A record-setting Norwegian mountaineer has pushed back against claims that she could have done more to save a Pakistani porter who slipped off a narrow trail near the peak and died there after several hours.
Also I can understand taking that risk for yourself. Certainly it’s way outside my comfort zone, but I’m not going to tell someone else they can’t do something dangerous. But how can you go out and hire people to help you knowing there’s a 25% chance they’ll be giving their lives for you?
wouldn’t it be cool if the took all the drive and energy they have for climbing a rock into making a world where people don’t have to hire out and risk their lives just to feed their family?
I think it would be better if everyone climbing a mountain does so out of their own free will and because they want to, and not out of financial necessity.
But that is something for the local governments to fix and not the responsibility of mountaineers.
But most mountaineers get by without having to hire people to carry their shit for them. Certainly people here in Colorado use guides from time to time, but i’ve never heard of anyone using a porter. Maybe i’m ignorant, but it seems like mountaineers only use porters in the himalayas because they are cheap and disposable.
Perhaps if you can’t summit a mountain without another human to carry your equipment then it should be ok to not summit that mountain.
If we’re talking about high altitude peaks, like the 14 peaks, most people that summit do it “expediation style”, which always includes sherpas and porters. Only very few people have accomplished climbing one of the 14 peaks “alpine style”.
Thanks for the terminology - that makes it easier!
Only very few people have accomplished climbing one of the 14 peaks “alpine style”.
I’m quite ok with that.
If the rockies were 28k instead of 14k then I still don’t think there’d be a situation where we hire poor villagers from the outskirts of Denver to put their lives on the line. I really believe the high peaks are summited expedition-style because the poverty makes that practical, which in turn allows many more people to reach the top
But climbing with an expedition is much more safe. There is nothing wrong with that inherently.
The real porblem starts when mountaineering just becomes a sick kind of tourism. Where people that are totally unprepared hire companies that will figurativly just carry you up a mountain like everest. I mean idiots like this..
I think I take more exception with the uneven make-up of the expedition team. If 4 americans want to form a expedition to summit K2 then I applaud that, all of them are committed to what they are doing and are choosing to take an extreme risk with no coercion. But when half the team makers are living in literal poverty and are only choosing to take the risk because they have few other options, that seems kinda messed up.
Sure - and i’m sure I could find people who’d play a game of russian roulette for $1M but it’d be massively unethical to hire people to do that.
So there’s obviously some line - as a society we consider it ethical to hire forestry workers or deep sea fishermen even though they have a significantly higher risk of death that most other professions. I think a 25% death rate is just unethical in the extreme, even Everest is something like 1%.
I have no idea, but hiring someone for a job that has a 1 in 20 chance of killing them seems fundamentally immoral - especially given the massive financial imbalance.
It’s certainly a good philosophical question though
Yeah, taking it to the extreme, the same logic applies to delivery guys on scooters and motorcycles. There’s definitely no good answer, except maybe that they accepted the risk
Looking at it more, there seems to be an entire field of Risk Ethics associated with this.
Still the most dangerous job in the US is a Commercial Fisherman with a risk of death of 132 per 100,000. That’s a very long way from the risk of dying on Everest or K2.
Yes, that’s obviously taking the lifetime K2 deaths and dividing by the summit attempts - though actually I get 19% in that situation. However we really dont have enough data to form a good confidence interval there - it’s possible we’ve had a lucky few years or maybe we’ve got better at deciding when to make the summit attempts.
But it doesn’t really change my point. There’s some threshold where it seems fundamentally immoral to hire someone for a job that has a good chance of killing them. Mountain porter on k2 or everest is a higher risk job than “astronaut” without the same glory that comes with the space faring job title. Even if the chance of death is 1 in 200, I still think its immoral to take advantage of someone who’s so desperate for work that they’ll overlook it.
Definitely. I may not agree with your stats but I agree that it’s immoral to take advantage of people’s poverty - in this case he was motivated by his mother’s medical bills - to make them risk their lives, especially given it’s in order to help do a recreational activity that has no use.
Also I can understand taking that risk for yourself. Certainly it’s way outside my comfort zone, but I’m not going to tell someone else they can’t do something dangerous. But how can you go out and hire people to help you knowing there’s a 25% chance they’ll be giving their lives for you?
I mean, they want to be hired. That’s how a lot of people there make a living. They are aware of the risks.
