syrynxx: Climbing Mt. Everest is only slightly less stupid than BASE jumping.  Just because you're risking your life and the life of others doesn't make it noble or even worth doing.  A bunch of Sherpas died at the beginning of this year because they were preparing the trails for stupid people like the amputee and woman you think were 'awesome'.  They weren't awesome.  They climbed a f*cking rock that hundreds of people before them have climbed.  They indirectly contributed to everyone who died earlier this year.  That's not awesome.

Of course doing the Harlem Shake up there is stupid.  But not much less stupid than climbing the f*cking rock in the first place.

BumpInTheNight: ColonelCathcart: syrynxx: Climbing Mt. Everest is only slightly less stupid than BASE jumping.  Just because you're risking your life and the life of others doesn't make it noble or even worth doing.  A bunch of Sherpas died at the beginning of this year because they were preparing the trails for stupid people like the amputee and woman you think were 'awesome'.  They weren't awesome.  They climbed a f*cking rock that hundreds of people before them have climbed.  They indirectly contributed to everyone who died earlier this year.  That's not awesome.

Of course doing the Harlem Shake up there is stupid.  But not much less stupid than climbing the f*cking rock in the first place.

Without the tourists, the Sherpas would go back to being some of the poorest people on the planet. Each tourist that wants to ascend Everest must pay....$11,000 (though, admittedly down from $25,000 - source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/14/nepal-slashes-cost-climb i ng-mount-everest ) compared to a GDP of $1,300/person.

/Yes I know permits go to the government. Sherpas get paid by climbers too, and climbers need to buy things in Kathmandu and elsewhere. Your choice, dirt poor and alive or less poor and doing the same dangerous thing your family has been doing. They are SHERPAS!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherpa_people - Read about it, they've been guides in the Himalayas since the beginning of foreign exploration from not just the west...

So basically everyone is doing the Sherpas a favour by locking them into a life of punishing servitude to rich white assholes who have something they need to prove.  I know a few decades back a pretty big factory closed in a town near mine.  Its so tragic driving through there watching all those workers lingering around waiting for it to re-open, carrying their little empty lunch containers like zombies.  If only they had some escape, some way to move on and start a new path of their life...