NOTICE FROM TOMD:
This thread was the subject of discussion by the moderators after I deleted the whole thread yesterday. After some discussion, it was placed back into the forum.
My reason for removing it is as follows:
No one here knows what happened to the two climbers killed in the Alps. Yet several of you, including the OP, have taken it upon yourselves to announce to the rest of us that these two guys were fools and idiots for doing what they were doing and that's why they are dead. The article praising them listed their accomplishments. Why is it so important to you to belittle what they did before the accident that killed them? I thought one purpose of this forum was to encourage people to do more than just sit around on their butts and watch television. Am I missing something?

Criticizing people with no basis in fact other than they were climbing seems to me to be absolutely pointless. If you think all climbers are idiots, then fine, make that clear. I am sure there are a few climbers here who would disagree with you. I know a couple of very smart people who are climbers and have read about many others. I consider making those kinds of statements with no facts to back you up to be irresponsible at best or more accurately, arrogant and ignorant.

TLB encourages all types of opinions. I express them myself on occasion and call people foolish as well at times, but I only do so based on at least some knowledge of the consequences of what the person I am criticizing has either done or has proposed to do.

Equating risk taking with being stupid or foolish is equally off base in my opinion. Using that as a guideline, then much of human progress has been made by fools and idiots and I don't believe that for a minute.

One of the good things about this site is that it is a place to learn from others mistakes. I've posted some of my own. However, namecalling does nothing to move the knowledge base forward and serves no useful purpose other than perhaps make someone feel superior to someone else. If anyone wants to demonstrate how much smarter they are than the rest of us, I can assure you, calling people names doesn't do it.