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Posted by lode 9 hours ago

Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket(kathmandupost.com)
215 points | 88 commentspage 2
tristor 5 hours ago|
As someone who has done quite a few 14ers in Colorado, many of which I wasn't in the greatest shape for, most people do not get AMS especially below 12k, and therefore the numbers in this article definitely do look like somebody somewhere is faking it or being defrauded. Much of the time you just need to hydrate better if you're going up in elevation above 10k and you'll be fine.
justonceokay 5 hours ago|
Pro-tip: if you propose to your wife at 13000 feet, don’t actually have her put the ring on. Her fingers may swell causing her to panic about circulation and you’ll have to run down the mountain and to this day she will not think it is as funny as you
tristor 1 hour ago||
It makes a good story to share with new friends in the future though. I've got one of those too, heh. I proposed to my now-wife on the bow of a sailboat at sunset on a local lake, overlooking the water. Should have been an amazing moment, except I didn't know until that trip that my now-wife gets seasick/motion sickness. Luckily it did not ruin things, but we've never been on a boat together since except for a ferry crossing between Tallinn and Helsinki once.
adolph 2 hours ago||
It is a surprise to me that anyone summiting has access to insurance at all. I suppose that if the fraud rate is as low as 3.5% and insurance is contracted specifically for the trip, then a rational payor will raise rates and carry on.

On the whole, there is finite capacity of certain assets, like helicopters. If the emergency carrying capacity is X and true emergencies are .6 X then there is spoiled capacity of .4 X, in which fraudulent emergencies are placed, keeping everyone in the system whole so that when true emergencies approach .9 X there is no need for fraud. This follows the "optimal amount of fraud is non-zero" and eliminating this fraud might remove the margin needed for the system to exist at all.

  An anecdote tells of the British government's bounty on dead Indian cobras 
  giving locals the perverse incentive to start breeding the snakes, to be able 
  to kill more of them and collect more bounty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
tim333 15 minutes ago|
The people in the article are just trekking around the valleys, not going for the summit. I did a summit attempt a while back and didn't bother with insurance because here wasn't much they could do - helicopters didn't go that high and getting some sherpers to carry you down would be better achieved with cash.
dtsykunov 5 hours ago||
Are we supposed to feel bad for insurance companies here?
badgersnake 6 hours ago||
Unnecessary CT scans mean unnecessary radiation exposure. This is a direct harm to the “patient”.
DiggyJohnson 4 hours ago|
Seems minimal though in the grand scheme of things
IAmBroom 8 hours ago||
"In at least one case cited in the investigation, baking powder was mixed into food to make tourists physically unwell."

The only ill effect I can find from overconsumption is a "tingly sensation on the tongue". Of course, that doesn't mean the 'poisoner' wasn't ignorant of this, and genuinely did it trying to make them sick. Or maybe they simply said, "If you feel your tongue tingling, YOU ARE DYING!!!".

ceejayoz 8 hours ago||
It’s a leavener when you get it wet, so swallowing enough will definitely feel like digestive upset from all the gas.
ambicapter 8 hours ago|||
I feel like "make physically unwell" here just means they'll taste something gross, not realize it is the baking powder, and treat the feeling as if something is wrong with their body. I know mixing up baking soda and baking powder has made for some pretty unpleasant tasting food for me.
MontagFTB 8 hours ago|||
Could it be a symptom of high altitude oxygen deprivation?
datadrivenangel 7 hours ago||
Yes, which is why it's easy to then convince people to evacuate. People do die on Everest, including EBC treks from altitude sickness alone, so severe symptoms usually lead to taking the trekking back down the mountain.
tokai 5 hours ago||
Baking powder is used by some athletes as it is shown to enhance performance.[0] I find it more realistic that they are adding it for that effect than making anyone unwell. As its not really something that makes you ill.

[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8427947/

alsetmusic 5 hours ago||
Holy crap, why are they using anything more than pine for something of such high stakes?
DanDeBugger 2 hours ago||
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fxtentacle 5 hours ago||
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kikitaffner53 3 hours ago|
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