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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310

u/EncabulatorTurbo Jul 09 '25

I mean, getting a ship going would be difficult but there are any number of oceanworthy vessels in existence that do most of the work for you

531

u/Kiyohara Jul 09 '25

"Most of the work" when we're talking about cross oceanic voyages is not a term I'd really appreciate to find out how much is left for me to do.

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u/redditisfacist3 Jul 09 '25

most of those require an experienced crew needing multiple people, the ship needs to be serviced by other professionals, and the supply chain to get all materials needed to that ship.

Also GPS probably wont work in this scenario completely unmanned. so good luck navigating off a map

148

u/IEatGirlFarts Jul 09 '25

GPS would work for years with no human intervention.

102

u/TheRedditorSimon Jul 09 '25

Maybe 7-25 years, as they will drift out of orbit due to gravity peturbations and there are no ground operations to provide station keeping updates.

Also, the power grid goes offline almost immediately. User grade solar cells degrade about 1%/yr.

1

u/DeadHeadDaddio Jul 11 '25

The fuel needed to power the ship will go bad within a few months.

5

u/TheRedditorSimon Jul 11 '25

Most any ship engine bigger than an outboard motor will be fueled by diesel, not gasoline. Diesel is far more tolerant for storage, especially if you have the stuff without biodiesels mixed in.

Additionally, if Ethan can find an older diesel motor, they're much more tolerant of diesel fuel variations.

Lastly, you can "polish" diesel to recondition it. Just drain out the stuff at the bottom and use filters and mild heating on the rest. Most boats have this set up on board, already.

1

u/TurnoverInfamous3705 Jul 14 '25

They would fall in 2 years without intervention.

1

u/Glittering_Season141 Jul 10 '25

Ethan doesn't know this.

34

u/guyblade ​ Jul 10 '25

This is flagrantly incorrect.

GPS works by each satellite knowing the precise time and where it is going to be at that time. Given the precision needed, that information is computed on the ground and uploaded to satellites based on ground-based observations of them (e.g., laser & radar range-finding + models). Generally, those satellites only have a few weeks of forward-looking data on them at any time.

If humans aren't doing those uploads, then the system breaks down within a month.

2

u/Leninlover431 Jul 10 '25

My understanding was that GPS is calculated solely from time-of-flight of the signal, and its the various correction services that rely on the ground-based observations (SBAS). So the accuracy of the system will degrade, yet it will remain functional as long as the GPS sats remain in orbit with functional clocks.

6

u/guyblade ​ Jul 10 '25

Flight time is important to the calculation, but you have to know where you're measuring from with high accuracy. That's the ephemeris data.

If you look at the GPS spec, it includes an error budget relative to how old the data (ephemeris and other) is on page A-12. Notice that after the ephemeris is only 15 days old that the error is over 200 meters.

2

u/EncabulatorTurbo Jul 10 '25

to miss getting a boat to china you need a good deal more substantial drift than 200 meters

2

u/guyblade ​ Jul 11 '25

It is important to keep that 200m in context. This image from page A-7 of the doc shows that the degradation seems to get exponentially worse as time goes on.

That section also references this document. While I'm not certain that I'm interpreting the table properly, it seems like the table on page 135 of that document implies that a (block IIR or later) GPS satellite just won't have ephemeris data past 62 days after its last upload. If that's true, there would be a slow degradation, then a complete loss of function at ~2 months.

1

u/IEatGirlFarts Jul 10 '25

You could also correct with your compass and heading.

29

u/LigerZeroSchneider ​ Jul 09 '25

Yeah there are no gps servers, the infrastructure is solely satellites.

23

u/guyblade ​ Jul 10 '25

This is very, very wrong.

The whole way that GPS works is by having the satellites broadcast the current time and their current position with very high precision. The satellite can't know that information, on its own, so that information is computed on the ground via models and observations of the satellites from monitoring stations (e.g., radar or laser-based rangefinding). Once that information is computed, it is uploaded to the satellites. Usually, the models can only predict a few weeks into the future because of the precision needed and the general chaos of complex systems. Those machines on the ground are doing the real heavy lifting that makes the constellation functional.

19

u/IEatGirlFarts Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 10 '25

...an actual, proper gps has its own actual antenna connecting to an actual sattelite constellation...?

Edit: Jesus christ people i was being sarcastic since the dude before me mentioned GPS servers...

17

u/StarKnight697 Jul 09 '25

…very often, yeah. How do you think people navigate with them in remote regions?

1

u/IEatGirlFarts Jul 09 '25

No, i was being sarcastic. The user i replied to was talking about GPS servers...

1

u/StarKnight697 Jul 09 '25

Ah, gotcha.

1

u/DelcoMan Jul 09 '25

wait until you learn about satellite phones.

1

u/AbsoluteSupes Jul 11 '25

And how about the engine for a vessel capable of crossing an ocean?

13

u/ObnoxiousOptimist Jul 10 '25

If GPS doesn’t work, I wouldn’t trust myself to find Mt Everest even if started in the center of Nepal.

