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Comment by NiklasMort | Hacker News Reader

People who hike the Appalachian Trail & co get lost and die every year. Doesn't take much. Now that is a tiny patch compared to the pacific ocean which is basically half the globe. Even if you can get a distress signal out by the time help arrives you might be in a different position or already dead, not to mention that the question remains if help ever comes. Helicopters can't fly very far, ships take days if not weeks. You might be able to post on Facebook but outside help is not an option (personal experience, not kidding!)

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I am not suggesting these mental models are accurate. But it does seem to be harder to intentionally disappear these days. I think our fascination with such stories is similar to or related to our fascination with prison escapes and people who successfully disappeared on purpose.

I think a lot of people feel trapped, like prisoners of their lives. The idea that you could go for a boat ride or show up at your regular job and be just swept away contains both an element of horror and an element of tantalizing possibility. People often long to start their lives over, to walk away from their troubles. They read stuff like this and perhaps feel a mix of hope that it might actually be possible and validation that the cost is very high. It may make them feel both more at peace with not yet having escaped and hopeful for a better future for themselves.

Only issue with "being lost at sea" is that the declaration of death usually takes months if not years. Often that is relevant. Also it is not that easy to do it convincingly, people tried.

That wasn't really what I intended to suggest. I wasn't suggesting that it specifically inspires people to plan to pretend to die at sea.

I was thinking more like a) it makes them feel less like incompetent dolts for not readily escaping their own problems, because, yes, you can disappear, but, wow, what a cost to pay and b) it fuels the imagination that perhaps escape from their current problems is possible (without such extremes of drama and suffering), if they keep at it.

If you were able to post on Facebook, why didn't you have a GPS signal from which you could deliver your co-ordinates over the internet? (Just curious, not sure if I'm missing something)

As gp said, you could tell people exactly where you are, but it takes a long tome for anyone to be able to reach those coordinates by ship. If your power source dies and you drift in the interim, now it takes many ships and a coordinated effort hopefully involving aircraft for a chance that you’ll be found. The ocean is a very large place and a ship doesn’t exactly leave tracks.

to give you an example: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/08/british-climbe...

and that is not the ocean, and yes he died

different example, but same story, high altitude mountaineering, to quote Rob Hall's wife (famous guide who died 1996 on Everest): 'You might as well be on the moon.', she said during a live patch through to him via radio from her home in New Zealand, exchanging the last conversation. Position is secondary, accessibility is primary concern

Is there more to your experience you’d be willing to share?

We were in an extreme remote region of the eastern Himalayas in East India, nearest big town was 3 days by car on a road that was often blocked, otherwise there were only bamboo huts with indigenous people. We were stuck in the jungle once with the car and had to spend a night there. The "roads" there are crazy, if you went over the edge there with your car you are done, even if you survive nobody would find you, if they'd even ever notice. We didn't have a sat phone because it was military restricted zone, we had special permits to go in but no tech, but I remember we had the faintest GPRS signal sitting on a lake and my friend was checking Facebook on a stone age smartphone counting the bits ;) it appeared to me so absurd. Same story in Africa, you have good mobile cell coverage there, but doesn't take much to get lost or injured and quickly die.

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