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Comment by dustintrex | Hacker News Reader

The key here is that the hiker didn't consider themselves sufficiently lost to require rescue:

> The hiker told authorities he had lost his way around nightfall and “bounced around on to different trails trying to locate the proper trailhead” ... the man reported having “no idea” anyone was out looking for him.

You'd think they would have noticed the text messages or gotten a bit curious after the Nth call from the same unknown number, but if this all happened at night, his phone may have been in silent mode.

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Or, given that he was going for a hike, he might have powered down the phone to conserve battery power. And if so, he did not "ignore" the calls, but rather he never received them in the first place.

Why at night? My phone is on silent mode all the time unless I am expecting a call (say, because it was discussed in advance). Especially if I am out hiking and people know about that because I am doing that to get away from modern office life and enjoying nature without distractions.

Good for you? What’s with this virtue signalling?

But they said "didn't recognize the number", not "missed all calls and texts". I'm from Europe so I don't know how prevalent robocalls are; this story really sounds crazy to me. Sure, everybody has different life circumstances, etc. Maybe this guy was somewhat of a maverick. He said he didn't feel that lost and tried to get back on their own. But I still can't fathom how it never crossed his mind that someone might be looking for them, unless, as initially said, you get a dozen robocalls every day and this amount of calls and texts wasn't out of the ordinary to him.

You got a point there. I could still imagine them checking the phone as it first rings with an unknown number, turning off the ringer because they didn't want to be bothered by it, and then ignoring it due to the ringer being off now, maybe?

On the worst days, I've gotten half a dozen group texts, just spraying across <mynum-2>, <mynum-1>, <mynum>, <mynum+1>, etc.

In the last... I don't know how many years, I can only recall a single human-based phone call from someone not already on my contacts list (my apartment manager had a repair company contact me directly to schedule service).

I'm from Europe too but it sounds reasonable to me. I think the key thing is whether he thought himself in need of rescue or not.

The article doesn't say whether he was eg. a city-dweller inexperienced in the outdoors, but if he was, it might never occur to him that he was sufficiently lost to need outside rescue. As he said, he just "bounced around" between the trails until he found his way back. So he might have considered all the phone calls merely a distraction.

Robocalls: I get an average of 2 a day on my cellphone. I haven't answered any number not in my contacts for years.

A relatives' landline is easily 4+ a day.

I dunno why this can't be solved; 99% likely venality. I've solved it by telling my phone not to even ring if the number isn't in my contacts and periodically deleting all my voicemails unheard.

Everyone I want to talk to knows to text.

> I dunno why this can't be solved

Phone companies make money from spam calls, so they have zero incentive to solve this.

In more general terms: marketing is a cancer, ruining every communications medium.

That is wild. I have had my German mobile phone number for 20 years and I've not gotten any spam calls in the recent past, as far as I can remember.

We do have a governmental agency (Bundesnetzagentur) where you can file complaints for spam calls and it seems to work.

None of the details here are corroborated. Don't rely on a government statement that ascribes specific thoughts, actions, and motivations to an individual.

Have you never been annoyed by recruiters?

Zeroth world problems!

It's a good joke, but frankly recruiters banging on your door do not always translate into jobs, let alone _good_ jobs.

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