It's so funny watching libs gasp and clutch pearls
They don't seem to understand where wealth comes from, they just see it as people who happen to be rich and might not be bad people. Possibly because they aren't poor themselves or are just naive.
You've got people like me and others on this website who are openly laughing, joking and celebrating about this news. Probably not the mainstream perspective I'm sure.
You've got a huge portion of the general public which seems to be saying "yeah that sucks but it has absolutely no effect on my life"
Actually crying and posting about it to defend these poor misunderstood men is the absolute home of EXTREMELY middle class, New York Times reading regional sales managers.
We're all just temporarily embarassed quadrillionaires and any day now our long hours and hard work will get us one of those many mansions. Any day now....surely before we turn 60. Just a round the corner now. Been working 60hr+ weeks and two jobs. It's like the publishers clearing house. Can't get there if you don't put it in. Seriously got all these bang up ideas when that 10x lord's blessing comes to futraition. All in the good lord's time. Not sure how I'm going to pay for this cancer treatment, but thank the Good Lord Jesus we stopped that evil commie Bernie from getting in.
People don't think, "oh fuck them, they're billionaires that died doing something inherently dangerous." They think, "what a horrifying way to spend the final hours or days of your life." Yeah I think it probably imploded and they died days ago, but I think the 24 hour news channels are treating this as content. So people are just being told that the search continues for the missing sub. Normal people have been imagining normal people in a pitch black tube without food or water, waiting for days to suffocate.
They have a hours of oxygen left counter in the corner on cnn
https://www.reddit.com/r/submarines/comments/14f9lgi/this_makes_me_sick_news_outlets_have_a_countdown/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
You can also think both things, there is no need to reconcile the thoughts. I think that's a horrible way to die and also I only really feel bad for the 19 year old kid. The same way I don't want to see people get shot, but I'm also not crying for the Tsar.
The kid is more an Anastasia, not entirely un-tragic, but there's something disgusting about focusing massive sympathy on one rich kid while ignoring untold suffering of others.
I've never actually seen that movie, but the kid originally wasn't even supposed to be on it. I do wonder if his dad made him/bullied him into it. I don't really hold children in the same regards as their parents. I think everyone is just fascinated because it's so rare and stupid. Balloon boy wasn't rich and that was all over the news.
Speaking as someone who is 100% against the death penalty and any sort of human suffering as punishment, even for the most evil billionaires and unfathomably cruel war criminals - no one forced them to get into the death tube. So many people (who are infinitely more innocent) die from similar suffering every day that I really can't be bothered to feel bad for a billionaire and sketchy submarine tour business owner when they fall victim to their own hubris. It sucks for their families, especially the ones that were suckered into the sub trip, but the world will be an objectively better place with these people removed from it.
Leftists are correctly pointing out that when a boat carrying migrants capsizes in the Mediterranean and kills hundreds, the response from white folks and western media ranges from mostly silence to “well they shouldn’t have gotten into a dangerous boat and tried to come to Europe iLlEgAlLy”.
At first sight there's a point to be made here about trust in institutions that you'd think "Well surely if this was dangerous it wouldn't be allowed" or something, like if this was a tourist dive bell that went wrong I'd argue I wouldn't get in it because I have 0 trust in institutions but your average person, yeah sure.
Hell I'd extend that even to the "in case of death we ain't owe you shit" waiver as those seem way too common. But at the point where it says "the submarine is not tested or certified by any regulatory body" in plain text and you don't have some sort of mental disability that's on you, that's entirely of on you, if the words "untested, unregulated submarine" don't register to you as "stay clear" there's nobody left to blame and also it's hilarious
"untested, unregulated submarine"
And there's this - Titanic Sub Avoided Safety Rules by Diving in International Waters: Experts
Maritime law is a gift to business.
