Hacker News Reader

I go backpacking and stay overnight in White Sands, NM every few years. It’s a fun place, but also very treacherous if you’re not an experienced backpacker. I was rather happy this year that the rangers did a gear check on us when we asked for a permit to camp overnight because it was going to be below freezing. I was surprised to learn how many people try to go camp there without the right equipment.

This reminds me of "Tunnel In The Sky" by Robert Heinlein.

Teenager goes on a "growing up quest" in the hopes of becoming some type of Ranger or "Space Colony Guide". He and a group of others wormhole out to some planet and have to survive for a time before being wormholed back.

On the front end, you have to show up with equipment you think you'll need. Since you don't know anything about what environment you'll be warped in to, you have to do your absolute "Boy Scout Best". Main character shows up with a parka, a knife, this-and-that.

"Don't worry kid, you don't need that parka. Today you're not going to some arctic desert so you don't need it. Keep the knife though. I had to turn away some poor shit for bringing a space suit; regulations clearly stated a habitable environment. All set? Step on through."

Heading out into the wilderness for months at a time alone is an extreme event. So is flying in a wingsuit, or downhill skiing in a remote location full or rocks, or free soloing a difficult mountain. One one hand, you can say, "Think of society, think of the people who would bear the responsibility of cleaning up after your death if you were to fail."

On the other hand, there are always people who are going to pursue extreme ventures. But given how few people are willing to enter into life or death scenarios like I described, I don't find the the argument that these people have any noticeable effect on the economies of the state very convincing.

> I don't find the the argument that these people have any noticeable effect on the economies of the state very convincing.

People can die trying to rescue others who are doing stupid stuff. That matters too.

People can die trying to rescue others who are doing stupid stuff. That matters too.

They can, and they do. One recent example from near where I live:

https://www.firehouse.com/lodds/news/21137013/nc-rescue-squa...

Another: https://youtu.be/51njl0n_dvI

Yes indeed, embarking on extreme ventures are a fundamental part of humanity and an inevitability of the risk tolerance bell curve of personality matrices. I'm certainly in no way advocating for people to not participate in outdoor activities that could be considered risky.

Rather, the most important key difference here is in the individual's preparation for these activities.

Yes people wingsuit, but try going to any skydiving drop zone without having quite literally hundreds of jumps with dozens as formal training in a wing suit. They will first laugh at your stupidity then get extremely serious and curse you out of the building for being a dangerous fool.

People who free solo mountains are not amateurs. They have thousands of hours of training and have climbed the exact same route safely so many times they know each hold my heart.

McCandless was a reckless fool. Not only had he never been to where he went with someone who knew their way around before he went alone, but he had no training doing similar things in any other proper context and that staggering lack of knowledge cost him his life.

If someone has never skydived, and they saunter up to a 2000ft cliff wearing a wingsuit and jump off thinking they are taking the same risk as the extensively trained professionals they've watched on youtube then that makes them a reckless fool as well.

People put up the same comments about Alex Honnold when the Free Solo documentary made the front page of HN. That he was an irresponsible jerk who lived only for himself.

Ultimately, the individual pays the greatest price. There is a difference where you if you want to set the land-speed record on a public highway in rush hour versus going out alone into the wilderness or climbing a mountain without a rope. The difference is where you draw the line. I believe that if any individual desires to stake out into the wilderness, alone, live in nature, hunt, and forage without a whisper to society at large - that is precisely the place where you would go. If not in wilderness, then where?

>People put up the same comments about Alex Honnold when the Free Solo documentary made the front page of HN. That he was an irresponsible jerk who lived only for himself.

There is a big difference between these two cases. Honnold's level of preparation is hardly even comparable to McCandless lack of even basic knowledge of his surroundings.

Sure, but how do we quantify that? There's no state board that certifies you as a professional free solo climber.

