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Notes -
The Titan submersible suddenly became very hot culture war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Titan_submersible_incident
The wikipedia link is quite thorough.
TLDR as of 2023-06-22 000000z seems to be:
5 people are trapped on a submersible that has lost contact with the outside world.
It was trying to visit the wreck of The Titanic.
Major effort rescue is on under way.
They are running out of air in the next couple of hours.
The name of the vessel is Titan (come on, no one can be that brazen, you are tempting fate)
The people are couple of billionaires, explorer, and the CEO of the company
The vessel can be opened only from outside.
The vessel used some off the shelf parts (like a logitech controller) and somewhat exotic materials.
Now comes the culture war
Somewhat lack of empathy for the people there because of their status in the crazier places of the internet.
The way the vessel was built and operated embodied the SV ethos. There are reports that it was not certified or audited by anyone, that the hull testing procedures were not adequate, that the company moved fast and broke things. So right now said ethos is having torn a new one.
Surfaced a recording of the CEO bragging how they don't want to hire 50 years old white guys because they are not inspiring.
To me actually 2 is the most interesting one out there - 1 is just internet being the internet, 3 - if a small error could lead to death - hire the most safety oriented, pedantic and boring people there are to design your product.
But with silicon valley moving more and more prone to overtaking the meatspace - their physical products kinda suck. From smart thermostats to fridges to whatever we actually have degradation of the experience. So I think we are in a rough ride. And the more products they make smarter or move fast - the more human lives will be at stakes.
I'll just draw a brief comparison to my "Skin in the Game" rant from a couple days ago.
We have here a massive contrast to the problem I pointed out with most elite institutions.
In this case, the particular man responsible for the failures put his own life on the line as part of the process.
So, regardless of what else you think of the guy, he didn't slough the consequences of his decisions off on someone else. If they got stuck and had to suffer for days of slowly dwindling oxygen supply, he was down there suffering with them (unless they killed him or he killed himself first).
Compare that to this little bit from the aforementioned rant:
In this case, the CEO willingly put himself into a position where his own survival and comfort would be compromised if the comfort or survival of his customers, riding in his vehicle, depending on his decisions, was compromised. His incompetence, to the extent it impacted the outcome, would impact him as well.
The feedback loop and consequences in this case were pretty much instantaneous. We don't even have to go through a lengthy investigation and trial, nor wait for a vengeful family member to attack him. If the submersible imploded, he died. If they survived for days in agony, he suffered... then died.
And now he has filtered himself out of the system, so whatever bad decisions and processes he may have been following are shown to be defective, and the person pushing those decisions and processes has no more influence.
And, in theory, this should make future incidents of this particular type substantially less likely, so the system as a whole is stronger for his absence, although we can certainly mourn for the people he took with him.
It is utterly untrue that elites have no 'skin in the game'.
Where do elites live? The downtown core of major cities. If violent crime spikes in Manhattan or San Francisco, it's rich people who suffer more than the middle class. Middle class white picket fence Americans don't live in Manhattan, they don't live in downtown SF, they don't live in the Loop in Chicago. They live in safe suburbs that are themselves largely insulated from the effects of elite decisionmaking.
During the pandemic, my rich parents' neighborhood (Greenwich Village, Manhattan) which was and is one of the most expensive zip codes in the country, measurably got worse. They're tough on crime, but by and large, wealthy people in Manhattan voted for the most 'pro justice reform' mayoral candidates. They supported Alvin Bragg for DA. When garbage piles up and homeless people accost them in Washington Square Park, that's the direct impact of deinstitutionalization and 'justice reform'. When upper-middle class whites support affirmative action, they're directly making it harder for their kids to get into top colleges (yes, even with muh legacy admits factored in). I know tons of very wealthy people who truly believe and advocate for higher taxes on themselves. I know plenty who don't, of course. But many do. Rich parts of LA like Santa Monica are full of homeless encampments that directly make the lives of the wealthy people who live there worse. Again, much more skin in the game than in the average safe suburb of a midwestern city.
Sure, the absolute pinnacle of these movements are a little more insulated; I imagine that Alexander Soros has a bodyguard (although that's probably as much because of threats from schizo Qanon types as it is because of random dangers in the city). But in the merely moderately-wealthy segment of the PMC (say the 97th to 99.95th percentiles) there's a lot of skin in the game.
The ordinary rich take the subway in Manhattan. The actual elite do not; they don't really have skin in the game as far as subway crime goes. That includes both the ultra-rich like Soros and the political elite... when's the last time Alvin Bragg took the subway when it wasn't a photo-op?
Does the Manhattan DA get a driver? Bragg’s only making $200k a year and seemingly has no family or business wealth (he’s worked for the state in various capacities for decades), so if he doesn’t I assume he’s taking the subway. I know multiple people who’ve seen de Blasio on the subway, have seen city council members on the subway, those are ‘political elite’ of the city I guess. I doubt Adams takes the subway, but that’s just because he’s a social climber who lives beyond his means.
And in any case, even rich people who don’t take the subway are still affected. My mother doesn’t, but my parents like taking a walk after dinner, like going to the park for long walks on weekends (last time I was there in [edit] December a couple of schizo homeless were ranting incoherently and scaring off tourists by the carousel). They deal with it, I know because they and all their rich friends discuss it all the time.
Yeah I mean when he was public advocate or the borough park councilor, I know the mayor gets a motorcade.
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