r/whowouldwin • u/ThePriestofVaranasi • Jul 09 '25

Challenge Every human on Earth vanishes, except for one random person in the US. A button is placed on the summit of Mount Everest that can be pressed to undo this change. Can humanity be restored?

Every human on Earth vanishes without a trace, except for one random survivor: Ethan from the United States. Moments after the disappearance, a mysterious device materializes before him, displaying a message:
"Humanity can be restored. To activate revival, you must press the button housed at the highest point on Earth—the summit of Mount Everest."

Ethan essentially has as much of a prep time as he wants to gather all the essentials like food, water, weapons, vehicles and everything else that has been suddenly abandoned. He can raid supermarkets, libraries, military depots, and pharmacies for supplies. Ethan can still die of old age so this prep time isn't unlimited.

Now, Ethan faces an impossible gauntlet:
He must travel to Nepal and ascend to the summit of Mount Everest without dying.

Can Ethan survive long enough to reach the button and restore humanity?

1.5k Upvotes

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550

u/TheBommer111 Jul 09 '25

Depends very, VERY heavily on the age, skill set, mentality, etc. of Ethan. If he is a mountain climber who is a Air Force pilot? Much, much better chance than if Ethan is a slobby weeb who can barely walk. 

I just went with two extremes, but if he is more towards the former, the way bettet chances than if he is more of the latter.

246

u/Arthur_Burt_Morgan Jul 09 '25

So basically if ethan is a redditor, we are fucked?

165

u/Tjaeng Jul 09 '25

It’s just a matter of how big and powerful the mobility scooter is.

26

u/ghostofkilgore Jul 09 '25

Now I'm imagining Ethan bursting out of his parents' basement with a modded up mobility scooter with wings and guns like in the A Team.

3

u/JProllz Jul 10 '25

Except the mods are made of hot glue and WD-40 because he's an unskilled basement dweller.

10

u/adrifing Jul 09 '25

Lots of suspicious looks to me with the loud laughter there.

I'm due you an upvote award 😂

7

u/TheBommer111 Jul 09 '25

...Y..yeah lol

6

u/omnicious Jul 09 '25

If the world ever came down to the actions of a redditor in almost any scenario, we're fucked. 

1

u/coriandermood Jul 09 '25

Unless he had already read the would you rather post "WYR go to everest from USA, and climb it, to save all people in the world who has magically vanished for 5M$, or live a lonely life in an empty planet forever?"
there were many answers with viable plans in that post

121

u/WJLIII3 Jul 09 '25

Let's be clear, also, I'm a carpenter and former Boy Scout, my favorite recreational activity is mountain climbing, and I'm in great shape, and if I was Ethan, y'all would be gone forever. The top of Everest isn't a place for just "fit" people. Summitting Everest kills many lifelong expert high-altitude climbers every year.

54

u/TyPerfect Jul 09 '25

Kinda. In recent years it has become very much easier and the numbers of successful summits have gone up.

All of that is predicated on the sherpas doing basically everything short of carrying the climbers up.

I suspect that Ethan might be able to do it with the proper plan and a long time spent on acclimatization.

Just getting from the US to Nepal is quite the task. Sailing solo? Selecting a vessel he can manage that also has the endurance to get there? This is already a big risk to success.

34

u/SvanirePerish Jul 09 '25

Them being a pilot would make it a lot easier; in the right conditions a helicopter could make it mostly to the summit too, further helping the cause

12

u/No_News_1712 Jul 09 '25

Even a pilot would need a clear runway to land and a fueled and fully operable plane. None of that is guaranteed and it would be difficult for a pilot to do that.

3

u/SvanirePerish Jul 09 '25

I’d assume a pilot could fuel a plane but definitely still hard, I would just imagine the best odds

9

u/No_News_1712 Jul 09 '25

Well a small plane, maybe. But a pilot probably wouldn't know how to fuel up an airliner that can actually get across the ocean, I'm guessing.

4

u/SvanirePerish Jul 10 '25

Perhaps I'm over estimating pilots, in my head I also thought Air force pilot less so Passenger. I'd figure if everyone just vanished and left everything laying around most experts in aviation (which again, I'm assuming a pilot would be) could figure most things out but you're probably right.

3

u/AFirewolf Jul 10 '25

I have bo statistivs to back this up, but I would assume rhat somewhere in the US a plane is sitting fueled and ready for takeoff at any time.

1

u/No_News_1712 Jul 10 '25

The plane might be, but is the airport? And what about the destination? How do you know whether the destination is clear?

5

u/AFirewolf Jul 10 '25

Planes take off with enough regularity that gibfing one that was just about to take off with a cleared runway should be possible, I think. You dob't need to actually land the plane, just put on a parachute and jump out before it crashes.

