91–100 of 199 posts
It spikes HIF-1α → EPO for a day or two, but meta-analyses still doesn't show a real performance bump, let alone safety at 8 km. Feels less like innovation and more like mountaineering’s own carbon-plate shoes, except the failure mode here is cerebral edema, not a slow marathon time.
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If the business school is silly enough to accept people based partially on the idea that they climbed Everest, perhaps he was right to treat the task of getting in to the place as essentially theatre.
Isn't most business success about convincing people to buy expensive tulips while you (legally) walk away with the money and leave them holding the bags, then rinse and repeat? Seems like he'd be the right person for the job. And then you wonder why so many young people flirt with communism or want to see the capitalist system burn to the ground. What's the point of ethics and hard work if those who just lie their wa…
“Days instead of weeks on the mountain foot” - that’s the crucial point. Less time -> less money spent on accommodation, supplies, personnel there. Obviously they don’t want to lose income.
Nah the logic is less time on the mountain > more climbers per climbing season. They will do this math eventually and then they will require xenon prep.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the business school is silly enough to accept people based partially on the idea that they climbed Everest, perhaps he was right to treat the task of getting in to the place as essentially theatre.
Isn't most business success about convincing people to buy expensive tulips while you (legally) walk away with the money and leave them holding the bags, then rinse and repeat? Seems like he'd be the right person for the job. And then you wonder why so many young people flirt with communism or want to see the capitalist system burn to the ground. What's the point of ethics and hard work if those who just lie their wa…
I walked away from a full time job making $180K a year for 2 hours a day because the consulting company renting out my time wanted me to put 8 hours. I felt like I was helping them somehow fleece the client, even though the client probably had over a trillion dollars under management. In retrospect I was very foolish.
In the free market you have to learn sales, to do well. And most sales techniques are about making people realize they may need something (called “building the gap”) and then offering your solution. But your solution usually isn’t any good unless you raise money first.
In my case, I was too honest to overpromise to investors, or create fake volume for tokens, etc. So most investors walked, and it took years for me to build the products. Now I have them. But I am far behind those who overpromise and raise money fast, or create appearances of momentum, and act as if — they fake it til they make it. (Doesn’t need to be all the way as bad as Elizabeth Holmes.)
I have discovered a lot of ethical hacks over the years involving group dynamics, but in the meantime I had taken on hundreds of thousands in debt and repaid it. All for what… because I was too honest to stretch the truth too much.
If I was willing to do it, though, people downstream of me would have been much happier. And people diwnstream of you include your employees and your family and friends. It is a dog eat dog world out there… I have learned that total honesty has a price — you cannot overpromise to people downstream of you, either, otherwise they’ll be left holding the bag. It is better to overpromise to people upstream of you if you have people relying on you. It’s just not a perfect system.
I would have much rather been in a society which has UBI, free association and everyone has some discretionary income and isn’t always just trying to survive. Much more honest. And they wouldn’t even have to fake stuff to stay on disability or qualify for means tested stuff.
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Why do anything? Better to just sit on the couch.
There are plenty of things worthy of doing, spaces left to explore and discoveries to be made. Destroying a natural wonder in the name of impressing your buddies doesn't fall under that.
The US national parks are a great example of how that works.
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I'm sure you are the arbiter of whats worth doing.
Sure. Here's my full criteria: Is it a net positive for the world at large? It's worth doing. That's it. Go out unto the world and do with that as you will
The idea that such a subjective criteria should be used is more offensive than the hubris.
Isn't Xenon very expensive? I used it in my Laser MSc has part of the mix for a CO2 laser (marks how long ago that was). CO2 for the optic properties, and Xe to reduce the electron temperature. So the Xe in this case triggers a response in the human body, but people aren't quite sure why. Quite strange considering Xe is an inert gas.
Xenon isn't inert; it can form chemical compounds like xenon difluoride. In the body it's probably dissolving into cell membranes or other fatty components.
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Isn't most business success about convincing people to buy expensive tulips while you (legally) walk away with the money and leave them holding the bags, then rinse and repeat? Seems like he'd be the right person for the job. And then you wonder why so many young people flirt with communism or want to see the capitalist system burn to the ground. What's the point of ethics and hard work if those who just lie their wa…
> And then you wonder why so many young people flirt with communism or want to see the capitalist system burn to the ground That's not why, particularly. They do so for various reasons: - they compare the reality of capitalism with a nonexistent nirvana, rather than the reality of the alternatives. They haven't run the real counterfactual - they gravitate to any philosophy that they're familiar with instinctively: mo…
Let's not leave out think-tanks and orgs like the WEF that seem to exist only to launder the opinions of billionaires. And mainstream news publications like the New York Times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine
While I don't disagree with many of your points, we shouldn't kid ourselves that we live in the best of all possible worlds for most working or middle class people.
Climbing Everest these days just seems to be the quintessential activity for people that have lost site of what really matters in life. It's where you end up if you never grow out of the idea that life is a competition you can win.