I think of how Michael Jackson went through a bunch of doctors that told him no until he found the last. At some point these guys break through every guard rail right until it sent them to Davey Jones Locker in a ready-made coffin. The insidious thing is how this much concentrated wealth (and markets in general) are the ultimate Yes-Man that shapes the whole social fabric these individuals inhabit, right up until it kills them.
This has got to be the singular worst possible way to go out. Dehydrated and starving in a cramped space, while being forced to cuddle with other people in a freezing and pitch-black location while also living in your own piss and shit (and smelling others as well) and knowing that without a miracle you suffocate in a matter of hours. 🫢
Also the CEO is on board? He ain't coming back alive
Weird I just remembered when Amazon workers were forced to piss themselves because the CEO said they weren't allowed restroom breaks. Dunno why that suddenly popped into my head.
When I worked at Amazon during the onboarding bullshit someone in the group asked about the piss bottles and one of the managers said that definitely didn't happen. Like motherfucker the report wasn't even on the same side of the ocean, how would you know.
It's far more likely that the carbon fiber hull tore and ruptured, or the seals broke catastrophically. They're incredibly dead.
From what I've read, they would have heard an instantaneous implosion on the boat because the energy released would have been immense and sound travels very well through water.
Were they listening though? I feel you, but there is reason to doubt that that sort of corner wasn't cut as well.
There's this youtube channel that does underwater sounds and submarine tracking. They had the sound of the Kursk imploding and it was creepy AF.
From what we know about how sketchy the whole thing was I think the CEO should probably be glad he's in there too
So many tragedy sites are much safer and less expensive to visit. Hiroshima, Nazi death camps, Pompeii, the New Jersey field where the Hindenburg came down. It's the hubris that's funny and no need to apologize for that.
They're literally going to look at the wreckage from the classic event of Hubris and Boat Lead To Deaths In The Ocean, a story that has been retold for a hundred years, in a poorly designed submersible driven by a guy that thinks this is easy and simple. It's perfect.
The irony is so rich it became the 6th passenger and weighed the whole submersible down.
Well, it's not about the safety and expense. It's about the status that's accrued from doing it.
They're living at the apex of Maslow's Heirarchy. They've bought everything they ever wanted and besides. All that's left is experiences. And what better an experience than an abyssal plain where lay the legendary Titanic? Maybe they could loot some bodies. I've heard the wreck site is pretty picked over by now.
Honestly what's funny is a I bet so many wanted to do this and be able to tell off James Cameron. Like mfers the man studied years and took deep sea diving seriously while your ass went into a metal tube piloted with a cheap offbrand Logitech joystick (couldn't even splurge for a ps4 controller!), ya fuck around and now you found out via violent decompression.
Maybe they could loot some bodies
do not open a door on a submarine 4 kilometers under the sea
I always thought it sucked that the Hindenburg ended the golden age of airships. Now that was a way to travel. Look, just don't create the skin out of a bomb and you'll be fine!
That's only marginally less chance to see thing that went wrong than with this dive apparently
yeah that sounds like visting a field in new Jersey which isn't that interesting
speaking as someone who is 100% pro shooting everyone with a net worth over 5 million - i'm pogging out of my fucking gourd
I would feel bad if it wasnt so self inflicted like the CEO in the sub just firing people who pointed out that DIY ass sub is unsafe.
Makes sense. The average person is a civility-poisoned centrist who couldn’t care less about wealth and power
Nah dude, the average person is like (knitting while watching guillotines) "whoa look at those heads roll, I might disagree with Robespierre about some things but his reign of terror is based"
Judging by the sheer volume of submarine memes in my work chat this is indeed the case
Oh but they could - wealth to them is evidence of worth. If you have doubts just ask them what we should do about homelessness
It’s all about the framing which is why media orgs are such a good weapon
Honestly if somebody's made it to adulthood without considering that it's only the powerful whose stories get spread in a way that's backed by any power, then they effectively hate poor people. I don't really care what's going on in their heads. When the chips are down, they'll be clamoring to round up "undesirables" and still crying whenever a rich person stubs their toe, all because they paid someone to write sensationally about it
I live in a very fashy town in the deep south of the US - They hate poor people almost as much as they hate queer or brown people
Yeahhhh this com is a nice place to go to get away from hell for a second but you gotta remember hell is still a reality when you get back . Chances are the most lukewarm opinion about inequality is gonna set off a vuvuzeula 100 trillion button. It’s instinctive at this point
Oh yes. I've got a coworker whose daughter works at Walmart, and a while back she was explaining their points-algorithm for deciding when you get fired. Her concern was that her daughter would be fired for being in the hospital too much too soon.
