NFR No thank you

Non-fishing related
The market for billionaire adventure tourism stuff just keeps growing, lots of money to be made here.
Consequently it will not be long until there's an accident on one of the space tourism flights I would guess. Tragic it will be, and miles of column inches will be expended explaining how it happened, and that steps will be taken to address the underlying issues involved.

...and so it goes...
 
Northern said:
Well, see, many humans have this thing called "empathy" - where they feel for, and thus have deep interest in, the tragedy of lives lost in unexpected ways. Which, incidentally, is why this current event is getting so much attention.
Others have intense fascination with historical events, presumably because human behaviors and actions have consequences that might be applicable to the future. There is some horrible irony here.

Personally, yep, I'd rather see the bizarre marine life, but who am I to tell history buffs that they're wrong to be interested? For the love of god, I'm obsessed with fish.

Uh...why would you be angry about a movie existing?
Click to expand...


What makes the tragedies of both the titanic and this submersible more interesting is the intersection of empathy and hubris/wealth

So for the Titanic the hook is the unsinkable ship, on the maiden voyage, people who had everything died

And for these guys, because it was so damn expensive, the idea that you could pay your way to see an extreme and brutal environment where thousands of rich people died, with the added twist of.... did they do their homework or were they suckered? People who wanted for nothing, except extreme experiences, died.

Add to that the Hindenberg disaster. The Into thin Air Everest folks, the crash of the Concorde.....

(The billionaire space tourists that die in a rocket crash is a story that is probably 9/10's written and just waiting for whose names end up on the list (edit Mossback beat me to it see above))

I think where it rubs some people the wrong way is in a different ocean, in the same week, 300 Pakistani migrants who weren't multimillionaires, died in the Mediterranean. Hundreds of other migrants died in multiple events this year alone in the Mediterranean. Thousands over the last decade. So yes, this is a tragedy too, but the hubris element isn't there, the wealth isn't there. People who have nothing, when they die, there's a collective shrug.

It's worse than that though, the collective shrug shows a failure to learn or prevent this from happening over and over again. Ditto for say homeless people dying, or sub Saharan atrocieties be they genocide, school killings, civil war etc

There is such an astonishing difference in wealth across the world, one group ends up paying to feel their fight or flight mode in the face of marked uncertainty; the other pays and perhaps dies to have any chance they can to escape from that uncertainty.
 
Last edited:
Wadin' Boot said:
There is such an astonishing difference in wealth across the world, one group ends up paying to feel their fight or flight mode in the face of marked uncertainty; the other pays and perhaps dies to have any chance they can to escape from that ununcertainty.
Click to expand...
Damn that is deep!
 
Nick Clayton said:
I dont disagree in the sense of a single man's life decisions. If he wants to go to the bottom of the ocean in a tin can, I say more power to him.

Where things change, IMO, is when he starts selling that experience to others who are no doubt banking on what they assume is his expertise to get them through the trip safely. Did those passengers know they were signing up for great risk, of course. But I have to assume that much of the decision to go was based on the assurance that this guy had taken the necessary steps and had the expertise to make the trip as safely as could be accomplished. Info coming out now sure paints a much different picture of him.

Alex Honnold lives with risk that I can't begin to understand or relate to. He's clearly cut from a different cloth than most. But his risk essentially is placed on him and him alone. If he started selling guided free solo trips up El Capitan then he's suddenly in a different situation where he is introducing that risk to others and at that point such a cavalier attitude isn't a good thing.

The other factor is that while it's easy to say "It's your life, live it as you see fit", the truth us that often times people who engage in these activities need to be rescued by others, which needlessly puts those others at risk. I say if he wants to do stupid shit because it's his life and his risk, then he should sign a waiver to forgo all rescue efforts in the event of an emergency.
Click to expand...
Yeah, this.
 
Clean Willy said:
And still tens of thousands of people die in them each year. I've road raced both cars and motorcycles and my friends thought I was crazy. Always thought (and I'm sure statistics would prove it to be true) that the most dangerous part of a race weekend was the drive to the track.

