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As someone who might have made one of the comments you're referring to: it's important to keep in mind that context is everything. You can risk your life for a good reason, or you can risk your life for a stupid reason. Going to see the wreck of the Titanic in a sub that, apparently, any experienced engineer could have told you was unsafe, seems like a stupid reason to risk your life to me. At the very least, I don't see any particular glory in it.
And anyway, there's nothing particularly adventurous about going to a place that other people have already gone, using technological means that are already well understood. In general, adventures aren't waiting for you "out there" somewhere, in some special place, waiting for any old person to just stumble upon them. If we can speak of such things as "adventure" or "glory", then we must recognize that they arise out of the network of relations that one finds oneself embedded in. The adventures of Napoleon or Caesar weren't grounded in their location in a particular point in space, but rather they were grounded in who they were: what they meant to other people, what they could command of other people, the way they influenced the structure of (symbolic) events that took place around them. It's not the sort of thing you can find by just looking in the right place.
The upshot is that there is absolutely no shortage of adventure to be found on Earth today. I mean my goodness, we're watching the suicide of an entire civilization in real time! People willfully not reproducing, sterilizing their own children, effacing their own culture... it's fascinating. And you know, if the optimists have it right, we stand on the precipice of the automation of all human cognition (i.e. the obliteration of all value and meaning). What could be more adventurous than all of that? It's certainly more interesting than any rock in space, or any hunk of metal at the bottom of the ocean.
What was the long-term business plan of the company? If it was just trying to build a tourist trap for the world's largest ball of yarn but for rich people, I agree that this was stupid, through and through. But if it was pioneering new submersibles that could help us navigate and map the sea floor, defend against military competitors, scout for deep sea mining prospects... I dunno, that's pretty admirable in my view, even if the engineering was dumb dumb dumb.
Their marketing certainly seemed tourist-trap oriented -- I watched the James Cameron interview and he casually noted that nowadays you can just go and buy a sub with your choice of depth rating (up to and including "unlimited") if it's serious work you're interested in.
"Attempting to innovate in a space where all of the problems have already been solved by serious people, but you don't know this because you are not yourself a serious person" is a pretty classic Silicon Valley startup pitfall.
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That's all just a matter of opinion though. You might not find any interest in a "hunk of metal at the bottom of the ocean" but many people clearly do. If the CEO was being truthful about his desire to inspire people, then his submarine could have been a stepping stone to letting the average person view the Titanic with their own eyes, and further beyond, opening the depths of the ocean to occupation and exploitation. History has shown there is plenty of glory in colonization!
What really determines if your risk was stupid? An old saying goes, "if it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid." Likewise, if this Titanic exploration venture worked, would we be calling it stupid?
I do agree there is plenty of adventure to be had today, and as someone who finds "rocks in space" pretty interesting I am participating in the greater efforts to explore and exploit them. Consider my original post a bit of nostalgia.
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