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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   3169 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 18, 2023

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Forgive me if somebody else has already posted about this. What’s going on with that submarine that tried to tour the titanic wreckage?

Is it a stupid idea in the first place? Is there any chance they’ll be rescued?

I’ve been fascinated by the fact that even the richest among us are only surviving because Mother Earth decided not to crush them today. Seems like these people just had their luck run out, and maybe made a really stupid decision?

The more I read about it, the more idiotic it seems.

First, using the Titanic site as a tourist destination seems a little tacky. It's a gravesite, after all. But hey, Modern Times, make money out of dead men's bones, why not?

Then the details of "billionaire paid to go on trip" and the cost, and the details that they used a repurposed game controller to drive the thing.

Now, maybe that's actually feasible, but somehow it doesn't give me a good impression of the entire operation.

I hope the people are rescued, I don't want any deaths, but I also hope this stops this kind of ghoulish monetisation.

Unless there's government regulation, the deaths will if anything make the whole trip more popular in the future. Risky sports are cool because they are risky, they allow men who never face any required risk to show their mettle. Repeat deaths on Everest have not slowed climbing on the mountain.

Well there is a difference between "risky" and "this is certain death, please sign the waiver form that your family won't sue our asses off when you kick the bucket".

It's a horrible kind of karma that the CEO of the expedition company was on the submersible as well. I'm hoping they're okay but the realistic view is that they're dead by now.

How was it certain death? Hadn't they done quite a few prior dives with the same equipment that didn't result in catastrophe?

In retrospect we can all giggle, but it wasn't certain to fail in advance.

How many is "quite a few"? Vox says this is only their third tourist trip to the Titanic. Other sources say they did "more than 50 test dives" years ago, but of course there's a huge difference between "went underwater" and "went under 3700m of water", and I can't find out how many times they did the latter. They had to rebuild the hull already due to fatigue from testing, and I guess the bright side of that is it's proof they're pushing their tests to some significant depth...

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