Say you're a park ranger at Yosemite. Lately, somebody has been parking a suspicious-looking van near the trailhead at El Capitan, so you're keeping an eye out for trouble. You see someone exit the van one morning carrying nothing but the clothes on his back, and you follow him down the trail to the cliff face. He grabs an outcropping and starts climbing like an escaped mental patient.

You have the authority to stop him, since he's clearly behaving recklessly. What do you do? How does your decision differ from that of a ranger who sees Chris McCandless leave the trail in an unmarked area?

“Hey, stop there for a bit, lets have a chat so I can ascertain your skill level.” Not every problem is a nail and requires a hammer (stopping someone).

I don't understand what you're saying here, sorry. It seems self-contradictory. In any case, once the climber has been stopped for questioning, the ranger has to make a judgment call that he/she definitely isn't qualified to make. "Hmm. This guy says he's pretty sure he can make it to the top of El Capitan without any gear. Should I let him try?"

What do you think the ranger's most likely response is going to be, assuming that they have a basic sense of morality, that they like their job and want to keep it, and that they don't enjoy cleaning up after fatal mishaps?

(Difficulty: the climber is in good shape and knows what he's doing, but he isn't Honnold. He actually is a suicidal person. Now, did your ranger make the right call?)

"No thanks, I'm good." What now?

You're contending the weakest part of my argument. I'm not making a comparison of the climbing skill of Honnold. The comparison is in that both climbing and wilderness exploration are individualistic events where the consequences are imposed almost entirely on the individual.

This is an interesting thread and I appreciate both you and bananabreakfast for it. America has a unique perspective of the wild among western countries. The way this manifests itself is that the American wild is furnished at an absolute bare minimum, as opposed to the European wild with huts, villages, towns and resorts around every bend. The European property is not owned by the government in the same way it is owned by the government in the United States. This is likely a result of incredibly low population density of the United States as whole, especially of wild places in the United States, and also the result of the near extinction of native peoples by colonizers and awful control by the subsequent American government.

Property and ownership also has a unique definition for the United States, and the "wild" referred to in this conversation is owned by the government, plain and simple. With this perspective it should be clear why individuals cannot just go out and "do whatever they like" even if this is a hypothetical argument. There is no un-owned place in the United States. There are positives and negatives to this reality, but it is reality and should help to ground the conversation.

I wonder what another model that could fit the massive expanses of space set aside in the Unite States; certainly one with a less consistent hierarchy of responsibility would be worse than the current system. It is also important to realize how artificial the "wild" is in the United States given the American philosophy of individualism and property ownership, especially given the status of the population as exceptionally empowered by rights, wealth and technology. I say artificial because without the organization that protects the wild spaces, they would not exist as they do today.

It would be interesting to discuss the meaning of "the wild" or its equivalents in other cultures, as I imagine we would see an incredible variety of meaning. I, however, have mainly experienced and philosophized about the American and European wilds.

I deeply resonate with the sentiment expressed by the Alaskan ranger in the top level comment. As a guide of private and commercial expeditions I am constantly amazed at the alternate realities of understanding and respect people have about wilderness and I cherish my role, however small, as an ambassador to the wild.

I know a few Search and Rescue workers, volunteers and Rangers, they regret their job as babysitters for the incompetent but command respect by outdoorsmen. They are essential to the wild as we have it in the United States.

I used the word unique in this piece too much, but there are a number of special things about the United States and the American psyche that are central to this conversation. I do not claim these perspectives are right or correct or ideal, but it is how I see it today.

The free-soloing example is a good one, I think. Can anyone come up with a way to prohibit self-destructive people like Chris McCandless from thoughtlessly putting himself and others at risk, while also leaving room for an Alex Honnold to do his thing without state interference?

My personal take is that no one is forced to be on a search/rescue team. Those guys and gals are invariably adrenaline junkies, just like the people they rescue, and they're equally passionate about adventure in the outdoors. The only real difference is that they have the professional qualifications needed to do their paid or volunteer work as safely as possible. And they need something to do, just like the rest of us.

...There's not much adrenaline in searching for a lost hiker. It's laborious and methodical work.