3

u/redditisfacist3 Jul 10 '25

Oh id die for sure. Everest is a beast. Without a Sherpa you'd need to be an expert to get up alone. 100s have died that even had experience

1

u/RocketDog2001 Jul 16 '25

Stop by the local AAA office and raid the vending machine full of maps.

14

u/averageredditcuck Jul 09 '25

Easy, US to Canada to alaska to russia to nepal. What kind of doofus would cross the atlantic?

35

u/schumachiavelli Jul 10 '25

Crossing the Bering Strait is the doofus way of doing it. There are no roads to the western coast of Alaska: you can get a little bit beyond Anchorage and then you’d have to go overland on foot, fly, or round the Alaskan Peninsula by boat. Not an easy task given weather and the shoals.

Assuming you make it to Russia you have the same problem: there’s no overland transport from the Russian Far East to… anywhere. Good luck hiking across hundreds of miles of inhospitable Siberian forest, the home of tigers, bears, and wolves.

5

u/averageredditcuck Jul 10 '25

I did no research and you clearly know more about this than I do, but I still think I like my odds better against that than crossing the Atlantic

8

u/schumachiavelli Jul 10 '25

I just know geography really well and boats almost as much, so I have faith most people could figure out a boat capable of the transatlantic crossing. It doesn’t have to be a huge cargo ship or anything: there are plenty of boats below 100’ that can make the trip, and they can be handled by one person who doesn’t care about scratching the paint a little.

You could do it, I’m sure, given time to prep and practice. I believe in you :)

1

u/The_Purple_Banner Jul 16 '25

This is a late comment but you could do a boat and still do the Bering strait route. Just follow the coast. ez pz

3

u/ArmenianThunderGod Jul 10 '25

There are no roads to the western coast of Alaska

Why would this be a problem? Couldn't you just take an SUV that's particularly good at off-roading and just drive, not on roads? Is it all forest?

6

u/sharkMonstar ​ Jul 10 '25

do you think its just gonna be easy to trek any suv or whatever wont even have enough gas to make it

3

u/ArmenianThunderGod Jul 10 '25

No, I don't think it would be easy. I think it might be easier than learning to operate a ship that can handle a transatlantic voyage. Not to mention learning naval navigation.

Gas is a good point, but you can always fill up some tanks and throw them in the back.

2

u/Wide_Lock_Red Jul 15 '25

Piloting a ship isn't that hard with prep time and it has a lot fewer variables. You can find yachts that are made for 1 man and its a straight shot.

1

u/schumachiavelli Jul 10 '25

Nah, it’s impassable forest. That’s why those remote Alaskan towns are serviced by bush pilots in small airplanes.

1

u/dave3218 Jul 10 '25

There is no overland transport from the Russian far east to anywhere.

Was the Trans-Siberian railroad blown up or something?

5

u/schumachiavelli Jul 10 '25

Was the Trans-Siberian railroad blown up or something?

You don't seem to realize just how absolutely fucking huge the Russian hinterlands are; the Trans-Siberian railroad is, at its closest, roughly 2,000 miles away from the hypothetical western landing point of anyone crossing the Bering Strait at its narrowest.

Reference this map showing the rail network. See the pointy grey bit at the very top right of the image? That's where you'd land boating from Alaska to Russia.

-1

u/dave3218 Jul 10 '25

I’m assuming you wouldn’t be dumb enough to just land on the first piece of land you see and actually bring enough supplies to try to skirt the shore until you reach Vladivostok.

So, my question stands, was the trans-Siberian railroad blown or something?

5

u/schumachiavelli Jul 10 '25

No, the TSR's not been blown up. Is your focus on the TSR simply a pedantic one, i.e. that I should've been more specific and said that there's no overland transport from the Russian far northeast to anywhere? Because if that's what you're getting at... OK, fine.

Alternatively if your focus implies that the TSR's continued presence in this hypothetical makes the Bering passage a better option than the Transatlantic route then that's simply still very much wrong.

Skirting the shore as you suggest until you reach Vladivostok is a journey of over 5,000 miles along a shore with practically no settlements, no good nautical charts available to a random American, dodgy weather and sea conditions, and plenty of rocky islands, outcrops, and shoals. This, of course, is preceded by a similar journey of about 2,000 miles on the American side from Seward, threading the Aleutians and whatnot prior to the actual crossing itself. Finding a vessel that is capable of such a journey, manageable by one person, in the backwaters of Alaska, and stocking it sufficiently might prove challenging.

That's 7,000 miles of navigation along coastlines that are dangerous and inhospitable to humans even before everyone else was Thanos'd. That seems exceedingly stupid when the alternative is crossing 3,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean that's open, well-charted, ends up in Western Europe where plentiful supplies await, and in a yacht that can be easily found, fueled, and stocked up essentially at your starting point.

1

u/dave3218 Jul 10 '25

You are more knowledgeable than me in matters that involve the sea, so I won’t discuss that.

