What do you think of people making memes/jokes about the recent Titan tragedy?
I mean like even if someone is for example criminal or scumbag they are still human and hoping for someone to die or make jokes of someone's loss of life isn't right. Or does someone think it is justified? I think it's morally wrong.
The way I see it, making jokes about this kind of thing is a fundamentally human reaction. People often react to grim scenarios with humor, consider all the jokes about things like wars that exist- and being trapped in a failing submarine is a pretty grim thought that people might seek to distract themselves from by twisting it into humor. I don't think joking about an event like this that resulted in deaths is the same thing as wishing for people to die, they are, after all, already dead, and uncomfortable as the thought is, the dead are not as far as we can probably know capable of taking offense to anything. There is no possible harm that jokes or anything else can do to them anymore.
Obviously I would consider it pretty rude to joke about it around someone who knew one of the deceased, since you can at least cause emotional distress to those people, but I don't see a problem with joking about it on the general internet.
Another thing to consider is that some of the jokes have been mocking the quality of the sub itself, rather than the people on board (save for the ceo I guess). If you cheap out on stuff and that decision kills people, I think it's perfectly reasonable for people to mock you over it.
We're joking about deaths all the time. The Titanic itself has been used for jokes for decades.
I think the main point of all the jokes in this case is the absurdity of the situation. Like, a bunch of ultimately inconsequential people die in admittedly somewhat weird circumstances and the media seems to go haywire. Nobody should care about this, since it's not more than a weird story for anyone not related to the people. Joking about that is just a way to put the situation into its place, so to speak.
Honestly I do get why it got so much media attention. Media companies exist to make money, to do that they need to get people's attention. Submarines, especially civilian ones that go deep like this, are rare and unusual things, so this story, while of little practical consequence to most, is very good at getting people's interest.
"News" like that is absolutely worthless information, it's just used as a tool to place ads. And for some reason people still click on it? I don't get it. Maybe humans weren't a good idea.
My initial reaction to this comment was to assume you meant you hated the human for falling for the distraction. I was worried at the generalized dehumanization in general, and how difficult that might make meaningful interaction for you in real life.
But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that hating the news corp and it's almost parasitic need to feed on human attention in order to make money wasn't just what you intended, but an interesting way of looking at it. I've had that thought before but never in a conscious way. So thank you for moving that idea into a place where I can more readily interact with it.
Honestly, I just don't care. You don't become a billionaire ethically, and they happened to spend their riches on something so incredibly stupid, when others around the world are suffering because of their existence.
Like yes it's sad for their families and such... But the conversation has revolved around this submarine instead of focusing on, I don't know, that migrant ship that capsized and killed like 500 people.
More so as >300 out of those 500 are believed to be Pakistani nationals trying to flee the worst economic crisis their country has seen in decades while the son of a Pakistani businessman felt compelled to splurge that kind of money on a bonding exercise.
I'm on the fence about it. On the one hand, the memes (at least the ones I've seen) were heavily influenced by the article in The Atlantic a week ago about orcas attacking yachts, tapping into the justified vein of resentment against out-of-touch billionaires - a label which can apply to three of those on board the Titan. The fact that these people paid $250,000 each to go down and sit near a shipwreck that they couldn't see (portholes would be a dangerous pressure-point) instead of using that money to actually benefit humanity in a time of widespread hardship is questionable at best - and what does the company they gave this money to spend those millions of dollars on? Obviously not quality-controlled safety tests.
On the other hand, there is the human dimension of the teenage son who was terrified about the trip and only went as a Father's Day bonding experience with his rich dad, or the French naval expert who was genuinely knowledgeable about the Titanic and had recovered many artifacts from the wreck over his life, which represents a genuine loss of expertise.
So I smile when I see the pic of orcas banging pans and saying "billionaires, it's safe to dive now!" But I don't go out of my way to find those memes or exult over the deaths.
I came here just to get a measure of how toxic the Lemmy community was going to be and I love that you didn’t disappoint. This is probably the most refreshing dispute I’ve read in a while. Even the most extreme on either side, are mostly speaking their opinions without directing hate at the others contributing to the conversation. Thank you for this!
I think it's risky if you live in the UK. We have a law called the Communications Act which has broad powers banning posting of anything which is 'grossly offensive'. It's entirely up to a court to decide what is 'grossly offensive' on a case-by-case basis.
Now that I know they likely died quick and also didn’t have long to wait before it happened, I really have very little sympathy for them, though more for the son. I’m sure they realistically aren’t all bad, and some of the things they have done are probably somewhat valuable, plus I’m sure not all of their family members are assholes so I feel for them, but they are still absolute morons for getting on that thing, and it’s likely they did far more harm than good before they died. If it was slow, that would be different, as IMO no one deserves that. It’s not like dying slowly would have made them less rich, or less dumb anyway after all. At this point though, yeah, fire away as far as I’m concerned.
It's fine. We all deal with tragedy in different ways. If my death makes people laugh, I would approve...just please make it far, fast, fast from tomorrow!
When it comes to tragedies, the number of fucks I give for the victims follows a simple formula.
I start with a billion fucks. Then I subtract the combined net worth of the people affected by the tragedy. The result is how many fucks I give about their tragedy.
For this one, I'm at about negative three billion fucks.
Making jokes is how people cope with tragic events.
This is why there is the on-going debate, that no topic should ever be unavailable to joke about.
I remember that the very same day that Princess Diana died, people were saying "Died in anasty accident" and that was before the days of the internet being popular, that was a joke that spread around the country by text message.
It's dark comedy for a tragically comic situation.
By definition, I'd say all of the jokes are in very poor taste, which is what makes them so funny. The specifics of this particular tragedy practically call out for grim comedy: Safety shmafety, Logitech, Blink 182 getting sucked into the spotlight, etc.
I do think that all the chatter about the disaster has underscored some critically important points:
Billionaires are just as stupid as everyone else. They are not exceptional people in any way.
If you're not a deep sea oceanography expert of any sort, you should keep your undersea adventures to much shallower waters.
"Hey Personal Assistant, can you give me the dirt sheet on this submarine company? I'm thinking of visiting the Titanic." Would have saved lives. Those tickets to an undersea adventure were a quarter of a million dollars per seat. I've done better due diligence buying a ukulele online than these halfwits.
I've done it myself, so I clearly have no problem with it myself. Gallows humor is in poor taste, but billionaires don't give a damn about random schlubs like myself, so that indifference is reciprocated.
Plus... plus. It was fucking stupid to take a tiny submarine hundreds of feet underwater to explore a 100 year old sunken relic. The tragedy of the Titanic is well documented! If you want to see it up close, we have remotely controlled drones with cameras for that! Or just watch a damn documentary on the History Channel, on those rare moments when they SHOW history on the History Channel. The sub situation just smacks of senseless, self-destructive hedonism. It's like getting a raccoon for a pet, then lamenting that your new pet just crawled into your child's crib and snacked on her face for a while. Yes. It's a wild animal. This could easily have been anticipated and prevented if you just used some common sense.
Thank you for caring about safety! I agree with you. I'll add my two cents about Rush: I find it interesting that he must have believed it was safe. I think I take solace that he died doing this, believing his own bullshit. I'd hate to think of him living his life when he sent others knowingly to their grave. If anyone deserved to suffer the consequences of his decisions, it is him.
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