I figured it was a given that she'd think the algorithm deciding whether her sick daughter keeps her job was dehumanizing - No. Nope, apparently Walmart has to protect their interests
It’s stuff like this that makes me cackle at anyone who uses the word “authoritarian”
Like, you clearly don’t care about authoritarianism if you’re not pushing back against this dystopian bullshit. I’m convinced that people, for whatever reason, just don’t know what’s in their best interest
Lol yeah, any time I get involved in a conversation about the scary authoritarian hOrDeS it seems to get derailed when I lay into the other person about the number of bombs we drop, the portion of our population we cage, the way we have established procedures for destroying all shelter for the many people we force to sleep outside, the fact that we've done one or more federal operations titled Operation [racial slur], and on, and on
For average people knowing what's in their best interest, Einstein has a pretty good quote about it
[...] The result of [private capital's tendency to concentrate] is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.
any time I get involved in a conversation about the scary authoritarian hOrDeS it seems to get derailed when I lay into the other person about the number of bombs we drop, the portion of our population we cage, the way we have established procedures for destroying all shelter for the many people we force to sleep outside, the fact that we've done one or more federal operations titled Operation [racial slur], and on, and on
In my experience, this doesn’t seem to matter much to people, offline or online. I feel like I’ll never pinpoint it, but for some reason carpet bombing random people across the world (even non-defensively) is nothing compared to being mean to people who have an incalculable amount of wealth and who gets to eat/decide whether life will continue on this planet. I’m really not even sure how people argue against this. We have full knowledge that this hasn’t always been how the world has operated, how people have reacted with force and it’s like it’s mythical or something. It’s truly maddening.
I've been pretty fascinated by that too. I'm not a big theory reader outside of a little Marx and shit, but I heard enough interesting stuff about Frantz Fanon's writing to draw me to his book Wretched of the Earth, and had this to say in his preface for European readers:
But, you will say, we live in the mother country, and we disapprove of her excesses. It is true, you are not settlers, but you are no better. For the pioneers belonged to you; you sent them overseas, and it was you they enriched. You warned them that if they shed too much blood you would disown them, or say you did, in something of the same way as any state maintains abroad a mob of agitators, agents provocateurs and spies whom it disowns when they are caught. You, who are so liberal and so humane, who have such an exaggerated adoration of culture that it verges on affectation, you pretend to forget that you own colonies and that in them men are massacred in your name. Fanon reveals to his comrades above all to some of them who are rather too Westernized — the solidarity of the people of the mother country and of their representatives in the colonies.
I mean they had families and loved ones. As a human you feel for them. This does not relate to my political opinions
Stg if I get called a lib because I said people dying is sad for their families
Hitler had a family, but that doesn't mean I can't be happy about the death of a tyrant.
Irrelevant to what I said.
they had families and loved ones. As a human you feel for them. This does not relate to my political opinions
I get what you're saying, but they would not hesitate to use their status to bring in systemic violence that harms your loved ones and others
You're probably right. One of them was just a guy who dedicated his life to researching the titanic, and hence works for the company that owns the wreck. I think we'll be safe from him at least.
The guy who is the vice-chair of a petrochemical company is befit of a tho. He'll be immediately replaced. Hope his teenage son isn't too bothered with the unexpected early death of his father.