I'm with this guy, just stay in bed if you want lower risk in your life. Like with Alex Honnold, it's certainly not something I would do, but respect their decision.

And really, have none of us stood above our waists in a sketchy river with no PFD?
Click to expand...
@Nick Clayton said what I was thinking pretty well. But to follow up, didn't your car have to pass tech to be able to race? An you were required to have certain safety gear. I'm all for making your own choices, but there's a larger view here.
 
Last edited:
Wadin' Boot said:
I think where it rubs some people the wrong way is in a different ocean, in the same week, 300 Pakistani migrants who weren't multimillionaires, died in the Mediterranean. Hundreds of other migrants died in multiple events this year alone in the Mediterranean. Thousands over the last decade. So yes, this is a tragedy too, but the hubris element isn't there, the wealth isn't there. People who have nothing, when they die, there's a collective shrug.
Click to expand...

Multimillionaires and their folly vs. Dirt poor people struggling just to survive.

Billionaires and their excesses vs. Migrants desperate for a chance to give their children a better life.

Yeah...as a culture we are fascinated by the wealthy, their eccentricities and adventures and pay rapt attention, but scared to death to even discuss the deaths of those far less fortunate than us, for fear of confronting things that many won't want to see, or to ponder why.
Consider the column inches generated by the two events...
 
Cabezon said:
In September 2019, the OceanGate team brought another of their submersibles, Cyclops 1, to the Friday Harbor Labs to facilitate some deep-water research projects at the labs (and generate some publicity for OceanGate). I wasn't there at the time, but I did talk to two of the scientists who were involved. Both were very concerned at the cavalier attitude about safety that they observed from the OceanGate team, especially considering that they were diving in deep water in areas with very strong tidal currents. There seemed to be inadequate planning for technical failure or an unanticipated turn in the ocean conditions (e.g., an unanticipated uptick in the current). My friends both concluded that they wouldn't go out of their way to repeat the experience, regardless of the scientific opportunities.
Stockton Rush, founder and CEO of OceanGate and pilot of the crushed submersible, was part of the engineering team that designed and built the Titan submersible. He appears to have had substantial technical skills. As such, he would have been well-aware of the strengths and weaknesses of this craft. From transcripts of interviews that I have read over the last few days, he would NOT be characterized as cautious. At some level, that is fine if only his life was on the line. Adults are allowed to make risky choices (I fly fish; others use wingsuits or sky-dive...), especially if they are aware of the potential risks. But there is NO WAY that the paying passengers would be able to make their own assessment of risk. They were relying on Rush's assessment.
The situation with the Titan reminds of Jon Krakauer's book, Into Thin Air which described a disaster among paid clients (and their for-profit guides) on Mount Everest that left eight climbers dead. In Krakauer's opinion (which is disputed by some), expedition leaders took chances and eroded their safety standards in the moment.
The whole situation is a tragedy and I grieve for the families.
Steve
Click to expand...
Here is a link to today's Seattle Times with interviews with several UW participants of the dives on the Cyclops 1 that I referenced above.
Steve
 
I think it's unfortunate how everyone's piling on the CEO and looking for some sort of "justice." That same sub made multiple successful trips to depths only a handful of military craft can reach before it imploded, so he wasn't even close to entirely wrong. Yes, the concern with carbon fiber in a sub hull was that it weakens under repeated stress, and I think that should have been very carefully considered, but I suppose tragedy is sometimes how we learn about true limitations.

Something I do wonder about is what the real advantage to using carbon fiber vs. steel in sub construction might be. At least as I understand it, carbon fiber is immensely more expensive than carbon steel. Its benefits are well understood for applications like racing bicycle frames, but not understanding how subs work all that well, I don't understand why a lighter hull would be sufficiently advantageous (except perhaps to conserve fuel, which is generally an afterthought with the sort of budgets we're talking here) to justify the risk of using an unproven material in something as risky as a sub. Spirit of innovation, I suppose....
 
