I'm obviously not ready for the internet this morning...the first thing I thought when I saw the thumbnail was that someone had photoshopped one of those Easter Island heads to look like David Letterman.

It's not finished yet!

Is that not Hellboy?

GET TO THE AUTOGYRO!!

It was frozen solid in the polar ice when I got here!

TLDR: He dies.

I am of the opinion that human endeavours like this are selfish, unless you don't have anybody in the world who loves you. So what, if your loved ones have given you permission? You are still weighing their pain on the scales, against what you want.

Strongly agree. I don't know about the guy in this article but I remember hearing about a world-reknowned bareface rock climber who died in a climbing mishap leaving behind a 5 year-old daughter. The only tragedy I could see was that the little girl in question had an irredeemably selfish cunt for a dad and now had to go on with no dad at all.

On a similar note (and at the risk of offending a few fans) I was not sad when Paul Walker died. Just glad that nobody outside his vehicle had to go with him. Also glad that mainstream public sentiment failed to get the street where Walker's fatal accident occurred named after him.

Dependants yes. You've chosen that responsibility, so be Responsible. But you shouldn't be held hostage by other people's reliance on you outside that. How many clingy girlfriends or helicopter parents stop people from trying their suicidally stupid attempst at greatness? Go get em tiger.

It's the same as when someone chooses to smoke, or eat lots of fats, or uses lots of salt on their food, or cross the street with a red lignt, and so on.

We all do things that put our lives in danger all the time.

I think they’re referring to easily avoidable things, like extremely dangerous hobbies. (Skydiving, bare face rock climbing)

If you choose to have dependents, maybe, just maybe, these are things you’re going to need to sacrifice.