other guy climbs a mountain that others have climbed, also unprepared -- hero, pushing the boundaries, expanding humanity's reach. Please...

Re: How Chris McCandless Died

#119

Post by drcode »

chris_wot wrote: post #116
drcode wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all do things like this everyday... And these probably do more to help make the world a better/more interesting place than another person climbing Everest.

When you say "we all do things like this everyday", what precisely do you do on a daily basis that is the equivalent of climbing the highest mountain on earth?

We all do things like help teach children, or create online resources for others, or add some detail to a small corner of science or other area of human knowledge. These are all more valuable than risking your life and littering a landmark and then telling people you're the 1473rd person to climb Everest.

(Mt. Everest's filthy secret: It's a dump http://theweek.com/article/index/244854/mt-everests-filthy-s...)

Re: How Chris McCandless Died

#120

Post by drcode »

chris_wot wrote: post #115
drcode wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your case, I would focus on learning how to do math with percentages first, THEN climb Everest.

Oops, forgot to times by 100. My bad. That's 0.000014285571%. But then we can remove over 7 billion people who have never made a basic mathematical error, as you're right - the ability to do arithmetic is a critical skill in extreme mountaineering. This leaves us with a world population of 1. It must feel great to be the only inerrant mathematical mountaineer in the world - was that skill learned, or is it innate?

I admit making fun of your math was a bit trollish of me :)
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