Maybe the probability of dying per climb is only a few percent. But probably goes up as the climber gets older. And if you are exposed to that high risk repeatedly, it's almost certain to kill you eventually.
Of course everyone dies eventually, but I'm guessing the life expectancy of free soloers is significantly below average.
Re:The Free Soloist Who Fell to Earth
by skeeter2020 on Sunday June 25, 2023 @10:03AM
(#36468289)
Once you get beyond measuring the extremes like childhood & maternal mortality I think life expectancy is such a dumb stat, especially in developed countries where we rarely lead subsistence lifestyles. It should be about the contents of your life, and if you love climbing so much that you keep free-soloing to the age that it literally kills you I can't accept that as any sadder than quitting and then dying of old age.
If you do something potentially fatal enough times then fatality becomes a statistical certainty, just like Russian roulette.
There is an inequality between doing something explicitly to die and doing something that may cause death but probably, usually won't.
Equating them is a mistake.