The Titanic guy was a navy officer that now works for a company that has privatized something of historical interest but yeah he probably deserves it the least.
I see what you mean but these people should have died long ago or never existed as they do in the first place. Where they got to was paved with skulls and human suffering, its okay they die.
I'm not torn up about it lol, all I said was that I feel for the kids who had their dads die. That's not a political statement. It has no meaning apart from "my first thought was that it's sad for their families". Maybe I didn't communicate that well, seeing the responses.
Here is my political opinion which is probably in line with 99% of the people on this site: "lol, lmao even." Individuals don't make history nor a system of oppression and this doesn't change anything, but it is funny.
Feeling empathy for them doesn't make you a lib, only scolding people for joking about it would do that
Do you think they cared about the families and loved ones of all the folks they exploited to get where they are?
Yeah, that's what I thought. But you have changed my mind, and gave me this world-shifting insight. I thank you, death to all submarines!
Am I really that unclear or are people trying to see things I didn't say
You're showing empathy for people who don't have empathy, or people related to people who don't have empathy.
And you know that's great. Very mature of you. So let's all forget the immense and very purposeful suffering many of us are under every single day so we can mourn a few dead assholes who put us here in the first place because their families might be sad.
I don't wanna mourn them, but your comment was helpful. Now I get it — people have a feeling of Schadenfreude because they transfer their pain onto these people, since they are part of the class that sustains the oppression.
Personally I just thought it was funny that rich people died aboard a nautical vessel next to the wreck of a nautical vessel on which, famously, rich people died.
Yep, that's basically it. They profit off of my suffering and the suffering of those I love. I'm happy to vent some of that pain back onto them.
We did it
Empathy is automatic for many people and cannot simply be turned off, even if they are dealing with someone who doesn't deserve it.
Wdym? It's 4 guys. They aren't the people that sustain the oppression, they're part of that class. Global communism won't be established the moment their life support runs out (but , you know, )
they had families and loved ones
woke neoliberals: "Margaret Thatcher is right! There is no such thing as society, there are only individuals and families...noooo you can't call me a 'class traitor' simply because I obscure bourgeois dictatorship"
I'll chime in and say that I do get where you're coming from. I've come around to a philosophy of - if not universal love - then some measure of universal compassion (easier to do when you don't really believe in free will). I used to get off way more on crab-party-bad-people-dead-schadenfreude stuff (and still have my moments from time to time) but I realized it didn't make sense for me or do me any good and also was kind of a sad & impotent vent for my own powerlessness. That said I also believe in protecting yourself in a world full of harmful people and I don't believe in expending unnecessary emotional bandwidth for people who actively make the world worse if it costs you any amount of excess mental or emotional energy, because yeah oppression bad, capitalists (especially billionaires) bad, certain people would need to be sent back into the universe (if u catch my drift) who are too dangerous to keep around in a revolutionary scenario (something I see as an unfortunate - even tragic - reality rather than something to get off on).
I guess tl:dr is its fine (maybe even good) to feel a certain baseline empathy for these ppl, but its also fine to indulge the schadenfreude if that's where you're at. Also there's a certain undeniable gallows Loony Tunes comedy to the specific way they got got, hard to argue with that simply objectively.
feel a certain baseline empathy for these ppl,
That's all my comment was, saying that my first emotional reaction to the news was empathy. Ig my bad for not expounding all of my thoughts on the topic (which you did do, and thanks for taking the time), which left some people to fill in the blanks. For example, I didn't mention my second emotional response, which was "LMAO"
Ya I getchu homie, & my pleasure. Chachat is better than most social media but it can still be hard to explore nuance or contradiction in internet discourses and there's a certain amount of kneejerk debate mentality baked into this whole internet thing we've got goin that can be hard to shake.