OK, so I ran across this tasteless dark humor, but damn, it made me laugh so thought I would share. Then consider the source.

WASHINGTON—Analyzing the mistakes OceanGate made that led to the vessel’s disappearance, critics told reporters Thursday that the submersible should have been tested with poorer passengers first. “The company skipped the very crucial step of sending five lower-class people to the bottom of the ocean to make sure it was safe enough for the wealthy,” said Otto Scofield, a member of the Marine Technology Society, adding that no one with a net worth above $50,000 should have been in the submersible. “OceanGate made the mistake of not using minimum wage workers and unemployed people on government welfare programs to test the seaworthiness of the craft, which was not billionaire-ready. Running more trials with some homeless people would have made all the difference, and the deaths of several wealthy people could have been prevented.” Scofield continued that using children of color from impoverished families would have been ideal as more would have been able to fit inside the submersible.

https://www.theonion.com/critics-say-submersible-should-ve-been-tested-with-poor-1850566314
 
And, as if the loss of life weren't enough, critics gotta' criticize.

Without skipping a beat, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) already has found a way to blame the government after a group of billionaires died on a highly risky trip to the Titanic wreck aboard a shoddy, experimental submersible. The vessel imploded as it made its two-hour descent to the wreck, officials said Thursday. Crenshaw described it as an “epic failure in leadership,” but wasn’t sure who to pin it on. “Is it the White House, Coast Guard, Navy? I’m not sure,” he told reporters on Thursday. A mothership took eight hours to raise the alarm after losing contact with the submersible, but Crenshaw still complained that the U.S. didn’t deploy resources quicker. “It begs the question:

Could this have been resolved differently if leadership had just acted sooner and actually put options on the table instead of just assuming, well, it doesn’t matter because they’re dead?” he said on Fox News. Crenshaw questioned whether the Coast Guard assumed the group were dead when a Navy acoustic system detected implosion sounds on Sunday, rather that considering that the noise could’ve been “the sub just hitting the floor.”

Clearly there isn't enough of a penalty for electing idiots and fvcking morons to Congress. Or is he just following the old maxim of "Place Blame Early and Often."
 
Salmo_g said:
And, as if the loss of life weren't enough, critics gotta' criticize.

Without skipping a beat, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) already has found a way to blame the government after a group of billionaires died on a highly risky trip to the Titanic wreck aboard a shoddy, experimental submersible. The vessel imploded as it made its two-hour descent to the wreck, officials said Thursday. Crenshaw described it as an “epic failure in leadership,” but wasn’t sure who to pin it on. “Is it the White House, Coast Guard, Navy? I’m not sure,” he told reporters on Thursday. A mothership took eight hours to raise the alarm after losing contact with the submersible, but Crenshaw still complained that the U.S. didn’t deploy resources quicker. “It begs the question:

Could this have been resolved differently if leadership had just acted sooner and actually put options on the table instead of just assuming, well, it doesn’t matter because they’re dead?” he said on Fox News. Crenshaw questioned whether the Coast Guard assumed the group were dead when a Navy acoustic system detected implosion sounds on Sunday, rather that considering that the noise could’ve been “the sub just hitting the floor.”

Clearly there isn't enough of a penalty for electing idiots and fvcking morons to Congress. Or is he just following the old maxim of "Place Blame Early and Often."
Click to expand...
Predictable source, actually one of many.
 
Salmo_g said:
And, as if the loss of life weren't enough, critics gotta' criticize.

Without skipping a beat, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) already has found a way to blame the government after a group of billionaires died on a highly risky trip to the Titanic wreck aboard a shoddy, experimental submersible. The vessel imploded as it made its two-hour descent to the wreck, officials said Thursday. Crenshaw described it as an “epic failure in leadership,” but wasn’t sure who to pin it on. “Is it the White House, Coast Guard, Navy? I’m not sure,” he told reporters on Thursday. A mothership took eight hours to raise the alarm after losing contact with the submersible, but Crenshaw still complained that the U.S. didn’t deploy resources quicker. “It begs the question:

Could this have been resolved differently if leadership had just acted sooner and actually put options on the table instead of just assuming, well, it doesn’t matter because they’re dead?” he said on Fox News. Crenshaw questioned whether the Coast Guard assumed the group were dead when a Navy acoustic system detected implosion sounds on Sunday, rather that considering that the noise could’ve been “the sub just hitting the floor.”

