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Originally Posted by Slava
I chalk it up to fatigue and starvation, but you're right. The guy who might have giardia or whatever who was drinking water from the lake and eating fish that was a few days old is just mind boggling. Like it's such an obviously dumb thing to do...but it happens every season. I can sort of see the guy who lost fish to the Marten, but only sort of. The guy who left the fish in the water and thought "I'll do it in the morning" is just hilarious.
But, I also wonder about these people who spend their entire day building a shelter and starving to death in the meantime. I just don't know what the plan is here, when you've taken 3 weeks to build a place and haven't really eaten.
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I don't recall if it was in this show or a different one, but I believe they say your decision making skills deteriorate within 18 hours and I believe some contestants in the past said it was really easy to go on autopilot and not know when to stop. There are also a lot of comments regarding having to make extreme gambles to improve their situations. Many contestants would say that they quickly hit the point of energy conservation where it was time on food or time or shelter, but unlikely both without more risk than doing only one out of the two.
On previous and early seasons, cabins and yurts were successfully completed by multiple contestants. The winners and second place guys were often people who gutted it out in caves or shoddy tents made out of their tarps. Winners were typically not the ones that got to the highest level of "settlement". The ones with cabins and yurts would randomly find peace or god or zen or whatever, decide they had nothing left to prove to themselves and leave the competition in an almost enlightened state rather than being forced off. One of those dudes got so bored of carving spoons and smoking food and #### in his comfy shelter than he made a musical instrument.
However, this guy who was successful in building this shelter said several times if he runs out of energy/food by going too fast or gets injured or doesn't complete in time before the rain (hypothermia risk) he was going to get eliminated. So I think when it seems like some contestants were doing dumb risky things and got eliminated as a result, it was actually forward thinking and taking a gamble before they got backed into a corner. It does seem like things have changed, so who knows what will happen in this season.
IIRC, in the seasons I watched, one guy took a major gamble and moved several KM away to improve his chances at food and water. He wasn't a finalist, but he did things slowly and you literally watched him get to the point of being backed into a corner before he make that major move.
Like I said earlier, there's a purity to the way the show is designed and it's kinda cool that some of it can be viewed as a case study in physical, emotional and mental factors for extreme survival. I haven't seen the newest one, but it definitely seems like they've significantly opened up what can be brought by the contestants than previously. I do highly recommend going to the earlier seasons and watching those as well.