10

u/Downtown_Boot_3486 Jul 10 '25

Sherpas have lifetimes of experience and generations worth of knowledge passed down that you won’t be able to find in a book. I don’t think any amount of preparation could give you that level of knowledge to get up there.

3

u/TyPerfect Jul 10 '25

He could do it and just place pony bottles every 100 meters. He could spend months or years setting up.

The trip also counts as a success even if it's one way only.

1

u/Emphursis Jul 10 '25

But Ethan wouldn’t have Sherpas to carry his tents and spare oxygen bottles. He wouldn’t have Sherpas to put down fixed lines for him to use to pull himself up the slope - maybe if he got there quickly enough there might be some left from the last climbing season but no guarantee. He won’t have any weather forecasts to know when conditions are good enough to attempt the climb.

Maybe if he’d summited before or was an experienced mountaineer he might have a shot. But otherwise, he’d be dead before getting a mile out of base camp.

1

u/Wide_Lock_Red Jul 15 '25

I think the sailing part is easier than it seems and submitting Everest is harder.

With time, you can select an appropriate vessel for transocean travel and learn the basics of piloting. As long as weather holds up, there isn't to much that can go wrong. Getting a good ship is the biggest barrier for doing it, and that no longer matters.

Climbing Everest has way more risks and you can't research your way into solving them.

-2

u/WJLIII3 Jul 09 '25

Pacific is easy. Plenty of cargo freighters in California. Plenty will be freshly serviced and ready to go. They have onboard gps. Turn key, throttle up, and aim. Gonna fuck your boat up, running it without technicians and knowledge, gonna crash it when you get there, but it won't completely fail in one trip. You could even take a naval vessel, except I suspect the ignition on those might be a bit of a trick for Ethan to manage- probably not as straightforward as turning a key.

8

u/TheBommer111 Jul 09 '25

I said "Chance". Realistically, ofc he is probably dying, but that's not fun to speculate on. I was giving someone who has an actual more than .00000000001% chance, as I KNOW that's the real odds here.

Like, why even comment this? It's just poo pooing on OP's post lol.

19

u/marvin_bender Jul 09 '25

I think the best bet would be a pilot and the assumtion that crashing his plane over the button means pushing it. So he would sacrifice himself to reset things.

Any type of solo adventure on a 8000 moutain, even in a very experienced guy, is close to imposibile. It's just incredibly dificult to get enough supplies up the mountain without help, that's why they use porters. And without weather prediction he has a shit chance of summiting. Remember there would be no static lines in place, so the climb would be much dificult than normally.

3

u/skirpnasty Jul 15 '25

Better yet, grab one of the drones capable of flying that high. There is one they are testing to use for delivering supplies and retrieving trash, seems like the perfect candidate.

1

u/PlatyNumb Jul 10 '25

I would like to add a little math to what you've said.

So, let's say this random person has about a 50% chance of being above the line of average for intelligence.

When coming success rates, the chances of making it up are currently 60% but a lot of that is due to the assistance of professionals and the knowledge they impart on you (or you research) before attempting the climb. This is also due to modern equipment (but you still need to know of the equipment. However, historically, the average is 30% or lower. Let's be generous and say they have a 30% chance.

30% of 50% is about 15%. But there's more.

The right age for everest, to have the best chance, is 30-40. which is crazy to me because ive thrown out my back sneezing... Anyway, 30-40 (no older or their chances drop dramatically.

Let's round it off as millennials are currently the age group with the best chances. Millenials make up about 22% of the American population..

Put this all together. This random selection doesn't have great odds at making it. I'd say way less than 3%.

This doesn't include crossing the ocean and getting to everest, but figuring that out is more than I want to do right now. Also, all the stats I used are still not perfect 1-to-1s on a RANDOM person because the 30-60% of successes aren't random. It's still ppl with training and physicality to meet the challenge. Again, though, it's not something I feel like figuring out right now. Just wanted to get a maximum likelihood. The actual likelihood is a lot lower.

6

u/Blazeitbro69420 Jul 09 '25

What if he just flew a helicopter to the top and pressed the button with a really long stick

2

u/Rogue__Jedi ​ Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 10 '25

Helicopters don't like the thin air that high.

Once you find one that can, you have to learn how to fly it.

Then, you have to learn how to fly it in winds AVERAGING 100mph at 30,000 feet.

You'll need to train to fly to that elevation very quickly because you can only carry so much oxygen in the helicopter before you've added too much weight and it can't reach the top.

Also, you likely can't use a stick, I would imagine that opening the door (if you could even open it, in 100mph winds would basically turn the interior of the helicopter into a large parachute. Pushing you away and to your death.

Tldr: he would die

1

u/Whatisgoingon3631 Jul 12 '25

There’s a good chance they are overweight and possibly diabetic. That’s going to slow them down a bit.

1

u/Iamatworkgoaway Jul 15 '25

There is a roughly 40% chance Ethan is geriatric, or under 18. Were hosed.