Isn't it also self-centered to feel entitled to curtail another person's freedom because of your limited sensibilities?
It's far more self-centered to stupidly get yourself into a dangerous situation that others will be obligated to rescue you from. And it's even more self-centered (to the point of arrogance) to dismiss that as the result of "limited sensibilities."
For your question, none of your business.
Was just trying to ascertain why your sensibilities were so limitless.
Incidentally, you're wrong in your assumptions. Go to Alaska and ask people up there what they think of the guy. You'll not find more people critical of him in any other state. Virtually none of them are looking to curtail anybody's liberties, not least because more often than not they enjoy these same liberties. I think a lot of people in this thread have confused criticism with calls for regulation. To be frank I think this confusion betrays an authoritarian mindset.
> "As a park ranger both at Denali National Park, very near where McCandless died, and now at Gates of the Arctic National Park, even more remote and wild than Denali, I am exposed continually to what I will call the “McCandless Phenomenon.” People, nearly always young men, come to Alaska to challenge themselves against an unforgiving wilderness landscape where convenience of access and possibility of rescue are practically no nexistent. I know the personality type because I was one of those young men."
You responded to this man's informed perspective with a rant about smug people not minding their own business. You and a few other commenters then somehow judo-threw the conversation into a matter of when government regulations / curtailments of liberties are or aren't warranted.
This argument has been made many times in my lifetime.