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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253

u/johndcochran Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

Nope. Not gonna happen. There's a significant logistics train in climbing Everest and it hasn't happened yet without a significant number of porters and Sherpas per climber.

It might be possible if Ethan happens to be a skilled helicopter pilot. The altitude world record is 40,820 feet while Everest is 29,032 feet. So it may be possible to land close enough to the summit , then walk to the button with fewer supplies. But still quite unlikely.

115

u/shpongolian Jul 09 '25

With years of prep and access to every resource, could he learn to be a decent helicopter pilot and just keep dropshipping a mess of supplies all over the mountain before starting the trek? Food, gear, generators, fuel etc all along the path

140

u/southern_boy ​ Jul 09 '25

After a year or two...

"You know what, *fuck* it."

-Ethan, Last Son of Man

52

u/DeathGP Jul 09 '25

Why is their this crash helicopter on this mountain?

-Aliens, apart of a tour guide of Earth

5

u/DAJones109 Jul 09 '25

I am surprised there aren't any already. There are 200 dead climbers. Many more than some small wars.

4

u/and1984 Jul 09 '25

apart

a part.

0

u/Unidangoofed Jul 10 '25

Also there* and crashed*

54

u/NewspaperBanana Jul 09 '25

Could he just drop the stuff right on the button? 

40

u/shpongolian Jul 09 '25

Ethan’s gonna be real pissed when he realizes that at the top of Everest

5

u/introverdigo Jul 09 '25

Underrated comment

2

u/JackXDark Jul 10 '25

That's what I was thinking.

I'd be working on doing something like equipping a Global Hawk with a mechanism that dropped marbles, not trying to cross oceans and climb the mountain myself.

1

u/humpstyles Jul 10 '25

new Dude Perfect ahh video

37

u/toolatealreadyfapped Jul 09 '25

The electrical grid (and with it the Internet) is going to start crashing out within a week or so. So his research and training will be limited to books. That's going to be very slow.

Without electricity and running water, most of his energy and time will be devoted to survival. Meanwhile, gasoline has a limited shelf life. 2 year old gas is somewhere between completely unusable and dangerous to use.

Assuming this is an average guy with no special skills, it's going to take an insane amount of time to learn how to even get to Nepal.

I think this one is a complete L for humanity. Only way out is of our random guy happens to be a highly experienced mountain climber or pilot.

13

u/SqueekyDickFartz Jul 09 '25

Yeah the only way I see this going from "absolutely not, never" to "1 %ish chance" would be if everything continued to magically work the way it currently does, just the actual people are somehow gone. Like invisible ghosts carry on as though nothing has happened. Then you'd have things continuously upkept and produced.

Then you know the GPS systems will work. You know there will be some kind of way to fuel up a ship at a port even if you don't currently know how to do it, you know that stores will be stocked and you'll have electricity.

Hell, maybe you could figure out where the president was the moment he disappeared, get the nuclear football, and somehow figure out how to launch a nuke at Everest. That'll push the fuck out of the button.

5

u/Adventurous_Web_2181 Jul 09 '25

Generators and solar panel should be enough for one guy. Without electricity, I can't even start to think about how he would fill the oxygen tanks he will need for the climb.

1

u/AideHot6729 Jul 10 '25

Can’t he just download everything he needs and just keep batteries?

1

u/toolatealreadyfapped Jul 11 '25

If he knows to, sure. Again, this really all depends on who our guy is.

But honestly, the more I think about this scenario, the more I'm convinced that climbing/hiking, sailing or trekking this adventure is simply impossible solo. For literally anyone. Helicoptering to, or at least very near to the summit is the only chance he's got. And that shit can't be learned through a book. Even for the most experienced alpine flyers, you'd be flying pretty blind without weather forecasts or any radio communication at all. So even with the most careful selection for who our hero is, there's still less than a 1% chance of success.

22

u/Shorb-o-rino Jul 09 '25

But the longer you wait, the more things we take for granted stop working. I mean electricity isn't automatic, we need workers to keep it going.

5

u/MagicPistol ​ Jul 09 '25

For basic electrical needs, he could just find portable power stations and solar panels. Even I have that for camping.

But I dunno if he'll need running electricity to pump gas into a boat or plane.

