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?

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14

u/averageredditcuck Jul 09 '25

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

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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.

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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

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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 :)

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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

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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?

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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/schumachiavelli Jul 10 '25

OK I get what you're saying and I could've been more specific, but in my defense so very many people in this thread seemed to think they could simply drive to the narrowest point, boat (or snowshoe or snowmobile, as some have suggested!) that comparatively small amount of open ocean, and drive away once they reached the Russian side.

I'm not against the thought experiment of learning to fly, but IRL I'm very familiar with boats so that crossing truly doesn't intimidate me. I do agree that flying it wouldn't require perfection: as long as the pilot could take off he could probably parachute on the other end and obviously not worry about landing!

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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.

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u/RocketDog2001 Jul 16 '25

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

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u/NarwhalOk95 Jul 13 '25

Ethan from the U.S.?

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u/redditisfacist3 Jul 09 '25

Enjoy icebergs and other issues without any warning

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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.