Now, alpine/cliff rescue, yep, that's a tad more exciting.

To me there’s a difference between a Chris McCandless and an Alex Honnold. If Honnold wasn’t so devoted to preparation it would be irresponsible to let him climb mountains without harnesses.

Who is the party that "lets" him climb mountains?

Good point. I picture our friends and family having some sliver of responsibility for our wellbeing, however slight that burden may be.

Responsibility, but not direct power (hopefully). If he really wants to endanger his life like that, how could you stop him?

The concern is not primarily economic. In many areas, search and rescue personnel are primarily unpaid volunteers and the cost involved could be quite small. The larger issue is that searchers regularly expose themselves to personal risk in order to recover missing people. While searchers are better prepared, they often operate in large numbers and the realities of the situation require them to handle conditions which they would normally consider too dangerous (rough terrain, poor weather, etc). This makes injuries, and occasional fatalities, inevitable. Even without any injuries they spend a great deal of their time and energy on an effort that may have been unnecessary had the missing person taken better precautions.

There is some nuance here: the reality is that well-prepared people doing the best they can do become lost or injured and require rescue. This is not a "bad" thing but simply the result of activities that are not risk-free, and everything from government agency capabilities to volunteer SAR exist to mitigate this risk. But there is a difference between a person who requires rescue despite their best efforts and a person who requires rescue due to their complete negligence. There is no "bright line" between these two groups, but it's often quite clear on the ground whether or not someone had the respect for the situation that they should have. Search and rescue operations for these individuals are often shorter and lower risk, anyway, because they leave behind information (or even carry communication devices) that make them easier to find, and their preparation may make their injuries less severe or better handled by the time rescuers arrive.

I find this conclusion to be very troubling from a moral perspective.

First jumping off a building or shooting yourself in the middle of a busy street are bad analogies - by their very nature those acts are disruptive to those nearby. But going out into an uninhabited place, having no desire to be rescued if things go awry, nor making any requests to get rescued - if we have any personal freedom at all, how can we not have the freedom over our own bodies if we are not disturbing others?

"It is probably more illuminating to go a little bit further back, to the Middle Ages. One of its characteristics was that "reasoning by analogy" was rampant; another characteristic was almost total intellectual stagnation, and we now see why the two go together. A reason for mentioning this is to point out that, by developing a keen ear for unwarranted analogies, one can detect a lot of medieval thinking today."

I think the problem is that people like the parent comment don't believe there is any thing such as personal freedom, not true personal freedom. That is, freedoms that are not only the ones we are prescribed by society at large.

Source: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/E...

That uninhabited place is stewarded by someone else. It and the people that travel to it are the responsibility of that steward. This often happens to be park rangers or logging companies or whatever. Even if we have been granted the privilege to roam on these lands we do not have a right to go act as we see fit on them. There are always rules.

There is a lot of land that you can buy very dirt cheap and go live as you see fit on it without having to answer to anyone - minus some property taxes. There you can try to bushcraft to your hearts content.

When your dead body is eventually found by a passing hiker, it is going to involve the authorities whether you like it or not. Here in Japan, there is a large forest downhill[0] of Mount Fuji where lots of people choose to commit suicide in. They simply wander in and get lost. Years later, hikers stumble upon their bodies and then the authorities, whether you wanted them to or not, will have swamping the forest looking for clues as to your death, whether it was truly a suicide or if it was foul play.

We live in a society and there is no easy way to divorce ourselves from that reality.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aokigahara#Suicides

I think you're overlooking the cost of regulation and safety-first thinking on society as a whole. Especially as we have a wealth of recent examples as to why the American regulatory regime has failed.

Candidly, this attitude is precisely is how we got into the regulatory hell where we are now.

In principle, I love the idea of licensing. I really do. Take a standardized, state-provided exam to show competence in some area where there is a compelling public interest for regulation, and this grants you the legal ability to exercise that skill.

