Himal Gautam, the director of Nepal’s tourism department, which is responsible for regulating expeditions on the nation’s mountains, said in an interview that using the gas was “against climbing ethics,” and that it would hurt the country’s tourism industry and the Sherpas who help climbers by reducing their time on the mountain.

In that Everest is basically a garbage dump now - oxygen bottles, toilet paper and bodies litter the main paths, I'm not real sure how they can argue an "ethics" perspective. Less time on mountain should result in less pollution, so I'd think that would be a good thing.

Reading about the lamentations of previous record holders regarding a new technique to drastically reduce the time spent climbing the mountain reminds me of video game speed runners crying "glitch" or "hacks" whenever someone figures out a better way.

They are bitching because some dudes where able to reduce altitude acclimatization. This is a natural process for a healthy person, its not a feat of strength. Acclimatization time really shouldn't be included it the climb time for record purposes.

Its the age old story of man getting in the way of improvement to preserve his own accolades. Also known as "Resting on laurels".

This is occasionally done by businesses, and they always enter a death spiral when it happens. (The fall of Blockbuster Video is a great example of this)

Innovation/technological breakthroughs occur and is best to roll with them (within reason) rather than outright reject them.

Hope they know where the gas is being produced. If they're getting it from unvetted sources, it could be xenon 135 which is radioactive

Interesting. Hope it doesn’t lead to mass tourism