[raldi]

> Are you willing to make the argument that looking out from the top of Everest or tramming to the bottom of the canyon for an afternoon is something that everyone should be able to do?

Yes, absolutely. Why shouldn't humanity aspire to that?

> Grand Canyon development also has costs which would reduce the value of the site. Are those costs worth the benefits?

My point of view is that yes, the benefits do indeed outweigh the costs. There's plenty of canyon for everyone. Let one section be for families, children, the elderly and lazy. There will still be plenty of trails for hikers who want to get away from all that.

[vacri]

Doesn't seem very aspirational to me. The glory in Everest isn't the nice view, but the feat it takes to get there. When people talk about Everest stories, the view doesn't feature very strongly.

[alexqgb]

Why shouldn't humanity aspire to that?

Because 7 billion people trekking to Everest would transform the character of the place so thoroughly that the reason people started doing en masse in the first place would be lost to history. Tragedy of the Commons 101.

The way we prevent these tragedies is via regulation. Needless to say, this demands time and expense that could always be used elsewhere, so if there's a natural barrier limiting access, then by all means, rely on that instead.

Once you open something to everybody, you've got to deal with...everybody. Generally speaking the people who are trying to profit from the initial development have zero interest in carrying the costs their ventures impose. Essentially, they're in the uncompensated extraction business and yeah a lot of people take a very dim view of that and will quite reasonably use any and all measures thay can to block what amounts to theft from the commons.