But yeah, my issue was with the Russian Far east, because AFAIK it includes Vladivostok and anyone with common sense would attempt to start their trip there instead of landing on the middle of bumfuck nowhere.

The trans-Atlantic option seems like a better alternative, but really being honest I think that flying a plane or learning to fly a plane to cross the Atlantic and reach Europe then go from there would be better than going by boat, I guess the main issue would be the pre-flight checks if this takes too long to learn though so probably grabbing a big yacht as you said and crossing the Atlantic would be better.

I wouldn’t discount flying a plane though, because once you grasp the basics it’s not really that difficult, it’s just that it is extremely regulated and the competency level expected of pilots is very high because the take offs and landings are the most dangerous parts of any flight, and any mistake can instantly cost hundreds of lives and there are thousands of flights happening every minute, so the regulations have to be very strict to make every single landing perfect.

But if you are traveling once, you only need perfect once, and as long as the guy doesn’t panic he will do it just fine.

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u/CrabAppleBapple Jul 11 '25

I’m assuming you wouldn’t be dumb enough to just land on the first piece of land you see and actually bring enough supplies to try to skirt the shore until you reach Vladivostok.

Why? Unless the last person left is Captain Explorerman McTraveller.

The vast majority of people wouldn't know where they are. Wouldn't know the best place to land. Wouldn't know sandbanks/shoals/shallows of a bit of Russian coastline. Wouldn't know how many supplies they'd even need to do that.

Some people might know bits of the above. But all of it? No, absolutely not.

Humans are pack animals, our world works and the navigation you're assuming is easy, only works, because there are lots of us all working together, all the time.

1

u/RocketDog2001 Jul 16 '25

Assuming I am Ethan, I can fly a plane big enough to do the job.

1

u/NarwhalOk95 Jul 13 '25

Ethan from the U.S.?

1

u/redditisfacist3 Jul 09 '25

Enjoy icebergs and other issues without any warning

6

u/forever_a-hole Jul 09 '25

The Bering Strait is notoriously dangerous, but wouldn’t that still be easier than trying to navigate across the Atlantic with no navigational knowledge?

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u/redditisfacist3 Jul 09 '25

Both would extremely dangerous especially as a 1 man crew.

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u/GateGold3329 Jul 10 '25

Multiple teenagers have done it alone.

6

u/arbitrageME Jul 10 '25

highly trained teenager with support staff and a satelite phone.

2

u/Level9disaster Jul 10 '25

Also, he's on a short time limit, because fuels and lubricants actually degrade surprisingly quickly. Most vehicles , including ships, will be inoperable within 3 years, as chemical plants stop supplying those irreplaceable fluids.

Good luck learning to navigate the Atlantic with a sailboat, and then reaching Nepal without a car.

2

u/EveryAccount7729 Jul 13 '25

best bet may be training on aircraft flight sims and just take off and fly to near everest, and then jump out and crash the plane. Some huge military bird.

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u/CannonGerbil Jul 10 '25 edited Jul 10 '25

Most of that servicing and supply chains are required to keep a ship going for years or possibly decades on end, if all you care about is getting it across the ocean in a one way trip then it doesn't really matter that you don't have the best tools and the maintenance isn't up to date.

A similar deal goes for the GPS, it'll be mostly functional for 5-7 years, and even after it starts degrading it'll still be mostly usable for 25 years ish before it becomes unusable for ship navigation, and if you haven't made it across the ocean in 25 years, I'm going to assume that you will never make it across.

1

u/thatonezorofan Jul 10 '25

Not true, there was this guy on TikTok that crossed the entire pacific from the coast of California to New Zealand with a small sailboat and I took him around 50 days or so. The dude is called sailing songbird. However, that's very obviously a huge outlier. There's probably not many people on the planet that have the knowledge and experience to do a voyage that insane, but if there's anyone I would be willing to bet to complete this challenge, it would def be him. Here's his TikTok account for those who curious: https://www.tiktok.com/@sailing_songbird?_t=ZT-8xuwKmoB6wX&_r=1

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u/ashlati Jul 10 '25

The GPS would work for most of his life time. Even if it didn‘t he‘d just have to straight east or west, depending on the ocean until he made landfall on the Eurasian landmass. Like Columbus in reverse

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u/Acrobatic-While3208 Jul 12 '25

We truly live in amazing times, for better or worse

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u/fearnodarkness1 Jul 10 '25

A lot of yachts are equipped with tons of technology that would make it "easier"

Self steering, GPS, radar, weather patterning etc.

If buddy can get to Miami marina im sure there's plenty of boats big enough to do it. Being able to operate it is another question entirely

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u/Kiyohara Jul 10 '25

So...

  1. How many people can operate it reliably enough for a cross oceanic voyage?

  2. How does an average person know it has enough supplies?

  3. What if something breaks mid way?

  4. Does it have enough fuel and can you tell if it is?

Very few luxury yachts are rated for trans-atlantic passage and even fewer are rated for trans-pacific passage. You might see a full tank of fuel, but unless you know how far it goes on a full tank it might run out mid way.

