BillG wrote:

This would be funny if it wasn't so true (but isn't it only funny if it is true, and hurts?)

Let’s face it: It’s kind of exciting here in the cave where everyone can virtually participate in the drama without having to be crushed in the landing gear of an evacuating C-17 when things go horribly wrong.

Losing faith in institutions yes, but also choosing which institutions to uphold, or denounce, based on your politics. 

The internet is a machine for wrecking consensus and trust, without generating much of a replacement. We balk at mandating vaccines, despite just about every living adult having endured vaccine mandates during their childhood. What was a routine collective concession to public health a generation ago is now the subject of major national debate. A cynical people with no faith in any organization or overarching narrative can’t really band together to do much of anything. That’s where we all are right now: atomized and alone, trying to cobble from an overwhelming information stream some semblance of order and truth, in the face of a pandemic threat and economic volatility.

Antonio García Martínez - Subclassing the grand abstractions

Very insightful & well written. If you speak a little Java, the format will be particularly entertaining — but that's totally optional. 

i am asshole, hear me roar

The Role of Cognitive Dissonance in the Pandemic

Dorothy Thompson, the Journalist Who Warned the World About Adolf Hitler

It was a bit different went Krakauer climbed. There were plenty on that climb, however, one of the first with so many supplied with tanks which had become rentable and packaged with the help of sherpas. Into Thin Air was a page turner for me, but I've always been obsessed with Everest. I've battled some difficult summits in my life, doing the best with what God gave me, but Baldy, Timpangnogos and a couple other peaks are happily in memory. Today's body is lucky she gets up/down her steep stairs carrying heavy loads. I'm grateful.

 kcar wrote:
 

 ScottFromWyoming wrote:
 
I read about that paradoxical undressing in David Krakauer's piece in Outside Magazine on the numerous deaths during a huge storm on Mount Everest back in May '96. I think that piece got turned into the book "Into Thin Air." From what I remember hypothermic people can experience a surge of internal temperature as the body desperately tries to fight off imminent death. People in that reduced state don't think clearly and start stripping. 

The crazy thing is that a lot of the deaths occurred because there was a goddamned traffic jam of multiple expeditions near the summit. And yet I saw a picture taken late last  year or this year showing a longlong queue of people waiting to reach the summit. It looked like a line to get into the latest summer blockbuster. 

 davidharper wrote:
 

Pretty odd, but 1959, 9 people in one tent at -30°F tells me that they couldn't keep warm, even in the tent in sleeping bags. That's too big a space, if it's a traditional tent shape, for body heat to warm. It's likely most of them had gone to bed fully clothed, but as noted, paradoxical undressing happens. People freezing to death get a sensation of overheating and start shedding clothes. All other unexplained events are explained by the terrifying disorientation and desperation victims go through.

for some very interesting reading on wikipedia look up the "Dyatlov Pass incident"