Definitely a man who pursued his passions.
RIP.
Equality of outcome is the cruelest lie the untalented, lazy, and comfortable tell each other. They assume it means raising the bar to their level instead of drawing it on the ground. It's enforced mediocrity, peddled by those who fear effort and resent excellence.
The scientific Nobels + Literature are usually awarded with a decent time gap after the relevant achievement, which helps. Maybe the Nobel Peace Prize should only be awarded to professionally retired people over 70. That would prevent it from being too politicized.
> professionally retired people over 70
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eu...
Unreviewed translation of "Unwohlseins"
Other media hint at seizure/cardiac arrest.
If you live your entire life doing these "small chance each time" stunts, maybe we should not be so surprised that your eventual demise was this kind of thing.
Was an interesting character, RIP.
More recently, he might have been wearing a vital signal monitor that kept logs.
Nowadays probably the latter.
There are many activities where you really should not pass out while doing them, but they don't make for interesting headlines.
Most people who pass out in vehicles probably survive. Say we ignore the cases where you're on a side street, stuck in traffic, going at slow speeds, etc. (and just end up idling in the road with people honking/routing around you) -- so just consider the deadliest case, going at speed on the highway. While there aren't statistics for this particular scenario, we can look at the numbers for multi-car collisions in general, as that's near to the worst thing that could happen if you did just stop managing your car while at speed (gliding into the median is much less likely to be fatal): https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/.... One line in the report suggests this should be broadly comparable to what we're thinking of: "In about 40 percent of fatal single vehicle rollovers and 57 percent of multi- vehicle rollovers, investigating officers reported that no crash avoidance maneuvers preceded the crash".
Even still: the fatality rate is <10%!
Compare to >80% if you pass out while doing underwater cave diving.
So riding a motorbike 100 miles is 8 micromorts.
Hang-gliding is 9 micromorts.
Base jumping is 430 micromorts.
And summiting Everest is 37,000 micromorts.
Incidentally, of those - I know of two guys who died either on Everest or at base camp there over the past 15 years. First guy fell on the descent, and the second guy developed health issues at altitude (apparently related to an Israeli team immediately prior stealing their oxygen bottles).
That's only 3.7 % — I imagined it was higher.
Does the death rate of 'summiting' include those who die before they reach the top? or those that abandon an attempt and survive?
I think it is somewhat commercialized. Actually, I’m surprised the death rate is that high. I wonder if it is pulled up by people who aren’t really ready, because it is so popular. FWIW,
https://www.climbing-kilimanjaro.com/mount-kilimanjaro-death...
> Approximately 50,000 people ascend Mount Kilimanjaro every year. According to Kilimanjaro travel guides and recorded statistics, on average 3 to 10 people die each year. It is widely believed that the actual number could be two to three times higher, although these estimates are not substantiated by reliable data.
The more deadly mountains like K2, Nanga Parbat and Annapurna, are prone to avalanches that cannot be avoided by taking a specific route. Or icefalls. A couloir called the Bottleneck is a major killer on the K2 route. You have to traverse a very exposed terrain there to get to the top, and a majority of K2 deaths have happened there.
Nothing like that on the standard Everest route. The Khumbu icefall or the Hillary step are challenging, but nowhere near as treacherous.
If you have been base jumping for 20 years, you have the same risk on your next jump as someone trying it for the first time.
The way you answer it is by flipping it upside down (what is the probability of surviving a single jump?) and multiplying that value by itself n times, where n is the number of jumps.
.99999 * .99999 * .99999 * …
Mind sharing where you got these news from?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_died_climbi...
Afaik there's not any evidence of this. The Soviets did have a bent towards secrecy so it's plausible, I guess, but it's definitely more the realm of creepypasta ("there could be dozens of old Soviet capsules in orbit with corpses inside!") than historical fact.
quite a legacy
I haven’t seen any indication that Baumgartner was paragliding in a forbidden area. My understanding is that restrictions on paragliding are a patchwork, from licensing and insurance requirements to where you are allowed to fly.
He may have died while paragliding rather than from paragliding.
A heart attack or stroke could have been the actual cause of death
The dead ones appear to have been removed from the list, and from all other mentions on the website. Quickly, too. Somebody's got that in their job description.
I no longer find it entertaining to watch sports where there is such a high risk of death, or lifelong impairment, from brain injuries, for example. I used to love ski movies. But too many of the people in the credits are dead now.
Apart from things like unconscionable contracts, I wouldn't restrain people from extreme sports. I'm sure a lot of of them die in their beds. I just don't find it entertaining to watch.
https://youtu.be/Jko5BGhc-Ys?si=Uz6jvQ5voEYAxg8W
We have such a weird relationship with the spectacle of risk. As he says, a tightrope act is just as difficult at any height. The only need to make it dangerous is because the audience wants the circus.
And I think somewhat implicit in the point he’s making is that he believes that while the audience wants the spectacle, the performers have a responsibility not to give it to them.
Well, sort of. But surely part of the feat is overcoming the natural fear of heights.
A) The ability of walking a tightrope
B) The ability of overcoming your fears to the extent of being able to walk a tightrope at a dangerous height
C) The risk of falling
I would argue that the audience cares about A and C. The audience doesn't care so much for B.
I would not be surprised if most lay people don't know why or how it's even that hard, or what goes into training. "Oh, it's just someone who has good balance" vs an awareness of the technical details of physical fitness.
Sure, there's risk, but seeing how effortless they make it look is amazing. The skill to do it fearlessly is far more impressive than the fact that something bad didn't happen. Audience members expect that it won't happen. There's a visceral reaction, of course, but that's it.
It's completely safe and trivial to do, but awesome nonetheless, and a show for your friends, just because it's really scary the first time you do it!
Tho, only a few of the people who engage in these dangerous sports are famous or earn money on that. As in, if you look at those sports, there are always people who seek the danger and possible self destruction. They do it, because they want to do them. Not because of the audience.
Except these people have families that care about them, you could even say kids need a parent in their life.
The day Honnold falls to his death the world will applaud all his achievements but his kid probably wish his dad never climbed at all.
The day I became a father is the day I stopped riding a motorbike.
Afaik not even bob-racers have that luxury
I guess some leave the fighting game with more pronounced damage than others.
Allegedly he tried to open the emergency chute, but was already too low.
[1]: https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000280134/justiz-in-ita...
God speed Felix
At the time I was clearly just vibing off the adrenaline, but looking back on it all as mature adult... I get heart palpatations.
There are many parallel worlds where I am not alive, and I think of those other selves often.
Maybe a more interesting and impressive fact from the wiki is learning about Alan Eustace, who was a senior VP of engineering at Google. Just before retiring, on October 24, 2014 *at age 57*, he made a free-fall jump from the stratosphere, breaking Felix Baumgartner's world record. He won the Laureus World Action Sportsperson of the Year in 2015.
R.I.P.
lode•6mo ago