There's also issues with supplies. You might not have enough on board or you might not load it with enough if you're not familiar with how long it will take. Depending on size of ship you might not have enough space for food and water.

But s easy as they are to navigate, it's important to note that's using the standards of people who already know how to crew boats. I doubt your average person would know enough about yachts to activate all systems including weather radar and terrain radar, program a GPS destination, start the engines, pilot it out of dock and past other boats, and then set in on course. They are way more complicated than just getting in a self driving car and setting a destination.

And ships and boats break down all the damn time. Ask anyone who owns one. A boat is a hole you through money into. If you don't know ow to repair a system on a ship, if it breaks, it's done. That can mean electrical work, machine parts replacement, engine repair, or worse. What does the average person know about batteries and generators? Or fuel lines and fuel pumps? I wonder how many people off the street could just figure out how to replace a part on a ship engine.

This: https://focus-motoryachts.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/boat-engine-room.jpg

That's the engine compartment of a small motor yacht. The kind not suitable for crossing the Atlantic. That's way more engine than I could maintain without classes or experience.

https://images.boatsgroup.com/resize/1/93/28/2023-azimut-azimut-grande-35m-power-9779328-20250512060033939-1_XLARGE.jpg

That's an engine room from a slightly larger model, and one that can probably cross the Atlantic safely. How would the average person even know what to look for if something in there breaks?

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u/fearnodarkness1 Jul 10 '25

1a) I've seen quite a few videos with 1 guy at the helm and a 2nd there for docking / spotting. The real issue would be auto-pilots reliability when he sleeps. 1b) Cross Atlantic is obviously SUPER difficult. So many factors, mainly weather, but a big enough boat could manage it. 2. They probably don't but if they acted quickly enough they could conceivably still use Google or just stock a fully fuelled boat with as much as they want considering there aren't weight issues since he's the only one on the boat. 3. You're fucked. 4. Yeah that is the tricky part. A sailing boat would 100% but you'd need to know how to sail. Something like this boat: Nordhavn 76 (trawler) has enough range, autopilot and mapping.

At the end of the day I agree with everything you're saying. It'll require a HUGE amount of luck to have nothing break, favourable weather, not running out of gas accidentally or even being able to get the boat out of the marina. Boats are fickle as all hell, I was just thinking if he could locate a newer model (less prone to breaking, maybe?), with a full tank and some reading the manual you could at least try.

Fun discussion anyways and you added a lot of really points about the sheer magnitude of navigating across the atlantic.

2

u/Kiyohara Jul 10 '25

Yeah, and the thing is just one person is too small a group. One or two more people substantially increases the odds of making it across the Atlantic in a ship, even if they have few skills. If nothing else it means more people to learn specific duties onboard a ship from the library or owner's manuals.

And this is just to get across the Atlantic. Getting to Everest from whatever landfall they make un Europe is still a fuck of a journey, Landing in Portugal and debarking or trusting you know enough now to risk heading further along the coast to Everest makes for entirely different journeys with their own risks.

Crossing Europe won't be too difficult. You can get some bicycles basically anywhere (fuel will be stale by this point for the most part) and if you get lucky some riding horses and a few pack horses will make the journey incalculably easier. There's lots of houses to duck into during storms and cold weather and while fresh food is done and rotted away, there's plenty of preserved and canned foods to survive.

But... at some point you're going to have to cross some damn inhospitable terrain. Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are not exactly known for their climate. If you don't know how or where to find water, you could end up dying in the steppes and hills. And you better have enough food ready (or be a decent hunter) to get safely across.

And there's going to be a lot of rivers to cross. Some will be easy due to bridges, but depending on which river, there may be fewer than you'd think so get ready to find a ferry or spend a lot of fucking time looking for a way across. The Indus river alone has far fewer bridges than you'd think for example. Hell, the Rhine is going to be a big fucking barrier unless you stick to major highways.

And keep in mind any serious injury to a lone traveler is probably fatal. Broken arm or leg? You might not be able to continue your journey until it heals. And good luck collecting enough food to survive on a broken leg. More so if you break it in the wilderness dozens of miles from a town or city. A team would help a lot here too.

And THEN once you get to Everest... It's one of the deadliest mountains on earth, one of the tallest, and one of the hardest to climb. Better hope someone knows something about the process or you get some really good books on it.

66

u/jedz_se Jul 09 '25

its not like you can learn to sail ocean crossing ship solo with youtube (which, btw, might be down, as there is noone to support it).

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u/toolatealreadyfapped Jul 09 '25

Not just YouTube. Without a person keeping things active, you can expect basically ALL utilities like electricity, Internet, sewage to crap out within a week.

12

u/pj1843 Jul 09 '25

That's not the main issue really. You can go raid the local library to figure a lot of that out and get real good at reading user manuals.

The real issues arise when you realize your on a time limit because the fuel everywhere will degrade quite and will begin to ruin stuff.

