[belorn]

In the general case that is more or less accurate. There are however a bunch of exceptions in the extreme case.

Rescue services do have a point where they will decide not to continue. During the Tham Luang cave rescue (the thai football boys that got stuck in a cave) there was a period where the rescue services decided that continuing was just too dangerous. It was only because of a handful private cave divers was crazy enough to try a exceptional dangerous idea that those children got out there alive, and had it failed then those cave divers would have basically received all the blame.

The case do illustrate how far into the extreme we have to go. The local rescue services gave up and gave the job to nation service. The national service gave up and gave it to the military (with international support). The military gave up, and then through almost a backdoor, a few individuals tried a Hail Mary attempt which against all odds worked well enough to get everyone home.

There are activities where people has to accept that rescue is limited or zero. If you go hiking in no man land then there is a real risk of rescue service not being able to locate you. People who attempt sailing around the world has the risk of being "lost to sea". Cave explorers both dry and wet has to accept that rescue attempts are done based on what is feasible. Same goes for wreck divers.

We could argue that those risky activities should be illegal (or shamed), but the counter argument is that a lot of activities are just inherently risky. Sports generate a huge amount of injuries. Motorcycles are viewed by health professionals as organ donor generators. Extreme sports are extreme, but they tend to also follow more rigorous training and certification in order to address those risk.

[Eisenstein]

> We could argue that those risky activities should be illegal (or shamed), but the counter argument is that a lot of activities are just inherently risky.

There are always going to be distinctions. We allow motorcycles but we don't allow motorized wheelbarrows, or unicycles that can go 60mph. Why? History and tradition, practicality -- whatever the reason, it doesn't necessarily have to make sense and it surely wasn't designed that way. No one makes the standards to which we hold people -- but we are allowed to complain when we don't feel they are in line with a healthy society.

[CamperBob2]

motorized wheelbarrows

I've heard dumber ideas, such as....

unicycles that can go 60mph

A hand-guided mecha-wheelbarrow would be incredibly helpful for people who would like to do more of their own gardening and landscaping but who don't have the physique for it. I'm now going to spend half a day thinking about how something like that could be built to work reliably, economically, and safely, while other people on HN have probably already spent half a day thinking about how to prohibit it.

Then, back to that unicycle thing. Your "bad ideas" make fascinating engineering challenges. Gotta give credit where it's due.

[Eisenstein]

You obviously weren't paying attention to anything I wrote besides looking for things to criticize. I was saying that those things are all bad ideas but we allow some and not others for reasons that go beyond 'bad' and it is not for us to judge or change.

[CamperBob2]

I seriously want a motorized wheelbarrow now, though. That's your fault.

[Eisenstein]

It doesn't seem that difficult. Get an electronic speed controller and a hub motor from a trashed e-scooter (10" wheels should work?) put a battery pack on it and rig the throttle to a cable on the handle.