Topic Battle

Mountains demonstrate durability on a scale that renders human timekeeping somewhat irrelevant. The Himalayas have been rising for fifty million years and show no signs of product discontinuation. Erosion rates suggest a typical mountain loses approximately one metre per thousand years, a depreciation schedule no consumer product can match.

The mountain requires no protective case, no insurance policy, and has never been recalled due to manufacturing defects. Granite formations demonstrate compressive strength exceeding 200 megapascals, roughly equivalent to supporting fourteen thousand elephants per square metre, though why one would attempt this remains unclear.

Mountains adapt through geological processes operating on timescales humans struggle to comprehend. Tectonic forces continue pushing the Himalayas upward at five millimetres annually. Glacial erosion reshapes peaks and valleys. Climate changes alter snowlines and vegetation zones across millennia.

However, if conditions change suddenly, mountains cannot pivot to new business models or release emergency software patches. The mountain's adaptability, whilst geologically impressive, operates too slowly to respond to the pressing concerns of any individual organism. A mountain cannot become a valley regardless of market demand.

Mountains provide watershed services supplying fresh water to billions of humans. They influence weather patterns across continents, create agricultural microclimates, and harbour biodiversity hotspots containing species found nowhere else on Earth. Mountainous regions generate hydroelectric power serving hundreds of millions of households.

However, the mountain's daily utility to individual users remains limited. One cannot use a mountain to order takeaway food or check social media during meetings. Mountains do not fit in pockets and cannot photograph cats. Their utility operates on civilisational rather than personal scales.

Mountains have achieved recognition across the entirety of human civilisation. Mount Everest is known to virtually every educated person on Earth. Mountains appear on national flags, currency, postage stamps, and in the founding mythologies of numerous cultures. They have been worshipped as deities, painted by masters, and climbed by thousands seeking transcendence.

The very word 'summit' has become synonymous with achievement itself. Mountains were famous when humans were still figuring out fire. They will likely remain famous long after the concept of 'smartphones' requires archaeological explanation. Their recognition is measured not in market share but in civilisational permanence.

Mountains demonstrate carbon-negative existence, sequestering atmospheric carbon in rock formations over geological timescales. Alpine forests store billions of tonnes of carbon whilst providing oxygen and regulating regional climates. Mountains existed for epochs without contributing to any environmental degradation whatsoever.

The mountain's environmental impact consists primarily of existing and occasionally burying nearby settlements under volcanic ash or avalanche, which scientists categorise as 'natural processes' rather than environmental crimes. Mountains require no factories, no supply chains, and generate no packaging waste requiring recycling.