Then once you get on the boat and start your journey your going to realize that there is no one to communicate weather patterns to you, so unless you picked a yacht with a Doppler radar your sailing blind and likely could just get dead in a squal or major storm.

Basically there is a lot that can and will go wrong with this without the infrastructure in place to support you.

3

u/toolatealreadyfapped Jul 10 '25

All the books in the world can't replace months and years of experience that are typically required for a solo transoceanic trip. So yeah, you're on a time crunch, with A LOT more to do and learn and train and plan for than time allows.

And that's just to get to Nepal! We haven't even approached the issue of what to do once there. When is the last time, if EVER, someone handled a base to summit solo expedition?

1

u/Throbbie-Williams Jul 13 '25 edited Jul 13 '25

You can do Africa to Europe in under 9 miles of sailing

North America to Russia in 2.5 miles.

Edit: with both of those examples you also don't have to have any navigation skills at all, you can see your destination at all times if you leave in daylight

Unless you start in Australia/new Zealand or on tiny islands like Vanuatu almost anyone would be able to cope with the sailing!

2

u/CrabAppleBapple Jul 11 '25

You can go raid the local library to figure a lot of that out and get real good at reading user manuals.

Your local library has a book on trans Atlantic/Pacific solo voyages, extensive sea charts, extensive overland maps, extensive reading on how to prepare for that, how to prepare for a solo climb of Mt Everest. Books on mountain climbing to the skill level required to climb Mt. Everest? Books on the right meteorological conditions for your sea voyage? For the climb?

Anyone in the thread saying anything other than 'No, best bet is to hole up somewhere nice to wait out the rest of your days and leave the planet to all the other animals', is deluded.

3

u/pj1843 Jul 11 '25

Yeah, there is a very good chance your local library has all those things. Libraries be dope AF like that. That being said you are right, the humans best bet is to find a nice comfy house and do their best to live a nice comfortable apocalypse.

Honestly though if they actually wanted to achieve the goal, their best bet is to try and launch an ICBM at everest and hope to hit the button with a missile. Not sure that possible, but definitely a higher likelihood than trying to solo cross the Atlantic then scale everest alone with no training or real prep.

2

u/CrabAppleBapple Jul 11 '25

Honestly though if they actually wanted to achieve the goal, their best bet is to try and launch an ICBM at everest and hope to hit the button with a missile. Not sure that possible, but definitely a higher likelihood than trying to solo cross the Atlantic then scale everest alone with no training or real prep.

Absolutely impossible I'm afraid. Even if they happen to work in a missile silo, it takes dozens of people to maintain, prepare for launch, target etc etc etc

1

u/RocketDog2001 Jul 16 '25

How long could you be the last person on earth before you start getting visits from the Hatman?

2

u/Throbbie-Williams Jul 13 '25

From Almost anywhere on earth that isn't australia/new Zealand you can get to Nepal with very little sailing.

2.5 miles if you start in North america, sub 9 miles from Africa, you can see your destination at all times so don't even need to think about navigation!

The only real challenge is ascending Everest, even this is easier than usual as he doesn't actually need to survive after pressing the button.

It's not a challenge I'd like to do but it's far from as insane as it sounds.

The mountain is the only real challenge

33

u/gripsousvrai Jul 09 '25

book. good friend. Good book for sailing.

12

u/heyvlad Jul 09 '25

Went far before I saw someone say the obvious answer.

4

u/cockmanderkeen Jul 09 '25

I'm not sure transpacific boating for dummies is going to cut it.

1

u/gripsousvrai Jul 10 '25

Atantic, mediterenane , red sea , india.

1

u/JustARandomGuy_71 Jul 12 '25 edited Jul 12 '25

Would the Suez Canal be operable?

I think the Panama Canal use a system of locks, that would not work without someone to open and close them, and probably would not work at all. Is the same true for Suez?

1

u/gripsousvrai Jul 12 '25

but u dont care if i 's work or not, u trash ur boat and u take an other at the other side....

1

u/RocketDog2001 Jul 16 '25

Suez is sea level.

3

u/Critical-Werewolf-53 Jul 09 '25

😂 solo across the pacific 😂

1

u/sharkMonstar ​ Jul 10 '25

might as well call it suicide for dummies

0

u/gripsousvrai Jul 10 '25 edited Jul 10 '25

Atantic, mediterenane , red sea , india.
Why downvote?
U prefer go across the pacific???
Seem really much easier my propo.

1

u/JustARandomGuy_71 Jul 12 '25

It depends on where he starts.

If he is near the East Coast the Atlantic is marginally better, but if he is, let's say in California... Panama would be closed, either go down to Cape Horn, or must take the Pacific Route.

OR, cross the whole country to reach the East Coast, I guess. I don't know which would be worse.

1

u/gripsousvrai Jul 12 '25

cross a land drivable with road everywhere car and gasoline?
And make a really simplier way on the ocean?
I know some sailing and cross atlantic and pacific isnt marginally different , cap horn is one of the worst place to be...
But yep maybe go down and go by panama for cross atlantic from bresil.
What u want is to make each step the most easy.