@the_kalash
@bernieecclestoned @dulce_3t_decorum_3st @JohnEdwa @grahamsz
wouldn’t it be cool if the took all the drive and energy they have for climbing a rock into making a world where people don’t have to hire out and risk their lives just to feed their family?
I think it would be better if everyone climbing a mountain does so out of their own free will and because they want to, and not out of financial necessity.
But that is something for the local governments to fix and not the responsibility of mountaineers.
But most mountaineers get by without having to hire people to carry their shit for them. Certainly people here in Colorado use guides from time to time, but i’ve never heard of anyone using a porter. Maybe i’m ignorant, but it seems like mountaineers only use porters in the himalayas because they are cheap and disposable.
Perhaps if you can’t summit a mountain without another human to carry your equipment then it should be ok to not summit that mountain.
If we’re talking about high altitude peaks, like the 14 peaks, most people that summit do it “expediation style”, which always includes sherpas and porters. Only very few people have accomplished climbing one of the 14 peaks “alpine style”.
Thanks for the terminology - that makes it easier!
I’m quite ok with that.
If the rockies were 28k instead of 14k then I still don’t think there’d be a situation where we hire poor villagers from the outskirts of Denver to put their lives on the line. I really believe the high peaks are summited expedition-style because the poverty makes that practical, which in turn allows many more people to reach the top
But climbing with an expedition is much more safe. There is nothing wrong with that inherently.
The real porblem starts when mountaineering just becomes a sick kind of tourism. Where people that are totally unprepared hire companies that will figurativly just carry you up a mountain like everest. I mean idiots like this..
I think I take more exception with the uneven make-up of the expedition team. If 4 americans want to form a expedition to summit K2 then I applaud that, all of them are committed to what they are doing and are choosing to take an extreme risk with no coercion. But when half the team makers are living in literal poverty and are only choosing to take the risk because they have few other options, that seems kinda messed up.
That woman… how stubborn can you be?
How can you not realize the insanity of continuing when what takes others 20 minutes takes you 6 hours.
Could it have been some form of suicide?
Unless you have no hobbies and no free time You can lead by example and show them.
Sure - and i’m sure I could find people who’d play a game of russian roulette for $1M but it’d be massively unethical to hire people to do that.
So there’s obviously some line - as a society we consider it ethical to hire forestry workers or deep sea fishermen even though they have a significantly higher risk of death that most other professions. I think a 25% death rate is just unethical in the extreme, even Everest is something like 1%.
Everest appears to be 5%. Where would you draw the line, and how would you justify it?
I have no idea, but hiring someone for a job that has a 1 in 20 chance of killing them seems fundamentally immoral - especially given the massive financial imbalance.
It’s certainly a good philosophical question though
Yeah, taking it to the extreme, the same logic applies to delivery guys on scooters and motorcycles. There’s definitely no good answer, except maybe that they accepted the risk
Looking at it more, there seems to be an entire field of Risk Ethics associated with this.
Still the most dangerous job in the US is a Commercial Fisherman with a risk of death of 132 per 100,000. That’s a very long way from the risk of dying on Everest or K2.
There isn’t. The person above is using a misleading stat, based on a misunderstanding of the stats.
Look at how many people are in the photos of the climbers all stepping over Mohammed Hassan here.
In common sense terms if this bizarre “25% die” stat were real, at least a dozen of them would have died that same day.
@grahamsz
@bernieecclestoned @dulce_3t_decorum_3st @JohnEdwa
Yes, that’s obviously taking the lifetime K2 deaths and dividing by the summit attempts - though actually I get 19% in that situation. However we really dont have enough data to form a good confidence interval there - it’s possible we’ve had a lucky few years or maybe we’ve got better at deciding when to make the summit attempts.
But it doesn’t really change my point. There’s some threshold where it seems fundamentally immoral to hire someone for a job that has a good chance of killing them. Mountain porter on k2 or everest is a higher risk job than “astronaut” without the same glory that comes with the space faring job title. Even if the chance of death is 1 in 200, I still think its immoral to take advantage of someone who’s so desperate for work that they’ll overlook it.
Definitely. I may not agree with your stats but I agree that it’s immoral to take advantage of people’s poverty - in this case he was motivated by his mother’s medical bills - to make them risk their lives, especially given it’s in order to help do a recreational activity that has no use.