I mean they had families and loved ones
Hamish Harding's stepson seems very concerned so far
Sometimes I feel like the discourse around people dying is a little too callous. If we're talking about Kissinger or something then yeah, fuck that guy and I hope he dies. I can even see the humor in this submarine situation, paying all that money to die in the world's sketchiest sub. Pretty ridiculous and easy to see coming.
I do kinda feel like people get caught up in the moment and start posting without really thinking about it. I'm as guilty as anyone of this. I'd feel pretty lousy if I were one of these guys kids or something though. In the grand scheme of things, losing people like this isn't anywhere near as sad as so, so much of what else is happening in the world. Just wonder if celebrating death to a certain extent is unhealthy though.
I heard one of them brought his 20 year old son on board which made me kind of sorry for his kid
Some people try to bring up crew members but apparently theres literally one single guy there piloting the sub and the rest are paying customers.
And Idk, yeah its difficult to quit a job over security concerns and all that but I feel like when the security concerns are less permanent injury or burn damage, and more "dying at the bottom of the sea because of obvious incompetent sub design and construction" you just have to put your own security first and find a less dangerous job.
Lmaoooooo thats even funnier then.
Edit: I swear every time someone tries to add a new guilt tripping detail it turns out to be just funny. "Oh theres a literal teenager on board, how about that Mr Heartless?" and then it turns out the teenager is fucking 19 years old and there with his dad, whos a literal personal friend of the Bri'ish king.
His name is STOCKTON RUSH
HOW IS THAT A REAL NAME
EVERY DAMN TIME
Apparently it’s a combination of the last names of two of his muh ancestors who signed the declaration of independence
tbf being the son of an evil billionaire doesn't make you an evil billionaire, he definitely doesn't deserve to die, maybe reeducated, but i couldn't give less shits about the other passengers
Not to be all WELL AKCHUALLY on you, but what you're talking about isn't leisure, it's hedonism. And decadence. Hedonism becomes meaningless fairly early, and decadence sounds fun until you realize the root of the word is decay.
Everything I learn about this story makes it funnier and also more terrifying that it was ever possible
I wish there was a more sustainable way to bring rich assholes to the bottom of the ocean. How about a 100% electric ocean elevator running on solar power?
Death is bad and all but I can't help but laugh when it's as a result of such complete hubris. Like Steve Jobs dying because he decided to try and treat his curable cancer he caught in an early stage by changing his diet, despite what every doctor he met told him.
Is that ghoulish? Probably, but at least I'm not dead because I crawled into a septic tank with a porthole cut into it.
I mean mortality is dealt ghoulishly by everyone. On one hand, this was nothing more than hubris and these people believing they were above death. The CEO in that sub probably fired a whole team to pay for this expedition and was going to use this experience to show off to his buddies American Psycho style. The OceanGate CEO thought he was above everyone and knew less than he led. I bet if you took ten people off the street and asked them to go down in this thing, 90% would say, "fuck that," as they saw the Jimmy-rigged septic tank. There is humor here because all of these people's hubris got in the way of actually thinking about the situation they were about to embark upon. But on the other, you got these people watching ISIS beheading videos, animal torture, or Narco torture videos telling us to "give respect" or "the Channel 5 documentary is too soon." Like motherfucker, I have grown up in a time when there were videos of helicopters shooting Uranium bullets at a '78 Corolla and then the segment ends as a Mcdonald's "I'm loving it" commercial comes on. But CHUDs can't think critically. They see war footage and do not give it a second thought. "It's what they deserve" is usually their answer. Meanwhile, all we are doing is humanizing someone who believed they were above it all. It's no different than realizing that there is humor in knowing that these people are all going to end up on the ground and there is nothing they can do. No matter how much money they spend to keep their lives going by having blood boys, making a Metaverse or going to space.
The CEO in that sub probably fired a whole team to pay for this expedition
you don't make money by firing people you make money by hiring people and getting them to produce value in excess of their wages
I do have some natural sympathy for someone trapped in a tin can at the bottom of the sea but it is tempered by them having 100% brought this upon themselves and also being terrible