1

u/Nopants21 Jul 10 '25

No way do you find the right book to teach you through text on how to cross an ocean solo in the right boat (which you have to find), after finding the right supplies. All of this with no power grid, no internet, limited fuel. It's not even a sure thing that the person is located anywhere close to the coast. Most actual sailors today would not undertake this journey, but a lone person with a book is supposed too?

2

u/gripsousvrai Jul 10 '25

i m responding to someone saying you tube down.
Same now i will say book better then internet.
Limited fuel if u are alone on earth????
Nope .

I m from coast , i m not saying will be easy.
Just step one go to book .
Because hey where better will u find?????
Map book are really priceless same now...
Not with just one book u will make it .
But anyway cross the atlantic with a good boat is nt so hard.
If u have no tempest.
And luck.
But after u have the himalaya ;) have fun for restart human;)

0

u/Hannizio Jul 09 '25

You maybe could learn how to sail a boat over the English channel, but learning how to navigate the pacific and doing a multi week travel without gps or similar, is a whole different story. Even for an experienced solo sailer it would be a difficult challenge

3

u/gripsousvrai Jul 10 '25

Atantic, mediterenane , red sea , india.
Pacific too hard.
Atlantic at the good period of the year increase *10 ur luck.
And u can just read it.
But at least book and map are physically able.

1

u/Normal_Ad_2337 Jul 10 '25

The sewage will crap out., but Ethan will keep the crap going.

1

u/Hoskuld Jul 10 '25

Which kills off the everest attempt as well. Good luck getting up there without modern weather services telling you when a good window will be

2

u/toolatealreadyfapped Jul 10 '25

The more this guy researches in what needs to be done, the more likely he's going to accept the fate of humanity and just try to enjoy the time remaining.

26

u/Kalsir Jul 09 '25

Gotta google a lot of info real fast and write it down before the internet shuts down haha.

21

u/TheMayorOfBismond Jul 09 '25

I'd have every printer in the library running day and night shitting out every Wikipedia article I could think of until the power finally cut out.

12

u/KaIidin Jul 10 '25

We still have books, right?

0

u/FriendlyDavez Jul 09 '25

Or you know... Go for the books

29

u/TheMayorOfBismond Jul 09 '25

Those books are still going to be there once the power goes out.

3

u/FriendlyDavez Jul 10 '25

My man.... You thought I meant to ... Print the books?

No.

I mean it's kind of silly to be hastily printing wikipedia at all while you already have a full library at your disposal. If it's a good one, it will have books with much better content than the surface level unverified wikipedia entries. Read some wikipedia entries on a subject you have deep expertise in and you'll know what I mean.

5

u/ryohazuki224 Jul 09 '25

Books exist. One can teach themself how to sail a ship or how to fly a plane.

3

u/theoriginalstarwars Jul 10 '25

There are things called libraries that have books. Learn to sail with small craft and work your way up to a larger one that can be singlehanded. I would personally go for a catamaran as there is 2 motors and you can power it with 1. Cross at the right time of year and remember that everest is usually submitted in mid/late may.

1

u/jedz_se Jul 10 '25

Yup. Surely self taught catamaran sailor, that was average Joe before, will go through pacific.

2

u/theoriginalstarwars Jul 10 '25

So you ignore everything I said about learning on a small craft before going to a bigger craft and assume they would just set sail without learning the ship? The Atlantic is a much shorter trip though, why sail the pacific? Stop by the Alps for climbing gear, clothing and oxygen also get some experience climbing with mountains there. Drive to nepal, through russia would probably be best. would I make it, probably not, but I can guarantee I would give it a run for the money, even if it is a one way trip.

2

u/fearnodarkness1 Jul 10 '25

Or find a yacht

1

u/EncabulatorTurbo Jul 10 '25

as fucking unreliable as LLMs can be you're probably literally best off getting a high end macbook and putting DeepSeek on it, but youd have to download that shit before everything collapsed

also ethan probably doesnt know how to do that anyway

-7

u/WJLIII3 Jul 09 '25

You don't need to learn to sail it. You just need to figure out the ignition, throttle, and gps. Point it at China and set it to go. The condition of your boat upon landing is insignificant- the way you land it is insignificant. Use something big enough that it won't sink- cargo freighter, cruise liner, pick the one out of the harbor that has the most recent engine service recorded, and crash it into the shore in China. You might run into all the wrong currents and so on, might make any number of huge mistakes, but as long as you don't clip Hawaii, the options for failure are limited. Boats aren't that hard to use- they are hard to use well, but if you're running an industrial tanker engine, the ship has a gps built in, literally nobody else on earth exists? You're gonna get where you're going.

35

u/DBond2062 Jul 09 '25

How to tell everyone that you have never sailed on a large commercial ship. Just getting it off a dock without tugs and out of a harbor trying to steer and manage the engine room at the same time? Good luck.