1

u/Mattrellen Jul 10 '25

He'll need gas to pump gas into a boat of plane. The shelf life of gasoline is pretty limited, just a few months most of the time.

If Ethan takes even just one year, he's running a pretty substantial risk of unusable fuel.

19

u/johndcochran Jul 09 '25

The learning curve without a trainer would be a cast iron pain in the ass. Nope. He would have to be a pilot from the get go, not going to acquire the skills required for flying and maintaining the helicopter alone.

12

u/Themodsarecuntz Jul 09 '25

Without an actual pilot to train him Ethan dies on his first takeoff.

8

u/WJLIII3 Jul 09 '25

Somebody once learned to fly a helicopter with no one to train him, and that person lived before simulator trainers (I'm referring to the first ever helicopter test pilot, whoever he may have been, probably a matter of record). Ethan just has to be careful.

3

u/Themodsarecuntz Jul 09 '25

Even that person had multiple pilot failures before them. They had people who designed it to instruct them. A helicopter that exists today only exists because of the people who have built it up from the time you are talking about. They are complex. I have flown drones and rc copters. Those are a challenge and your life isn't on the line.

There is no chance some regular guy is getting in a helicopter and learning to fly it with no assistance and becoming so good they can fly at the altitude of Everest.

1

u/firestell Jul 11 '25

Wasnt there some totally untrained guy who hijacked a plane and managed to fly it while only having MS flight simulator experience?

If he could get MS flight simulator on a computer in the early days + work out some generator to power it after the grid dies he could get a good bit of training in it.

Imo the hardest part is actually getting to Nepal before fuel goes bad all over. Once there he has virtually unlimited time to train on the mountain, only climbing a couple feet higher each time.

Canned food will last him indefinitely, and clean water is easy enough to get. Maybe he can get a drone up there and doensnt even need to climb it himself.

1

u/TheRedditorSimon Jul 09 '25

Well, not exactly something a rando could accomplish. The first helicopter pilots (Aleksei Mikhailovich Cheryemukhin in the 1-EA in 1930 in the USSR; Igor Sikorsky in the VS-300 in 1939 in the US) were the designers of the machines they flew. They built the craft and had an innate understanding of the capabilities, the controls, and the limitations. The craft were also tethered at first because these were intelligent men flying experimental machines—the 1-EA being far more experimental as well as being a Soviet secret.

Ethan can't afford to crash. A simple broken bone isn't going to set correctly in this post-human world. A broken arm would be bad enough; a broken leg would basically make a long distance trek impossible, to say nothing of mountaineering

1

u/DJinKC Jul 09 '25

More likely on his first landing

4

u/Falsus ​ Jul 09 '25

He would be self taught and who knows what condition the helicopters would be in after years of disuse.

10

u/AlexMourne Jul 09 '25

I personally believe that the question of motivation is important here. Do we really believe that a random Ethan will dedicate his whole life to saving humanity? I bet, there will be a lot of rationalization why the humanity gone for good

37

u/shpongolian Jul 09 '25

I think the average person would absolutely try to bring humanity back if they don’t go insane and off themselves first. Even if he’s an extreme narcissist he could set himself up to be the most powerful person in the world, hell he could be worshipped as a god.

And barring that I’d imagine the situation would be enough of a brainfuck to convince someone that there’s some kind of higher power watching who has given him this purpose. It would convince even the most staunch physicalist that all bets are off in regards to the nature of existence and reality

22

u/1711onlymovinmot Jul 09 '25

“Lone Survivor Vlog: Day 1 of saving all of humanity. Everyone is gone except me, Ethan from Butte Montana.

I could just do nothing, relax, hunt, live it out, but I’m here for you 🫵🏼 humans. So to Mt Everest I’ll go. Like and subscribe when you blip back!”

9

u/Takseen Jul 09 '25

I think most people would want to bring their friends and family back.

6

u/Kalsir Jul 09 '25

What else are you gonna do? Wander around an empty world? Most people would not enjoy that.

1

u/DAJones109 Jul 09 '25

It does give him something epic to do and a purpose which most people want. He is basically an action movie star with an audience only if he wins. No one will know or see if he fails.

