Was Alex Honnold’s Taipei Skyscraper Climb Actually Unethical?

What this episode is about

Alex Honnold's recent ascent of Taipei 101, a 1,667-foot skyscraper completed without safety equipment and broadcast live, has sparked a debate about the ethics surrounding extreme solo climbing. While Honnold is celebrated for his remarkable feats, such as his previous free solo of El Capitan, questions arise regarding the potential risks involved and the implications of such high-profile climbs on public perception and safety.

Key takeaways

• When climbing skyscrapers without ropes becomes 'normie slop', we've officially peaked at critical culture absurdity.
• Alex Honnold's feats redefine athleticism, yet he remains in the shadow of sports icons—rock climbing's unsung superhero.
• Critics of live extreme stunts often forget: sometimes, spectacle and skill create legends worth witnessing.
• In an era where everything's 'slop', Honnold's climbs show there's still room for awe and genuine human achievement.
• As Netflix showcases the adrenaline of free soloing, we must question: are we valuing thrill over ethical concerns?

Who speaks in this episode?

• Matt Walsh (Host) · 10 min speaking
• Alex Honnold (Guest)

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Free Solo, Alex Honnold, Taipei 101
2. 6:00 – 9:00: Helix

Notable quotes from "Was Alex Honnold’s Taipei Skyscraper Climb Actually Unethical?"

• The father of two first went viral in 2017 after becoming the first person to free solo in El Capatan in Euseite national park climbing 2900 ft without any safety equipment. we'll put the.

  about Alex Honnold · at 0:29

• And it all starts by finding the right mattress. Our sponsor, Helix, actually makes finding the perfect mattress incredibly straightforward with their sleep quiz, which matches you to the perfect mattress based on your specific.

  about Helix · at 8:25

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Alex Honnold — Person · Referenced athlete / subject of commentary · 1 mention · first at 2:37
  He is the focal point of the segment: the host describes and reacts to his high-risk free-solo climbing feats and uses him as an example of extraordinary risk-taking and athletic greatness.

Books & papers

• Free Solo — Book · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at 0:33
  Mentioned as a documentary showcasing Alex Honnold's climbing achievements, adding context to his latest feat.
  And I would say it's the most impressive athletic achievement ever caught on film, except that he did, he did what he did in Free Solo, the documentary. If you haven't seen, you.

Places & events

• Taipei 101 — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 0:19
  The location where Alex Honnold performed his climbing feat without safety equipment.
  This dude do it live. this was a this was live with I think a 10-second delay scaling this 1600 ft skyscraper with no rope, no harness, no net, fall, and you die. it's it's just that simple, which is really tremendous. incredible to watch.

Sponsors

• Helix — Product · Sponsor · 1 mention · first at 8:40
  Promoted as a sponsor of the podcast, offering mattresses tailored to individual sleep needs.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 I want I want to mention this from this weekend. My wife and I watched this and and enjoyed it. Uh actually I found it quite captivating. Daily Wire has a report. Legendary American rock climber Alex Hunnled stunned the world yesterday when he uh this would be Saturday when he scaled the or maybe it was Sunday, I don't remember. Uh scaled the 1,667 foot skyscraper Taipei 101 in Taiwan without any safety equipment. The entire 90-minute event was broadcast live on Netflix. Uh the father of two first went viral in 2017 after becoming the first person to free solo in El Capatan in Euseite uh national park climbing 2900 ft without any safety equipment. Um we'll put the video up on the screen some of the highlights from this uh him scaling the skyscraper you can see there. And although nothing compares to watching this dude do it live. You know, this was a this was live with I think a 10-second

0:55 delay scaling this 1600 ft skyscraper with no rope, no harness, no net, fall, and you die. You know, it's it's just that simple, which is really tremendous. I mean, incredible to watch. And I would say it's the most impressive athletic achievement ever caught on film, except that he did, you know, he did what he did in Free Solo, the documentary. If you haven't seen, you should watch it. And um we'll put that up on the screen too. By the way, here's what that climb looked like. If you haven't seen Free Solo just in like that looks impossible. The whole climb is like that. It's a sheer wall and he's like Spider-Man crawling up this thing with no rope.

1:38 So this guy truly is, I think, the greatest athlete to ever live. You know, that's what's kind of interesting is that he's he has a very good argument anyway for being the greatest athlete to ever live on the planet. And yet he's not anywhere near as famous as Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, you know, those guys who are usually in the conversation for greatest athlete ever. and they are among the greatest. But uh no one I mean like I like sports, I like football, but you hear about some incredible football accomplishment, you hear, "Oh, this quarterback threw for 45 touchdowns and only had three interceptions or whatever." and uh or last year when Lamar Jackson got got totally uh completely rigged and he got robbed of the MVP. 40 touchdowns, five interceptions, I think four interceptions. That's a that's a huge accomplishment. But then you see this this dude climbing a hundred stories

2:39 with no rope and no harness and what happens on a football field just kind of pales in comparison. And uh it's amazing. And meanwhile, I did see some people on social media afterwards, of course, making their comments, "Too cool for it. Too cool for school, right? I saw somebody who said, um, oh, this is norm this is normie slop. This is NPC behavior." First of all, there's nothing more normie or NPC than using those terms at this point. And second, I love how every person on Twitter who calls people normies or NPCs or whatever is themselves the most benile, uninteresting, unimpressive person you'll ever encounter. You know, you've got some like mid-level influencers with whatever a few hundred thousand followers. They make a few hundred grand a year from posting engagement bait and they sit there looking at a guy scaling a sky skyscraper and going normie slop.

