While fucked up, it’s disinguinuous suggest that the news is blowing up only due to the fact that they’re billionaires. While large boat disasters are fairly uncommon, how often do you hear of a submarine disaster. Especially one where the inhabitants are missing but potentially on a timer - trapped in a submarine with no way to open from the inside, many peoples ultimate fear. The story writes itself, pile on what seems to be a neglectful company and you’ve got a story people are going to be invested in. I don’t think the coverage or the search and rescue would be any different if it were a scientific submarine with scientists.
Yeah, having a shittily built submarine for a billionaire to visit the most famous shipwreck in the world while then joining those who died there 100 years ago, is a pretty unique story that we'll now always remember whenever we talk about the titanic.
There’s a real irony in naming your submarine after a shipwreck, neglecting all safety devices like the shipwreck, and talking about how the hull was indestructible.
There's a lot of complaining about, "why is news covering these billionaires, there's nothing tragic about their circumstance" versus "you'd have to be heartless not to sympathize with such a horrifying fate"
But the real villain here is our morbid curiosity. It has nothing to do with sympathy nor classism. Dozens drowning by relatively conventional means? Eh people die every day, whatever. A family dying in a particularly bizarre and agonizing manner? Oooh let's think about and discuss in detail what their final moments may be like! We can dress it up in hate or dress it up in kindness, but the real reason anybody is interested is that it's just a weird way to die.
The world is a stage and we love a good horror story.
The awful truth is that migrants drowning on the sea crossing to Europe or to the UK is mundane. It happens regularly, so it's not news. A sub drowning near the Titanic is newsworthy.
Also it's unfair to compare it to the migrant story. Most Americans and Europeans are very hateful towards people from MENA so they are either indifferent or supportive of such "accidents". Obviously they are going to care more about some rich idiots literally crushed by their own hubris.
It would absolutely be different if it were scientists. The memes about billionaires and the sub are all over the place. Bezos should go on a sub and explore the titanic too and all that shit.
The Thai cave boys are another good example. They were rural third-worlders, but it still became a sensation. It just has to be bloody and dramatic to attract attention. A story like "people on boat drown again" is too mundane, it becomes a statistic instead of a tragedy.
What's really irksome is that these rich guys that pay people to put them weird but often already-explored places get called "explorers".
Rich people think spending money is what makes them special.
My favorite lately is the rise of the 'world traveler' who treats travel as a moral imperative that elevates them above those who can't or don't have the means to spend 5-6 figures per year on international vacations.
International travel certainly does broaden a person's perspective. It's great if your can do it, but anyone acting superior because they can travel is just an asshole.
I enjoy traveling but it does bring a bit of guilt that I have the ability to do it when so many people never will. Hoping there's some advancing in vr/ar to provide better cultural sharing and better immigration reception to provide the physical interactions.
I have to wonder if these people are really getting the straight dope anyway, or going to all the tourist spots and being shown what they want to see. They're definitely not hanging out in a refugee camp if they're spending that much.
While I don't necessarily disagree with you. It would be interesting to know what would happen if each one of those 50 immigrants paid $250,000 to be on that boat. I don't think money had nothing to do with it.
This is effectively saying, "This article is correct but for the wrong reasons". People aren't angry about why hundreds of migrants dying isn't newsworthy. They're angry that it's not newsworthy.
I'm frankly surprised that not enough people find it disgusting that the EU passively killing hundreds of refugees is less interesting because the EU does so regularly.
There are people dying all the time, so the ones that are "news worthy" (i.e. attention grabbing) are the unique ones with stories that set them apart, and often it's more relatable when it effects fewer people so it's less abstract. I don't think it's an indictment of our societies, it just plays off of how our brains work.
I'm pretty sure those immigrants have more interesting stories to tell than a billionaire. Just saying.
Living your entire life in a warzone or in inhospitable environments that force you to leave your family behind and getting drowned while the general society ignores the underlying problem seems more worthy of questioning than a billionaire trying to go sightseeing thinking their money shields them from nature. I'd post a clip of a movie that fits here perfectly, but the clip is not on youtube, for anyone interested, look up 'whatever works' with Woody Allen there's a newspaper scene at the beginning of the film.
Anyways, apparently they're dead. Now to move to more important issues in society.
The pressure does not kill. Whales live down there. It’s the compressibility of water. At this depth it’s about 4% compressed. The cabin has 1 atmosphere of pressure, the water around it about 100. Through a microfracture water shoots in at the speed of sound in water (3x speed of sound in air) - that’s about 100 bars. That’s like a water jet cutter. It rips the microfracture open. Within a tenth of a second they get pressed to death by the compressibility of water.
Ya well tragic shit happens all the time. We’re desensitized to it. This submarine is interesting and the circumstances are kind of like a movie. Of course media will cover it more. It’s what people are interested in.
More to your point, the reason we are so interested is in the uniqueness of the situation. For the North Americans this the Titanic is culturally significant. For Europe, the migrant issue is local news. The problem is that our news is blended.
Yeah, the titanic situation involved submarines, suspense, radar, underwater drones, etc.
The suspense was key, too. A race against the clock of oxygen running out. What happens if the drone finds them, but can't free them? Stuff like that made it a very unique story.
So of course people are more interested in that one.
Unfortunately, these migrant ships that sink are not exactly unique. There’s at least a handful that go down every year. As someone else pointed out that this is pretty much a first of its kind disaster. Tourists dying visiting the Titanic. Before this became news I had no idea that this was even something people do… then again I’m not a millionaire with a disposable 250k.
Migrant boat sinking with hundreds on board - tragic? Yes. Is this something new that happens? Unfortunately no.
Irelevant comparison. Must have missed the part where the chilean miners and the cave kids were billionaires too. That's why people cared about those stories. It's not getting coverage cause of the people on it. It's getting coverage because of how idiotic the whole situation was.
As unfortunate as it is, migrant boats wrecking is common enough that it's not really "newsworthy" in terms of what grabs people's attention. Especially on a global scale. Similar to how a murder in somewhere like Maine would make the news, but in NYC it's just another day.
Well, perhaps other billionaires will see how these folks have been treated, and decide that they'd rather be remembered for doing something great for society, rather than pursuing individual/deadly hobbies.
definitely not agreeing with Yinchie as i think more humans = more innovation = less climate change, but i think it's important to remember that corporations serve the people generally... the reason these corporations exist is because of market demand from people, individual human people
The problem with the statement is the energy sector is the releasing the most greenhouse gasses by far. A small group of transnational corporations lobby for dependence on coal and oil, where individuals don't really get a say.
Yes but no one is demanding the corporations to release tons of carbon into the atmosphere. The demand is (for example) "I want to get from home to work and then back" and the onus should be on the corporation to make sure that demand is met sustainably.
Well I mean the coverage on the submarines isn't really because of their net worth (not denying that it isn't a contributing factor), but submarines sinking isn't really that common, as another user have said in their comment. Remember MH370? A majority of the passengers weren't wealthy, but it still got a lot of media coverage.
But even the contribution of their net worth to the coverage is only in the sense that people think it's funny that something bad is happening to an arrogant billionaire. I don't think the intent of OP was to say that people should feel schadenfreude over the migrant situation.
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