1

u/Ok-Kaleidoscope5627 Jul 10 '25

I doubt even a decent helicopter pilot would attempt everest. That's going to take someone with serious skill and a specific helicopter capable of the mission.

But even so. They'll also need to be a everything expert to maintain that helicopter. To get the parts for it. Etc etc

1

u/TSED ​ Jul 10 '25

If he gets to be a decent helicopter pilot, he'd then be better off figuring out how to program an arduino bot to push the button and softly drop it near the button.

No need to climb up there at all.

1

u/Acrobatic-While3208 Jul 12 '25

Fuel would go bad long before he got there. Ethan is going to the beach to chill.

1

u/Iamatworkgoaway Jul 15 '25

A few years of practice in MS Flight, a few years live practice, then put a broom handle on the front of an AS350.

https://youtu.be/WXNXSvnCtKA?si=cjkwUI4pEP06JOoL

31

u/Sorry-Programmer9826 Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

There's a significant logistics train in climbing Everest and it hasn't happened yet without a significant number of porters and Sherpas per climber.

Won't a lot of that stuff still be there though. And a bunch of prepositioned oxygen and supplies on the mountain left by the climbers who suddenly disappeared. Perishables obviously more of a problem

(As long as the disappearance happened during climbing season)

10

u/Golarion Jul 09 '25

The ladder bridges that cross the ice walls require replacing every year by Sherpas, as the glacier moves and chews them up. He'd struggle to navigate that after a few years. 

1

u/Disastrous-Mess-7236 Jul 10 '25

& the mountain gets a little taller each year.

8

u/Giant2005 Jul 09 '25

I think Ethan would be better off using a hot air balloon than a helicopter. It has a lower skill requirement to use and when all of humanity is at stake, you want to minimize risks as much as possible.

14

u/johndcochran Jul 09 '25

And exactly how would you control the wind moving the balloon? A hot air balloon is not better than a helicopter.

2

u/qcaguy Jul 09 '25

He wouldn't make it on top of the mountain either way; he wouldn't make it off the ground in a helicopter.

-1

u/WJLIII3 Jul 09 '25

Helicopter training simulators exist. People learn to fly helicopters. At least once, somebody did it with no one to teach him, because he was the first one. Ethan's just gotta be careful, and take his time, and then continue taking his time, flying a LOT of practice runs before he starts flying up into the Himalayas.

2

u/johndcochran Jul 09 '25

And how many people were injured or killed before that first successful person?

0

u/WJLIII3 Jul 09 '25

Looks like none. Not finding any records of test flight casualties in early helicopter production, which is quite well documented.

2

u/johndcochran Jul 09 '25

You didn't research enough. It was not zero. And for just injuries, medial support was available.

0

u/WJLIII3 Jul 09 '25

Nope- the first ever recorded crash of a Sikorsky R-4 was in India in '44, wartime maneuvers. No one is reported to have died during the production and testing of the first helicopters. If you've found evidence to the contrary, I'm open to it, but I looked pretty hard.

3

u/johndcochran Jul 09 '25

So you're claiming that the first helicopter crash happened over 30 years after the helicopter was invented?

Remember, our poor Ethan would be starting from scratch if he wasn't already a pilot. That would include having to repair/maintain the darn thing before he even attempts to fly it. The R-4 was the first helicopter to be put into production. It was not the first helicopter. There were accidents during the development and testing of the R-4. Hell, there were accidents that happened with helicopters prior to the R-4. A lot of the resulting design of the R-4 was due to lessons learned from earlier mishaps.

And Ethan will have none of the prior history/knowledge. He would have access to much more developed machines than those early pioneers. But he would not have the kinesthetic experience he would have gotten from an actual instructor.

1

u/Giant2005 Jul 10 '25

You add a propeller, like a zeppelin.

14

u/AlbertoMX Jul 09 '25

So the helicopter is better, I get it.

Srsly, a hot air ballon would make things harder, not easier.

1

u/PDS_Birken Jul 09 '25

Göran Kropp biked from Sweden carrying all he needed and climbed it without oxygen or any carriers. Ethan happened to be anywhere in the old world there’d be a chance at least.

1

u/AlphaCoronae ​ Jul 09 '25

The Mavic Pro 3 has been used to summit Everest before, just strap a stick to it and use that to smack the button.