I recently got back (almost exactly a month ago) from a month long climbing trip in Nepal with some friends.

We had three guides, all three of whom have climbed Everest multiple times. One of our guides, who has summited 5 times, described Everest as his "bad habit".

As a relative newbie to high altitude mountaineering (the highest I got was ~19,850 feet), climbing in Nepal was really, really hard. You are never warm, the food sucks, camping for long periods at high altitude sucks rather a lot, you are never clean, altitude sickness sucks, pooping in an 8" hole in the ground sucks, not eating much protein sucks, but… the views are spectacular, the people you meet are amazing, the place itself is awe-inspiring, the wildlife is interesting and diverse, the peace of the place is fantastic, and the mountains… well, the mountains are something special.

I can see why some people spend their lives chasing summits, and I can also see why some people, having seen their first summit, turn away from the mountains forever and never come back. While we were in Nepal, within two days of our summit push, our head guide had two friends die. One died on Cho Oyu in an avalanche while traversing a glacier. The other died on a relatively unknown mountain in Tibet. Both were world-class mountaineers. These were people who no mountaineer in the world would accuse of being irresponsible, inexperienced, unprofessional, or, even, unsafe. They were serious mountaineers with long resumes and respected records.

That said, exploration is always a serious business, and when you're out at the sharp end, sometimes you get cut. Without these people, however, and the part of humanity which they represent, we would never expand our experience of what it is to be human and our knowledge of the space around us.

Even with Mount Everest, where the experience has been honed to the point where there are professionals whose entire job it is to make sure clients make it to the top… it's friggin' hard. Having been to nearly 20k feet, I have nothing but respect for people who can make it to 29,029 feet. Climbing that far is hard, no matter how you do it. I can only imagine the feeling of being on top of the world, and quite frankly I'm not sure I'm up to the challenge, personally, of tackling Mt. Everest. I will certainly never make fun of anyone who has climbed that mountain.

Given the difference in oxygen between where I got to and the top of Everest, I don't think I can comment on the impairment of cognitive facilities climbing Mount Everest imparts. However: there's a good reason most responsible climbs leave a controller in radio contact from base camp or Camp 1 in charge of final decisions. Oxygen deprivation is a serious impediment to rational decision making.

So, yeah, go ahead and don't climb where you don't feel comfortable. Just don't go judging those who do without having done a high climb yourself.

"In a time of universal deceit — telling the truth is a revolutionary act" G. Orwell

I find the calls to get him assassinated or kidnap his son simply appalling.

I'm going to go ahead and judge. 1 in 10. Your have a 10% chance of dying if you attempt a summit, right? How much pain is your untimely death going to cause if it happens? How many everest orphans and widows are there? Include in that the considerable cost and time investment to do this when you could be creating something, exploring something that has a conceivable chance of helping humanity, or just plain investing in helping others.

No, this is a hugely selfish act. Other folks are right that people are indeed wired to get addicted to these types of feelings, but every day people choose NOT to give into their wiring. I respect THAT a lot more than climbing Everest.

Anticipating a straw man: No, we don't have a duty to eliminate all unnecessary risk from our lives. But a single act with a 10% mortality rate seems reckless.

Ah, so he's a Queenslander. That adds context - we're a special breed north of the Tweed.

To add some other context to non-Australian readers:

* Gallipoli, remembered as Australia's 'coming of age', was a disasterous battle in the First World War. While hardly more pointless than most of that War's assaults, it was more or less the first time we had fought as a sovereign nation and Murdoch's efforts helped shock our young country to that war in general, and the results of our troops still being commanded by our former colonial masters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_Campaign

* The Fitzgerald Inquiry in the state of Queensland revealed corruption that ran through the police force and (via the Police Commissioner) into Cabinet and the Premier. Joh Bjelke-Petersen had been running Queensland for 19 years, supported by the gerrymander in state politics. We Queenslanders have a chip on our shoulder about being overlooked by the officials 'down south' - Joh worked this masterfully (in one election campaign he called Queensland the greatest 'Country' on earth) and while he is still remembered fondly for 'sticking it up them', the corruption of that era is a blight on the nation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joh_Bjelke-Petersen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzgerald_Inquiry Incidentally, Chris Masters' famous piece of journalism 'The Moonlight State' was seen as instrumental in propelling public support towards an Inquiry and a change of government.

Assange seems to be positioning himself as another in the long line of Australian journalists (and Australians generally) who believe the 'powers' want to hide the truth. His belief can be neither true nor false; I'm not yet convinced his methodology is supporting the outcomes he seeks BUT, if nothing else, he has certainly revealed by provoking the actions of our PM and other political leaders around the world that there remain powers whose opposition to truth is far stronger than their respect of law and principles like a fair trial.

"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." --Oscar Wilde