3:40 Okay. All right, man. Like there's this attitude online as you probably noticed where you get these people who and I saw a lot of this. It just kind of annoyed me after the um and there's plenty plenty of people that are very impressed by this, don't get me wrong, but uh a lot of other people and I posted a little bit about this about this, you know, him climbing the tower cuz I just think it's amazing. And you have these people who just truly hate everything. And I I know I know I know I know it's weird to hear me saying that and I know you'll say, "Well, Matt, you hate everything. That's your whole thing.

4:18 That's your whole brand." But I don't really I hate a lot of things because a lot of things deserve to be hated, but not close to everything. I'm saying there are people, including some of these influencer types, who are really just opposed to everything like family life, marriage. Let's start with that. I talk about that very positive terms all the time. That's one thing I certainly don't hate. Uh but they're opposed to that. They hate that, you know. And then you try to talk about something a little less serious. Sports, you know, they hate sport. Sports ball.

4:54 They're too cool for that. Any movie or TV show you could possibly name is slop, right? And no hobby they find interesting. No activities at all. just not impressed with anything. Um, total there are times when I try to maybe I'm nerding out a little bit talking about when we talk about um, SpaceX or the latest in space exploration. We talk about that a little bit. Get these same kind of responses from some people. Who cares about that? Who cares? That's slop. Everything is slop. Like literally everything everything on the planet is just slop. Nothing means anything. Everything is bad. Uh just total totally misanthropic. There is another criticism of the spectacle this climb which I think is um which is which is more reasonable a more reasonable critique that we that was that you also saw which is that well it's reckless and suicidal to do this and it's unethical to air it live because part of the

6:00 entertainment value of it let's admit is is the guy going to fall or not. you don't want him to, but that what makes it so captivating is that he might fall. And um and the fact that he doesn't have uh any harness ups the stakes in the ante quite a bit. So there's a reasonable critique that it's just not ethical to do this. And there's a worry that well, now that we've done this and Netflix, I'm sure got I don't know what their viewership numbers were, but they were pretty substantial. Now we're going to have more of this kind of thing. We're done more, you know, stuff where people are risking their lives live on camera for streaming specials.

6:43 But, uh, I understand that critique. I just I don't agree with it, though. I think I think it's good. Um, I think we need examples of men who are willing to take extraordinary risks in pursuit of greatness. Even something like this. And if this leads to kind of a resurgence of the of the Daredevil, you know, Daredevils used to be a thing, you know, is not so much anymore. Yet, evil conval and those kinds of guys and next thing you know, now we're going to have people trying to jump across the Grand Canyon on motorcycles and stuff again. Uh, I think that's good. I I hope that we that that happens because I think we need that and we don't have a lot of examples of that sort of thing anymore. It used to be baked into everyday life, right? You didn't have to like climbing buildings wasn't baked into everyday life, but um living out on the you know just like living everyday life used to come with a certain amount

7:39 of by today's standards significant risk. Living out on the frontier entailed significant risk every hour of the day just as part of life. Living in a tribe somewhere in primitive times there's enormous risk. And now we have a society that insulates us from almost all risk. And at least if you live in a civilized part of the country where the rule of law basically still applies. So not Minneapolis, but if you live somewhere else, then you're kind of insulated from a lot of this stuff. And you need people who are willing to traverse far far outside of that bubble of safety because there's a lot to be learned from their example, a lot of inspiration to be found there. You can show up as your best self this year by actually getting a good night's sleep.

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9:10 for 20% off sitewide. That's helixleep.com/walls for 20% off sitewide. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you. Helixle.com/walsh. I was thinking about this as I was watching this. I mean, you got this guy like I mean he's not actually fearless. We assume he he experiences some kind of fear, but I think to call him fearless actually diminishes the achievement a little bit because if you truly have no fear at all, then well, there's nothing that impressive about doing something dangerous because you just don't experience the fear, right?

9:43 He has the fear, but he's mastered it so much that he's willing to do something that the rest of us like we can't even I could barely he could barely stand to watch it. And yet he's doing it because he's mastered fear to this extent. And for most of human history, you know, 500 years ago, if you had a guy who who had mastered fear to that extent and was willing to take extraordinary risks and face the prospect of his own death and is able to do that so calmly and competently, well, 500 years ago, there were there would have been a lot of useful things for that guy to do. You know, you'd put that there's like jobs in society where you need people like that to do this thing because of how dangerous it is.

10:32 And uh now there's not as much for those kinds of people to do anymore because everything is so relatively comparatively safe. But you still need those guys. And I think it's a good example to have. So I thought it was great. I was very impressed by it.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Was Alex Honnold’s Taipei Skyscraper Climb Actually Unethical?"?

Matt Walsh (Host), Alex Honnold (Guest).

What is "Was Alex Honnold’s Taipei Skyscraper Climb Actually Unethical?" about?

Alex Honnold's recent ascent of Taipei 101, a 1,667-foot skyscraper completed without safety equipment and broadcast live, has sparked a debate about the ethics surrounding extreme solo climbing. While Honnold is celebrated for his remarkable feats, such as his previous free solo of El Capitan, questions arise regarding the potential risks involved and the implications of such high-profile…

What is mentioned in this Matt Walsh episode?

4 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Alex Honnold, Free Solo, Taipei 101. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Was Alex Honnold’s Taipei Skyscraper Climb Actually Unethical?"?

The episode runs 11 min; the transcript is about 1,870 words in 14 timestamped sections.

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