Very respectfully: Can neither you nor Raemon imagine that there are people out there for whom shooting a 1 in 10 shot climbing Big Hill is a good decision? What is it exactly you think they should have done instead? Get an office job? If they hadn’t attempted to climb this mountain, they’d still be dead right now anyways and nobody would know or care about who they were. You wouldn’t be writing about them and their great grandchildren probably wouldn’t even know their names or ten facts about them if their lineages had managed to extend to the present day.
I literally mentally cannot suppress my respect for based mountain man’s attempt to scale big hill, just because his final (obviously serious) attempt failed. I realize that to some people it might seem more “Rational” to do so until they actually survive the attempt, yet the affinity tracker inside my brain does not care. My main takeaway from this post is that climbing mountains is based and I wish I were as cool as the people that attempt to climb mountains.
To be clear, do also see the inspiration/excitement here, and don’t think they were necessarily making the wrong call.
My comment here is somewhat downstream of this romeostevens comment from awhile back:
Seems to me like what happens is that redirection of sex or survival drives get caught up in some sort of stable configuration where they can never be satisfied yet the person doesn’t notice that aspect of the loop and thus keeps Doing the Thing far past the time normal people notice. Essentially they’ve goodharted themselves in a way that creates positive externalities for others.
So, like, I think there’s something… off/weird about the way Elon Musk’s drives got wired, but, I still think it’s overall good to be in a world where some people get that runaway feedback loop.
Indeed, deadly extreme sports are not irrational. They are an uncheatable filter of fitness. Most modern costly signals are often skirted through luck, background or socially toxic behaviour.
Having hard evidence of one’s superiority can be just the thing necessary to live a fulfilling life, instead of being locked in a stagnant cycle of constant doubt. For some, the latter is even worse than death. I’d wager people suffering from impostor syndrome rarely have anything else under their belt than safe skills.
Looks like I was wrong, impostor syndrome will still happily present itself in climbers, see gbear’s counter. It even looks like it’s the other way around: unfulfilled lack of self-worth fueling never-ending pursuit for achievement.
Doing some research, it sounds like imposters syndrome is totally present among mountain climbers. Unless you’ve conquered Everest, there’s always some taller or more dangerous mountain that someone else has done.
See, for instance, this article about a climber feeling imposters syndrome after climbing a difficult cliff, because “I felt like it must not be as hard as people said it was because I was able to do it.” It also quotes a psychologist who works with athletes as saying “Imposter syndrome is very common, very pervasive, … It’s most common among high achievers. It’s also prevalent in individual sports like cycling, running, swimming, and—you guessed it—climbing.”
There are many other articles on the internet about people who are achieving huge climbing goals but still feeling imposters syndrome. Based on many of those, it seems to me like imposters syndrome is connected to the culture around an activity more than the actual content of the activity.
I’ve always wondered if part of the reason impostor syndrome is so common among high achievers might be because imposter syndrome helps people become high achievers. If you never think you’re good enough, you will never be satisfied and will always keep striving to do better. And that’s what it really takes to be the best.
Can neither you nor Raemon imagine that there are people out there for whom shooting a 1 in 10 shot climbing Big Hill is a good decision?
It seems to me just the wrong genre from “good decision”. Good decisions are like building new political systems or doing science or navigating existential risks. 31 people who crawled up a mountain and died seems not related to any of the things.
The fearsome part to me is that I am one of these people. They are not that much different from me. My life trajectory will in all likelihood probably make about as much sense looking back on it.
These are exactly the sort of people I think are not cool. In particular, I’d hate to see them in charge of any project bigger than going out drinking. And even then you’d want to bow out at some point before it got dangerously crazy.
Imagine this personality in charge of a military unit or a business. I think utter destruction would be the likely outcome in both cases.
Well I know of at least one other famous climber (Nims Purja) who was part of the SBS in the UK military and was quite well respected during his time of service. So I don’t think it’s universally true that all people willing to take big risks climbing are unsuited for leadership.
As it turns out, he did! He climbed all 14 mountains over 8000 meters in just seven months, and nearly died several times in the attempt. I’ve been very slowly writing a post about him over the past few months which I hope to post soon.