-13

u/WJLIII3 Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

Managing the engine room is gonna be a lost cause. You're gonna blow a lot of gaskets, you're gonna seriously ruin the engine of this vessel. That's why you pick the one with the most recent engine service record- I am banking on it surviving the abuse for one week, not me doing it right. Pick an easy harbor- go to LA, not SF. Something with an open horizon. Tugwork is less important when there's nobody else around- just find a harbor you can exit in a straight line.

I strongly considered going Brazil-Morocco and just taking cars the long way (grab a solid Jeep for Darien- no roads, but no guerillas), because of that very problem, but I figured a ship in good repair could handle one trip at standard speed without total failure

11

u/trenbollocks Jul 09 '25

You're an absolute moron. Incredible how confident you are, I wish I was like you (minus the moron part)

3

u/river-pepe Jul 09 '25

It's a bot roleplaying

3

u/Logical-Ad-7594 Jul 09 '25

You figured wrong. Even if it lasts a week like you hope, your gonna be stuck in the middle of the pacific

6

u/Logical-Ad-7594 Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

Ships don’t have an ignition switch. It’s more like 20 switches on multiple pieces of machinery that all need to be turned on in the correct order or you send the ship into a blackout. I hope Ethan brings a flashlight, otherwise he’ll be lucky to get out of the pitch black engine room, let alone restore power.

And no, you can’t start the engine from the bridge.

That’s assuming it’s a diesel ship. Those are the easy ones. Steam ships take a few days to start up from cold.

1

u/WJLIII3 Jul 09 '25

Use a megayacht, then. They'll be big enough to survive most conditions, and have ordinary civilian controls.

3

u/Logical-Ad-7594 Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

I am a marine engineer. I have no idea what you mean by “ordinary civilian controls.” Civilian vessels are more complex to operate than Naval ones. The only way you’re making a transoceanic voyage without operating an engine room is with a sail. Any vessel small enough not to need one, can’t carry enough fuel for the trip.

You are a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

20

u/TyrconnellFL Jul 09 '25

How long does GPS stay functional without human oversight?

37

u/rexus_mundi Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

About 7 years at most, fuel is required to maintain their orbits along with updates from the ground. They will become less effective over time with orbital drift, and degradation of parts

2

u/guyblade ​ Jul 10 '25 edited Jul 10 '25

Shorter than that. The satellites need their ephemeris information updated constantly by the ground, usually every few weeks. I'm not sure if it remains true with the Block III GPS satellites, but I heard the Block II GPS satellites described as "big tape recorders" once: you basically uploaded the timed list of what it was to broadcast and when and it simply dumped that back out. That's not an unreasonable model when most of the complex work--high precision prediction of their orbits--is being done on the ground anyway.

12

u/FreeBricks4Nazis Jul 09 '25

As I understand it (not well) the GPS constellation of satellites is receiving regular calibration from the United States Air Force.  I have no idea how crucial this calibration is.  The accuracy of the system is probably going to degrade relatively quickly, but I don't know if that means your fix is going to be off by a couple of feet or a couple of miles. 

11

u/ghotier Jul 09 '25

Calibration is important enough that GPS didn't work well enough for commercial use until General Relativity was figured into the calculations to account for the time dilation experienced due to Earth's gravity (which is VERY small)

7

u/bigloser42 Jul 09 '25

It was general relativity, it was unencrypting the military channels that allowed extreme accuracy. But That only fixed the issue that didn’t let surveyors use it. It was good enough for almost anything else before that. It just took a while for it to get cheap enough to widespread adoption.

1

u/Normal_Ad_2337 Jul 10 '25

Relatively large though.

1

u/Leninlover431 Jul 10 '25

*special relativity

1

u/ghotier Jul 10 '25

No, it's actually general relativity.

1

u/Leninlover431 Jul 10 '25

I'm positive special relativity is a much larger factor than general reality in the context of sats

1

u/ghotier Jul 10 '25

Maybe, the math is certainly doable if you want to, but they solved the General Relativity problem last. Before they solved that problem, GPS was not effective enough for its current use. And my point was to compare the small, necessary correction of GR to the calibration corrections that need to be done. A larger correction is less persuasive with respect to the size of the calibration.

2

u/brickmaster32000 Jul 09 '25

GPS can only give you your latitude and longitude. It doesn't give you a map. To do all the tracking people want to do you need all the infrastructure that isn't going to stay up that long.

7

u/TheShadowKick Jul 09 '25

There are GPS devices where the maps are already loaded onto the device. You can power them with batteries so you don't really need infrastructure to keep them going (at least in the short term).

2

u/brickmaster32000 Jul 09 '25

You certainly need infrastructure to find them. You guys seem to think that if something exists it will magically fly its way into Ethan's pockets.

7

u/TheShadowKick Jul 09 '25

I mean, I bought a GPS device with maps loaded onto it at Best Buy. They aren't hard to find.

-7

u/brickmaster32000 Jul 09 '25

Very much doubt the maps it was preloaded are anywhere near the level of details needed.

-7

u/captain-_-clutch Jul 09 '25

GPS probably forever. Weather I'm not sure.

