Recently I was invited to participate in a podcast on risky decisions. The specific incident was the death of a hiker who had deliberately chosen a route that was known to be really dangerous. Why would any rational person choose to expose himself or herself to this degree of risk? That's what my interviewer asked me. But beyond the question was the interviewer’s mindset — you have to be crazy to voluntarily put yourself in a position where you are risking your life.

I disagreed. I immediately thought about the movie “Free Solo,” documenting Alex Honnold’s climb of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, in California in June 2017. Hannold does not strike me as someone who is crazy. He did not wake up one day and say to himself, “Let me try to summit El Capitan without any ropes or safety harness.” He........

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