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Comment by fps_doug | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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?

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

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