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Comment by harigov | Hacker News Reader

As someone with some mountaineering experience in North America, I am really surprised to hear that they ever allowed this in the first place. Of course, one could argue that govt shouldn't have any power over what an individual can do, but the same people who argue for that liberty also ask govt to go search when someone goes missing in the mountains. And you can only search for so many people. I think it is reasonable to expect that those who plan to climb such scary mountains find someone to accompany them.

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> Of course, one could argue that govt shouldn't have any power over what an individual can do

If I were in charge (I never will be), my first inclination would be to not restrict high risk climbing. But then I wouldn't be able to shake the feeling that a hands off approach would be that simple. I'd want to understand the drawbacks of people dying on the mountain. I'd be concerned with being responsible for rescue costs, being vilified for not making rescue attempts, the cost of medical treatments, the lives lost in attempting to make rescues, any correlations between deaths & the number of climbing attempts made (is it scaring people away, attracting even more, etc.), how the press coverage affects Nepal's public image, and so on. In the end, banning high risk climbing might simply be a good & conservative decision.

I’d say, let them climb how they want, but mandate full insurance coverage for any needed evacuation, medical treatment, and corpse removal. As long as people don’t litter or pass costs along to others, the rest could be up to them.

I'm not sure that's the point though -- once you're up there these things are dangerous rather than just expensive. bhickey has a post further down which explains their experience nicely.

I’m aware that rescue and corpse removal is highly dangerous, but that just means the insurance would be extremely expensive.

This regulation is for foreign climbers. I don’t think people expect full personal liberty in a foreign country.

Well, some do, but what they expect and what they actually have a right to, are different things.

> but the same people who argue for that liberty also ask govt to go search when someone goes missing in the mountains

It's two distinct groups. If there is overlap there'll likely be ideas like fining someone after a rescue unless they have insurance, & then leaving it up to insurance companies to decide about solo climber coverage

Good point. My point is that some people don't think about the consequences of what they are asking for, unless prompted for it, and they usually have ideas that are contradictory. Of course, your point still stands and I agree alternatives should be considered as well. However, I am still in support of forcing people to go in groups because it is safer. I don't have data, but I do believe from experience that there is safety in numbers.

Regarding people not thinking about the consequences, I’d say that mistake typically falls in lawmakers. Lawmaker: “hmm, motorcyclists without helmets put too much of a financial burden on hospitals, so let’s outlaw helmetless riding.” Instead of infringing on civil liberties why not target the problem at hand? Mandate specific insurance, or self-insurance, etc. in order to ride in that manner.

Same could be said here. If there is a specific financial bidder you’re trying to solve, then create a focused law that specifically aims to resolve the point at hand. I really hate these broad-stroke lazy regulations. I’d like to think professional lawmakers would be experts at this.

I'm not sure I agree with respect to things like helmetless riding - I've not quite made my mind up. But I'd suggest that one thing that ought to be done with all law is that the law ought to specify "acceptance criteria" that specify what the law is setting out to fix, and courts ought to be able to set aside laws if they can be proven to not meet the stated goal, and interpret them more narrowly if they can be shown to not be the least restrictive means of achieving the goal.

I think that would be a giant step towards more focused laws, and certainly towards more honestly worded laws, and in many cases it may well be that this would lead a court to direct the legislative to find a different solution or risk having the law struck down.

A large problem with overly broad laws today is simply that legislatives can get away with passing poorly thought out laws and misleading laws because there is no real consequence to it: the judicial system is forced to try to make the best of it if the laws are ridiculous or over-broad, and can't even go "hold on, this law is saying something completely different than what you pretended it was for when you convinced people to vote for it".

How about forcing them to leave some money as collateral or forcing climbers to get insurance like with scuba divers?

> the same people who argue for that liberty also ask govt to go search when someone goes missing in the mountains

You posit a valuable and worthwhile hypothesis. I would appreciate it if you could show conclusive evidence that any solo climber of Everest who died requested as you claim that "government go search" when they went missing. Thank you.

I guess I wasn't clear. I didn't mean that the people who are climbing are the ones who are asking govt to go search for them if them go missing. I am talking about people, who in general ask for liberty in such matters while also asking govt to provide search and rescue operations to deal with any fallouts. I am sure you would ask me for data to show conclusive evidence of this happening and my answer is that I have none.

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