There's ignoring everyday risks, and there's knowing but wilfully disregarding avoidable risk. In your example, driving is definitely risky, but deciding not to wear a seat belt driving is just being silly. Same in this case with the lack of ropes - it's being silly for the inner narcissist.

There’s no bright line. You’re just saying “my understanding of risk is correct, and yours is not”.

As an example, driving is a very avoidable risk. Owning or spending significant time around pool, too, especially with small children. Nevertheless many would say these are “everyday risks”.

Wearing a seat belt, of attaching a safety rope isn't some subjective gray area of risk though.

A seatbelt wearing is very similar to sitting in a the seat of a car. Using ropes is very different from no ropes. Rope failure is probably more common than seatbelt failure so the safety margin difference may not be as great.

If your rope fails while climbing, it’s almost always user error (using the wrong gear, using damaged gear, risky placements, etc).

What about having airbags? or driving a bigger car than everyone else? or not driving faster than 15, 30, 55, 70? Or not driving at night? Or in the rain or snow?

I always wear a setbelt and when I climbed was roped in, but to claim these generally acceptable risk mitigation techniques aren't subjective is just claiming your beliefs are everyone's beliefs. That's not true.

I think a word other than narcissist could describe the inner voice. I feel this word choice is pejorative and probably not even accurate description for what is going on.

> For them, ignoring everyday risks is an essential part of navigating life.

Oh this is totally a thing, and it's kind of interesting... there are two kinds of people when it comes to fear, the first does not acknowledge many of the activities they do regularly as risky and so don't experience fear at all (key difference), and the second set of people do experience varying degrees of fear.

You can pass from the first into the second or start in the second, you've taken the red pill so to speak. At this point remaining petrified is not useful, it increases risk, realising this you then can then learn how to exist in a state of fear and maintain mental clarity. Next, depending on the activity, you can also learn to modulate it through experience and perspective. e.g when you "should" and shouldn't be scared, varies greatly with the route the conditions, your physical condition, technical skill, and experience and being aware and mindful of your own ability... this is one reason people solo, to "tune" their fear, because it should feel scary, but plenty of protected routes shouldn't.

The funny thing is someone in the first category can appear much like an experienced person in the second category, but one is oblivious, and one is very attuned to their fear and thus more likely to survive, it's only people in the middle that are scared out of their mind.

But to be clear I'm not saying this applies in this climber's case, he was mostly likely very attuned to the risks, but gaining higher and higher tolerance and pushing those to the edge for other reasons.