Quote:
Originally Posted by Superfraggle
http://www.adventurestats.com/tables...stAgeFat.shtml
According to this link, out of 10094 attempts, there have been 207 fatalities. 2.05%. For comparison, 2.09% of people worldwide die from road traffic accidents. Yet somehow you don't hear people talking about the selfishness of the passengers every time someone dies in a car accident.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._death_by_rate
Summitting Everest is a major personal accomplishment, no matter how many people have done it before you. Is it really so hard to accept that people are willing to take on that small amount of risk to accomplish something they can be truly proud of for the rest of their lives?
|
If the death rate of driving was 2.09% per trip then I would agree that both are selfish acts.
Something that rarely comes up is that a lot of the people who die on the mountain were left behind by the rest of their team. Often times this is done on the way up, meaning that the rest of the team has decided that reaching the summit is more important than the life of their teammate.
On a side note, take a look at how many motivational speakers are out there who have climbed Everest.