Given that over a thousand people have climbed Everest at this point, it seems to me that climbing Everest is about the most boring/pretentious thing I could imagine doing (compared to all the other interesting things you can do in this world)
You're joking. It's still an amazing feat of endurance. People still die making the attempt. And there are 7 billion people in the world. So that means that 0.0000000142857143% of the world have done the climb.
Oops, forgot to times by 100. My bad. That's 0.000014285571%.
But then we can remove over 7 billion people who have never made a basic mathematical error, as you're right - the ability to do arithmetic is a critical skill in extreme mountaineering.
This leaves us with a world population of 1. It must feel great to be the only inerrant mathematical mountaineer in the world - was that skill learned, or is it innate?
We all do things like this everyday... And these probably do more to help make the world a better/more interesting place than another person climbing Everest.
When you say "we all do things like this everyday", what precisely do you do on a daily basis that is the equivalent of climbing the highest mountain on earth?
We all do things like help teach children, or create online resources for others, or add some detail to a small corner of science or other area of human knowledge. These are all more valuable than risking your life and littering a landmark and then telling people you're the 1473rd person to climb Everest.
You have a point. In the grand scheme of life, you are right. While I do volunteer to help others, I also like to occasionally do things for myself. That is what I was asking about.
