Resolves YES if Honnold retires from climbing or stops free-soloing even if he continues climbing by other methods (free climbing with belay or other assistance, aid climbing, bouldering, etc.). If he doesn't stop before his death then this resolves to NO.
Clarification on possible cases (11/29/23):
Honnold says in an interview or on social media or anywhere public that he will no longer free solo and he does not free solo for at least a month afterwards: YES
Honnold stops free soloing for strictly more than one year without having expressly commented on his plans or committed to another major project: YES. If he does not solo for a year but says he hasn’t decided to stop, this is insufficient for a resolution. If he does not solo and hasn’t said anything about it, this is sufficient.
Honnold dies before meeting any of the above conditions: NO
My assessment of whether the conditions are met will be based on the a range of information: interviews, social media, and footage of his climbs. I will only resolve YES if I have sufficient reason to think he has actually stopped free-soloing and has not explicitly or implicitly suggested that he was done with it.
Here's Wikipedia on solo climbing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solo_climbing?wprov=sfti1
And here's Alex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Honnold?wprov=sfti1
Related questions
@MartinRandall if he hasn't free soloed for a year then this resolves YES. I'm probably not going to check on him regularly, but I'm expecting that it'll be clear if and when there is a last free solo climb that is not followed immediately by death. Below I said that, if he announced he'd stop, I'd wait about month to make sure he follows through. One year is on the safe side.
@NicoDelon Just to clarify - when you say "if he hasn't free soloed for a year then this resolves YES", is that specifically in the example Martin brought up where he's died, or a general rule you'd use to determine whether he's stopped doing free-solo ascents? That would shift my perspective quite a bit.
Personally, in this context I wouldn't have said a year of not doing a thing means you've stopped doing the thing; to say you've stopped doing the thing requires you to have made a conscious choice not to do the thing, and the only way we'll know about that is via an announcement of some sort. He mentioned in the article you linked that he has alternated 2 yearish blocks of soloing then expeditions; I wouldn't have said he stopped soloing during the expedition blocks just because he wasn't doing it.
@CanlumNodel That’s fair. How about judging it, after a year if such a hiatus happens, based on the balance of evidence? So, asking e.g.: is he still actively climbing? Has he spoken about it in interviews? Has he been away from free soloing because of other major projects? Etc.
@CanlumNodel @MartinRandall I have added a bit of clarification in the description. Do you both think this covers most if not all of the hard cases? Since it is less obvious than than I anticipated I will sell my shares and no longer trade in the market.
@NicoDelon I think what you've put in the description is clear for almost all cases, and a reasonable interpretation of the original question (despite being a little different from how I'd interpretted it).
This is probably getting petty at this stage, but just to niggle a little more on the year thing - I think knowing that he hasn't free soloed in over a year is hard; I'd guess a lot of his solos are just something he goes out and does with no one knowing. So presumably the criteria for determining he hasn't free soloed for a year is him saying so, or otherwise credible information saying so, rather than just an absence of solo videos etc coming out for a year? I'm also assuming based on the criteria in the description that if he says in an interview that he hasn't soloed in a year but in the same interview says he hasn't given up soloing, the market still resolves yes, unless he also states in the same interview(?) that he's currently training toward a specific solo project?
It wouldn't bother me if you continued to trade in the market, I think it's very likely this will either not resolve for 50 years or will resolve very definitively with him publicly quitting or dying, but as you like. :)
@CanlumNodel Good, that’s helpful. I’ll definitely have to put the pieces together based on interviews, videos, social media, and whatnot. My guess is, if he stops, we’ll know. And I won’t resolve hastily just based on an absence of footage of him free-soloing. As to what he says vs what he does, his words will have priority. So if he says he hasn’t retired, I’ll trust him. I’ve slightly edited the second case to capture that.
I wouldn't say he's retired from free soloing since his daughter was born. but he's certainly hinted at a much less risky approach to climbing.
https://www.mensjournal.com/entertainment/alex-honnold-interview
@Jotto999 If he says he’ll stop and appears seriously committed to stopping then I’ll count that as YES. Doesn’t matter if he changes his mind years later. I’ll probably wait a month or so to make sure he follows through.