Clearly there isn't enough of a penalty for electing idiots and fvcking morons to Congress. Or is he just following the old maxim of "Place Blame Early and Often."
Click to expand...
Yeah, blame the government. The same one that pays your salary and will likely be tasked with recovery.

If there is a time not to blame the government, this is one.
 
Shad said:
I think it's unfortunate how everyone's piling on the CEO and looking for some sort of "justice." That same sub made multiple successful trips to depths only a handful of military craft can reach before it imploded, so he wasn't even close to entirely wrong. Yes, the concern with carbon fiber in a sub hull was that it weakens under repeated stress, and I think that should have been very carefully considered, but I suppose tragedy is sometimes how we learn about true limitations.

Something I do wonder about is what the real advantage to using carbon fiber vs. steel in sub construction might be. At least as I understand it, carbon fiber is immensely more expensive than carbon steel. Its benefits are well understood for applications like racing bicycle frames, but not understanding how subs work all that well, I don't understand why a lighter hull would be sufficiently advantageous (except perhaps to conserve fuel, which is generally an afterthought with the sort of budgets we're talking here) to justify the risk of using an unproven material in something as risky as a sub. Spirit of innovation, I suppose....
Click to expand...
Shad makes a good point about previous dives that were successful. Up to this point, I had heard no evidence about previous dives in that particular vehicle; everyone seemed to act like it was a maiden voyage in a prototype vessel which was not the case. Prior success would definitely lead to a feeling of "we got this". Similar instances like Apollo 1 and the first space shuttle disaster show that incidences of this matter are not uncommon in new technology.
Also consider this, previous work in submersibles gave them a solid foundation to work from but there doesn't seem to be any ways of testing those sorts of pressures on dry ground.
 
Shad said:
I think it's unfortunate how everyone's piling on the CEO and looking for some sort of "justice." That same sub made multiple successful trips to depths only a handful of military craft can reach before it imploded, so he wasn't even close to entirely wrong. Yes, the concern with carbon fiber in a sub hull was that it weakens under repeated stress, and I think that should have been very carefully considered, but I suppose tragedy is sometimes how we learn about true limitations.

Something I do wonder about is what the real advantage to using carbon fiber vs. steel in sub construction might be. At least as I understand it, carbon fiber is immensely more expensive than carbon steel. Its benefits are well understood for applications like racing bicycle frames, but not understanding how subs work all that well, I don't understand why a lighter hull would be sufficiently advantageous (except perhaps to conserve fuel, which is generally an afterthought with the sort of budgets we're talking here) to justify the risk of using an unproven material in something as risky as a sub. Spirit of innovation, I suppose....
Click to expand...
I don't think it's unfortunate at all. He'd been warned multiple times by experts in the industry that the vessel wasn't safe. He shrugged it off and thought he knew better....he didn't.
 
Stockton Rush was a regulation-and-safety-dodging charlatan who referred to himself as an "innovator". It sucks that his cavalier attitude towards something so serious cost others their lives. That said, the passengers likely knew exactly what they were involving themselves in, and did it anyway. Score one for the vengeful orcas.
 
Stockton Rush was a visionary who challenged conventional wisdom with his carbon fiber titanium submersible hull. He wasn't just some nutjob, he was a legit aerospace engineer. IMO he crossed over to being charlatan when he sold his still questionable idea to the "more money than sense" crowd and started running high $$$ trips. Lots of people die when their ill planned ventures fail - the Darwin Awards have a long history. But not many can claim multiple nations came to their aid in their dying moments.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top