Very respectfully: Can neither you nor Raemon imagine that there are people out there for whom shooting a 1 in 10 shot climbing Big Hill is a good decision? What is it exactly you think they should have done instead? Get an office job? If they hadn’t attempted to climb this mountain, they’d still be dead right now anyways and nobody would know or care about who they were. You wouldn’t be writing about them and their great grandchildren probably wouldn’t even know their names or ten facts about them if their lineages had managed to extend to the present day.
I literally mentally cannot suppress my respect for based mountain man’s attempt to scale big hill, just because his final (obviously serious) attempt failed. I realize that to some people it might seem more “Rational” to do so until they actually survive the attempt, yet the affinity tracker inside my brain does not care. My main takeaway from this post is that climbing mountains is based and I wish I were as cool as the people that attempt to climb mountains.
To be clear, do also see the inspiration/excitement here, and don’t think they were necessarily making the wrong call.
My comment here is somewhat downstream of this romeostevens comment from awhile back:
So, like, I think there’s something… off/weird about the way Elon Musk’s drives got wired, but, I still think it’s overall good to be in a world where some people get that runaway feedback loop.
Indeed, deadly extreme sports are not irrational. They are an uncheatable filter of fitness. Most modern costly signals are often skirted through luck, background or socially toxic behaviour.
Having hard evidence of one’s superiority can be just the thing necessary to live a fulfilling life, instead of being locked in a stagnant cycle of constant doubt. For some, the latter is even worse than death.I’d wager people suffering from impostor syndrome rarely have anything else under their belt than safe skills.Looks like I was wrong, impostor syndrome will still happily present itself in climbers, see gbear’s counter. It even looks like it’s the other way around: unfulfilled lack of self-worth fueling never-ending pursuit for achievement.
Doing some research, it sounds like imposters syndrome is totally present among mountain climbers. Unless you’ve conquered Everest, there’s always some taller or more dangerous mountain that someone else has done.
See, for instance, this article about a climber feeling imposters syndrome after climbing a difficult cliff, because “I felt like it must not be as hard as people said it was because I was able to do it.” It also quotes a psychologist who works with athletes as saying “Imposter syndrome is very common, very pervasive, … It’s most common among high achievers. It’s also prevalent in individual sports like cycling, running, swimming, and—you guessed it—climbing.”
https://www.climbing.com/news/if-climbing-defines-your-self-worth-you-could-have-a-psychological-condition-known-as-imposter-syndrome/
There are many other articles on the internet about people who are achieving huge climbing goals but still feeling imposters syndrome. Based on many of those, it seems to me like imposters syndrome is connected to the culture around an activity more than the actual content of the activity.
I’ve always wondered if part of the reason impostor syndrome is so common among high achievers might be because imposter syndrome helps people become high achievers. If you never think you’re good enough, you will never be satisfied and will always keep striving to do better. And that’s what it really takes to be the best.
It seems to me just the wrong genre from “good decision”. Good decisions are like building new political systems or doing science or navigating existential risks. 31 people who crawled up a mountain and died seems not related to any of the things.
The fearsome part to me is that I am one of these people. They are not that much different from me. My life trajectory will in all likelihood probably make about as much sense looking back on it.
This comment seems super weird to me. Do good decisions not also include ‘did a thing that was fun or meaningful to you?’
I am thinking in the set of “things you will give your entire life to”, given that these people dedicated themselves to it, and it killed them.
These are exactly the sort of people I think are not cool. In particular, I’d hate to see them in charge of any project bigger than going out drinking. And even then you’d want to bow out at some point before it got dangerously crazy.
Imagine this personality in charge of a military unit or a business. I think utter destruction would be the likely outcome in both cases.
Well I know of at least one other famous climber (Nims Purja) who was part of the SBS in the UK military and was quite well respected during his time of service. So I don’t think it’s universally true that all people willing to take big risks climbing are unsuited for leadership.
Fair point. I do wonder if he ever took the kind of extreme risks in climbing described in this post.
As it turns out, he did! He climbed all 14 mountains over 8000 meters in just seven months, and nearly died several times in the attempt. I’ve been very slowly writing a post about him over the past few months which I hope to post soon.