9

u/Adventurous_Web_2181 Jul 09 '25

Not forever. They are designed to operate for 10-12 years before wear and tear on electronic components, including solar panels, accumulates. There will also be a degradation of their orbit when maneuvering fuel runs out. Should be perfectly usable for 5 years with decreasing accuracy over time.

1

u/Hannizio Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 10 '25

While the satellites themselves wont fail, I'm not sure about other things that are needed to keep the gps grid running. Online servers like google maps could be down within the week, and I'm not sure that your normal smartphone gps system (or the gds satellites) could handle a situation like this

2

u/Adventurous_Web_2181 Jul 09 '25

He would need to rely on handheld GPS units, like Garmin. Not sure if they have coverage for Everest. And, he can always fall back to paper maps.

1

u/Hannizio Jul 10 '25

True, but paper maps could become problematic once they stop being in english

0

u/captain-_-clutch Jul 09 '25

Not literally forever. 10+ years is plenty of time for our hero

0

u/TheShadowKick Jul 09 '25

GPS will last long enough that it won't be the point of failure.

15

u/arbitrageME Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

Supposing they're ready and fueled and everything, you have to then sale it single-handed across the ocean and dock. Granted you could just crash it into a beach somewhere and take off from there but even doing that is very difficult.

I would give the challenge a better than 50/50 chance if all existing vehicles were fueled and had their keys available for Ethan.

Even then, just crossing the Pacific in a motor yacht with no weather alerts and a compass or celestial navigation if he can manage it, no internet just paper encyclopedias and maps would make it one hell of a trip. Crossing the Atlantic might actually be easier as long as he can get to the Suez canal and then steal a boat on the other side. Rounding the Cape of Good Hope is just a suicide mission.

Then when he gets to India, he could take some vehicles to supply base camp for himself assuming he can find the appropriate amount of oxygen. But then the final push across the ice seracs and crevasses is treacherous. He would have no guide to set the route and if he takes longer than one year to prepare then this year's guide ropes would be invalid.

On the plus side, he doesn't have to survive the trip back. It would be okay for him to make it up then promptly die on the spot

5

u/Louis_lousta Jul 10 '25

The Suez has no locks, so you could possibly make it through, if it wasn't full of crashed sideways container ships whose crew had vanished.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

The USS Truman is in Virgina. That could make it over

13

u/arbitrageME Jul 10 '25

the USS Truman is well-known for being easy to start up and operate single handed, with its crew of 1 and 4999 passengers, without even the need for crane and winch operators to do things like hoist anchors, release spring lines, pilot out of the harbor.

It also has a shallow and navigable draft, being able to cross most waterways with ease and totally won't get beached in a shallow part of the harbor

0

u/UnicornWorldDominion Jul 10 '25

Im guessing this is sarcasm?

3

u/Level9disaster Jul 10 '25

No no, he's serious.

10

u/Falsus ​ Jul 09 '25

And the average person do not know the rest of the parts that ''most'' leaves out.

6

u/pj1843 Jul 09 '25

Yeah, not really. There are many vessels that can autopilot a plotted our course assuming you can plot out a course and actually engage the autopilot. If your not experienced with this type of equipment it isn't exactly simple.

Then you have to keep an eye on the weather, which won't be getting regular updates via radio or satellite data due to no people, so your going to have to know how to read the radar on this vessel and plot around storms.

Your also going to have to know how to maintain the vessel while at sea, because if one small thing goes wrong your dead.

As someone who's grown up around boats and has a decent amount of experience with this stuff I wouldn't even entertain the idea of a solo trans atlantic crossing even if I had my pick of vessel.

1

u/UnicornWorldDominion Jul 10 '25

What about just the Bering straight to get to Russia then follow the coast down?

1

u/arbitrageME Jul 10 '25

As someone who's grown up around boats and has a decent amount of experience with this stuff I wouldn't even entertain the idea of a solo trans atlantic

it's because you grew up around boats that you wouldn't. all these other people think it's like driving a car across a wide flat parking lot

5

u/clearedmycookies ​ Jul 09 '25

Which is great if Ethan happens to know how to use them. Or else add on more time for Ethan to learn it, all the while more and more stuff will break without humans being there to maintain it as time goes on.

2

u/ImInMyOwn Jul 10 '25

Not one that you can man solo.

1

u/Mythosaurus Jul 09 '25

What kinds?

1

u/Bartholomeuske Jul 10 '25

I'd take one of those gigantic cruise boats

1

u/CrabAppleBapple Jul 11 '25

but there are any number of oceanworthy vessels in existence that do most of the work for you

Name one. One ocean crossing capable vessel that requires no experience to safely undock, navigate out of a harbour, navigate the Pacific/Atlantic and safely dock/land somewhere. It's mindboggling that you got any upvotes at all for that.

1

u/Z3r0sama2017 Jul 16 '25

Go watch some of those North Sea videos. If you don't know how to avoid the bad weather and the wild waves that come with it, the poor boats going to the seabed