Want to practice medicine? Exam, plus some number of hours of supervised practice before you can treat patients independently.

Note the complete lack of a schooling requirement -- if you can demonstrate the knowledge during examination, you should be permitted to apprentice under a licensed physician.

In practice... this doesn't work, at least not right now.

Americans as a whole no longer have any confidence in our regulatory frameworks, and rightly so, because they inevitably become weaponized against the very people they are supposed to safeguard, due to the combination of corporate lobbying, and a law enforcement system that rewards "finding and harshly punishing transgressions" over "serving the public interest"

Imagine you want to open a restaurant.

The way it should be is: take an exam to show that you understand how to safely prepare and serve food; have your kitchen, which could be in your home, inspected before you start operations; and at truly random intervals, an inspector will pop by to check in on things.

The way it is: wade through months, if not years, of chasing down permits; buy expensive equipment mandated by constantly-changing laws pushed by massive corporate entities that can afford the compliance game; and deal with very-much-not-random inspection regime which can (practically) shut down your livelihood if you look at them funny.

Until we fix oversight and our culture of punishment, we should be looking to remove regulations, not add more.

I like how you say we should remove regulations while at the same time proposing a new test, creating new methods for qualifying for a trade, and a different inspection regime. This is a good sign, though. What we really want is the right balance of regulations for safety that don’t favor large businesses too much but are easy for small business to follow.

Apprenticing under a physician is a particularly poor example, given how much medical science changes in 20 years. Not to mention it makes it easier for quacks to reproduce. Instead, aim lower: cosmetology licensing. I think we can all agree that you don’t need months of training to cut someone’s hair. This is simply a protectionist guild.

> This is a good sign, though. What we really want is the right balance of regulations for safety that don’t favor large businesses too much but are easy for small business to follow.

And individuals, but yes, exactly.

> Apprenticing under a physician is a particularly poor example, given how much medical science changes in 20 years.

Perhaps, but I think buried in there is a call for greater granularity.

Imagine that you could easily train up to be a neighborhood medic for a small community. You'd be able to handle, say, 70% of common medical needs: run bloodwork, provide immediate trauma care, dispense prescriptions, etc., but can escalate via telepresence to a higher-ranked medical professional when you need to.

And, with experience, you can move up the skill ladder.

That's kind of where I was going.

> I think we can all agree that you don’t need months of training to cut someone’s hair.

Maybe? I'd want to know that whomever is cutting my hair is aware of head lice, and knows how to sterilize their equipment. Probably also some basic first aid training if they slip up and cut me. Months of training shouldn't be a requirement to get started, but there is a reasonable call for a base level of know-how.

Definitely demands more thinking. :)

> Instead, aim lower: cosmetology licensing. I think we can all agree that you don’t need months of training to cut someone’s hair. This is simply a protectionist guild.

Maybe I'm just weird, but I'd rather that the person who's going to use a bunch of sharp instruments around my head to irrecoverably change my appearance for the next few months have some training on how to do that properly.

That probably goes double for the people who are going to have them using a bunch of chemicals on their hair as well (hair dyes and bleaching, permanent wave, etc).

Well, all the people whose job it is to do their best to rescue people would get out of practice if the number of people to rescue dramatically dropped. They might even end up victim of budget cuts.

I mean, really, are you gonna volunteer for a suicide hotline and tell people "you asshole, if you kill yourself, think of all the work people will have to do!"

This is a pompous judgemental bureaucratic speech. It presupposes that this order of the present-day “society” is something occurring naturally. There are many places on Earth where none of those measures happen in similar cases. I suspect there are still places in North America where you can disappear, or even get shot, and no one would really give a damn. Moreover, the ability to commit suicide can't disappear because it's prohibited, and, obviously, the dead couldn't care less about the consequences. (It's not that it's a good choice, but still.)

Pay attention to what is considered important and unimportant in that statement. Humans are not important. Official positions, regulations, and budgets are. Way too often, people start to worship the process and completely forget that it's just a mean to some end.