Standing 29,032 feet above sea level in between Nepal and Tibet, Mount Everest is the world’s highest peak. It’s also still growing. While there’s a push-pull dynamic at work in its vertical expansion — plate tectonics push it further into the sky at the same time that erosion does the opposite — the mountain gets about 4 millimeters (0.16 inches) taller per year on average. That means it’s actually growing at a slightly slowerrate than many of its Himalayan counterparts, some of which are rising about 10 millimeters (0.4 inches) each year.

buy disulfiram disulfiram At least 4,000 people have summited Mount Everest since 1953, although precise numbers vary depending on the source. It’s getting increasingly expensive to do so, however; the average cost is about $45,000 per person, and some spend as much as $160,000 on travel, guides, food, and equipment. There are also growing concerns that expeditions up the mountain, which have increased in recent years, are having a negative impact. Both the crowds and the waste they leave behind degrade the mountain, and some have suggested it may be time to cease climbing the summit completely. Even so, adventurous spirits remain called to summit the highest peak on the planet — and will likely continue to feel that way for a long time to come.

News used to inform our opinions. We consumed information, dissected it, and formed our opinions.

Social media has turned this process upside down. Now, we are informed by opinions, and form our news within digital echo chambers.

Take a look at the Facebook algorithm. It feeds us what we already believe. It prioritizes engagement over truth, making sensationalism more valuable than accuracy.

Look at Twitter. Hashtags replace headlines, and the most outrageous statements get the most retweets. Nuance is dead, buried under 280 characters of biased nonsense.

Consider the anti-vaccine movement. Social media platforms allowed pseudoscience to flourish. Opinions from unqualified influencers were given the same weight as peer-reviewed studies. The result? A public health crisis driven by ignorance and fear. And more than 500 Americans still die from it annually.

News outlets aren’t innocent either. We’ve adapted to this twisted arithmetic, prioritizing clicks over credibility. Headlines are crafted for shock value, not truth. Opinion pieces are passed off as hard news, blurring the lines between fact and fiction.

Social media has democratized the news, but at what cost? The marketplace of ideas has turned into a flea market of absurdity. We’ve traded informed debate for viral outrage.

We can reclaim our news. It’s time to consider funding news outlets the way we do libraries, which are experiencing their own rebirth. We have to treat news similarly. Truth should never cost money.

So demand it. Otherwise, we remain trapped in this perverted cycle where opinion reigns supreme and truth is left to fend for itself.