There is something perfectly broken about the modern world, and you could see it clearly this Sunday in Taipei during the **Alex Honnold Taipei 101 climb**. Honnold, a man who seems allergic to the very concept of safety, decided to scale one of the **tallest buildings in Asia** without a rope. He did this without a harness. He did this because **Netflix** had cameras rolling and because, apparently, regular life is just not terrifying enough for some people.

Let’s optimize our perspective on what actually happened here. A human being spent an hour and a half clinging to the side of the **Taipei 101 skyscraper**. This is a building that stands 1,667 feet tall. It is a giant stack of glass and steel designed for banking, finance, and selling expensive things. It is a monument to money. And here comes Mr. Honnold, using his bare hands to pull himself up the metal beams, treating a center of global commerce like a backyard tree.

He says he did it because “time is finite.” That is the quote. It sounds deep, doesn’t it? It sounds like a high-intent keyword on a poster in a dentist's office. But think about it. If time is so short, why spend ninety minutes of it hanging off a building where one slip means you become a stain on the sidewalk? Most of us spend our finite time doing laundry or sitting in traffic. We don't risk death just to feel alive. But this is the new religion of the bored and famous. They must dance on the edge of the grave to feel anything at all.

The spectacle was a **Netflix live stream**, of course. That is the most important part for the metrics. If a man climbs a tower and nobody watches it on a streaming service, did he really climb it? We sat on our couches, safe and soft, watching a man risk his life. It is the modern version of the Roman Colosseum. We don't send people to fight lions anymore. We just pay them to climb very tall things and wait to see if gravity wins. It is grim. It is a little bit sick. And we cannot look away.

The climb was supposed to happen on Saturday, but it rained. This is my favorite part of the story. Even the daredevil has to check the weather report. It adds a funny layer of bureaucracy to the death wish. "I am going to defy the laws of nature and conquer this beast," he says, "but not if it is drizzling." It reminds us that this is a production. It is a show. It is managed risk for our entertainment.

Honnold is famous for his movie **"Free Solo,"** where he climbed a mountain without ropes. A mountain is nature. It is wild. Climbing a skyscraper is different. It is a man conquering a cage built by other men. He pulled himself up by the window ledges and the architectural flourishes. He was intimate with the structure of a building most people only see from the inside while filing paperwork. There is a dark irony in that. He is free on the outside of the prison, while everyone else is trapped safe on the inside.

In the end, he made it to the top. He fulfilled his ambition. He inspired people, supposedly. But inspired them to do what? Climb their own office buildings? Quit their jobs? No. We will just watch the next episode. We will watch the next stunt. We will stare at the screen, eating our snacks, while someone else lives on the edge. Honnold climbs to feel like his time matters. The rest of us watch him to forget that our time is slipping away, minute by minute, in front of a television. The circus is over. The clown didn't fall. Go back to work.

### References & Fact-Check * **Primary Source**: [Alex Honnold free solos Taipei 101 skyscraper in live Netflix climb](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jan/24/alex-honnold-free-solo-taipei-101-netflix) (The Guardian) * **Event Context**: The climb took place on the 1,667ft Taipei 101 tower, officially ranked among the world's tallest buildings. * **Media**: The event was broadcast live on Netflix as a major streaming spectacle.