i've been listening to a lot of stories lately about people who have decided that, come hell or high water, they're going to do a very dangerous thing

and they usually die because of it

it's just

why do humans do this kind of thing

i don't think i'll ever understand, no matter how many videos like this i listen to

i don't understand why people climb mountains either, for the record

but this is particularly pertaining to diving, lately

like this guy who has decided that he needs to go through an arch 180 feet underwater, and when he asked actual trainers if they'd take him they were like 'no we need to train you for two weeks' so he just did it himself, secretly

and the second worst thing you can do, after refusing actual trained help like this, is do it anyway but not tell anyone

on a side note i have learned a lot about diving lately and it is both more fascinating and horrifying than i thought it would be

okay this story is a little more understandable, it's about a cave that has been barely explored by anyone and i can understand wanting to explore brand new territory. Even if it's ridiculously dangerous

what i'm talking about not understanding is people who want to climb Mt Everest at risk of death and despite all the environmental drawbacks

it is absolutely disturbing that i've listened to enough of these that i can tell if someone is going to survive the story or not depending on the language used to talk about them

god I hate that. I hate listening to something and then all of a sudden my brain goes "they used this wording. why did they use this wording?" because subconsciously I KNOW why

YEP

though the way this particular person tells stories (MrBallen, who incidentally has a real issue with the like button and one day i will figure out why) does occasionally fool me

when he's talking about a part of the story that he has to guess at the chain of events he speaks very speculatively and sometimes that makes me think the victim died when they actually survived

I absolutely understand if you're the first to do thing and intend to chart it (ie, going to south pole, going to the moon, etc) and want to both figure out how it can be done and do it for humanity to learn things from it, but I do not understand it for pure daredevil ness

like climbing Everest now is just... a waste of resources and bad for the environment. it's just vanity

I'm fascinated by Everest, but you couldn't pay me to try to climb it. (I say try because I would die.) I still understand the urge to climb it even now, but it's such a bad choice for so many reasons!

oh yeah i'm at a point where i can guess how a story ends based on the language used too

like if there's a lot of detail about what someone was thinking at the time and there were no witnesses for that point of the story, then they must have survived

if it's just the facts and the chain of events is a little vague, then they definitely died

exactly