For those who are unaware: A couple billionaires, a pilot, and one of the billionaires’ son are currently stuck inside an extremely tiny sub a couple thousand meters under the sea (inside of the sub with the guys above).
They were supposed to dive down to the titanic, but lost connection about halfway down. They’ve been missing for the past 48 hours, and have 2 days until the oxygen in the sub runs out. Do you think they’ll make it?
The 5 submariners chances of being rescued are very slim at this point but much much higher than the 500 migrants still missing off the coast of Greece who took to the waters not for a joy ride but to escape war and seek a better life.
I understand, not that their lives don’t matter. It’s just that we don’t pay attention to the ones that really do.
Just imagine, these idiots spend 250k to sit in a iron tube controlled by a cheap offbrand playstation controller but won’t spend any of their money to improve the world. Only satisfying their own ego and greed. I can’t feel sorry for them, best I can do is hope that they imploded so they didn’t have to suffer too long.
I’m not really in the business of defending billionaires but I think at least one of them, the guy who brought his son, was involved with charities:
"He works with his family’s Dawood Foundation, as well as the SETI Institute - a California-based research organisation which searches for extra-terrestrial life.
“Shahzada is also a supporter of two charities founded by King Charles - the British Asian Trust and the Prince’s Trust International.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65955554
He sounds (sounded) like a good person… I do find it interesting that the other billionaires don’t have any mentions of charitable works in articles I’ve read in them.
Every billionaire uses charities.
They’re a way to exert control over the money that would normally go to taxes, and be up to the government to spend.
It’s not inherently bad, but charity is not quite the saving grace of billionaires that many make it out to be.
No.
What a horrible way to go. Hopefully rescuers succeed.
That being said, judging by the photo, if they are still viewing everything through a screen, what was the point going down with the submarine and not just sending a robot with a video feed?
I don’t like billionaires but of course I wish for their miracle survival. As unlikely as it seems.
And if they don’t make it, I hope it was a quick and painless death for all of them…
Wow, it’s confirmed. Honestly so grateful they had an immediate and painless death. Imagine sitting in complete darkness for 4 days waiting to suffocate.
The cognitive dissonance displayed here is appalling. So many envious and evil fucks showing zero empathy for other humans dying a terrible death just because they have more money. Jesus fuck, people. If your life view makes you that uncaring of other humans then you need to pick a new life view or start getting on submarines yourself. You sit on the internet gleefully relishing in the deaths of others like that makes you more compassionate of poor people somehow?
Gross. You people are gross.
Hundreds of migrants drowned in the Mediterranean like not even more than a few days ago and I’ve seen at least 20x more of this kind of sentiment for a handful of rich dudes that wanted to go visit the titanic in a un-certified pringles can created by a company that recently fired it’s director of marine operations because he wouldn’t sign off on the safety of this thing. Their company website says they are not certified because certification impedes innovation 😵💫
Like I saw on Twitter yesterday these dudes are the deadest that anyone has ever been, whether you cry-yell at people on the internet for not being sufficiently crestfallen or not
It’s amazing how much manufactured empathy you can buy with money
I think the sub imploded hours after they lost connection.
Seems like this was most likely the case.
If they’re deep down, it’s unlikely. A good outcome would be something failed, but they could get up and are now lost on the surface, but from everything we’ve read about this it doesn’t seem likely either.
No, nor do I think they should be. There will be millions of wasted taxpayer dollars wasted on trying to recover rich people’s dead bodies. They signed a waiver and knew what they were getting into. There’s nothing to be learned from whatever happened, since the company was clearly negligent. Let them rest on the ocean floor beside the other rich assholes.
That’s a bit harsh. If there’s anything that works in modern society pretty reliably regardless of status, it’s search and rescue. Sunk subs can also be an environmental hazard.
I agree woth this post. Wealth has nothing to do with this. And if they survive they can easily pay the bill.
Pretty hilarious that you think a billionaire would foot the bill if they are (or their families if they’re not) rescued.
There is no rescue in this instance, only an expensive recovery. And there are enough environmental hazards in the world at this point, that I don’t think a 5m sub on the sea floor is going to matter much. Most climbers are abandoned to their fate as they made the reckless decision to ascend, just as these people made the reckless decision to descend.
It’s still part of S&R. Lost swimmers, ships, small planes, or just people lost in the woods, there are always attempts for recovery long after any chance of survival is gone.
Yea climbers may be abandoned very high up on Everest, when there’s no safe way to bring them down. But subs, we do look for subs. Let’s not needlessly be dicks about it.
Let’s not needlessly be dicks about it.
You do you. I will be whatever I want about it however.
Sunk subs can also be an environmental hazard.
Just out of curiosity… how do you figure that a tiny sunken submersible would become a hazard, much less an environmental one?
Probably not a big deal at that depth, I mentioned it as only a general addendum. But it probably has a battery, and those tend to be removed from sunken ships and subs together with other risky chemicals if possible.
I remember the case of a ship sinking with a shipment of new cars, and they recovered every one of those cars because they didn’t want even one polluting the environment.
Regardless they’ll want to search for it for the human(e) reasons primarily anyway.
It’s kinda poetic for them to go down next to the titanic, itself a story of complacency and excess/opulance.
Darn tootin’.
A swedish submarine officer put it bluntly in an interview today, and i paraphrase: “most likely it developed a crack and instantly decompressed like a crushed soda can”
This is least painful/scary way for them to die. It’d be an instantaneous death.
High pressure under water does weird things
Money, money, money, mon…AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH
Is this the actual sub? It’s just a tube, this looks awful.
I’m not sure that they have a 5 star restaurant built in… but obviously, deep sea subs need to be smaller in size or they just won’t work.
At this point, I’d be surprised if they were ever found. Assuming the sub is still intact and not wondering aimlessly, the sheer size of the search area makes it difficult to find the sub.
I’m not familiar with the mechanics of this sub obviously, but I’m given to understand that an emergency ascent should have been initiated by this point if everything was fully functional. That probably points to a design flaw - you should always keep those systems as independent of each other as possible so that if one fails, you can fall back on the other. Of course it’s possible that they’ve since ascended and haven’t been found, or got stuck, but assuming they haven’t that could imply that the sub experienced an insurmountable failure and they’re looking for people who are either gone or near-unrescuable.
I’m a bit confused that this is receiving so much attention. What’s so special about this case compared to all the other cases of people being lost at sea every year, besides them being rich?
Honestly, this case is somewhat extraordinary, in a deeply disturbing way.
First there was this amazing quote from the CEO who is missing on the craft right now
“You know, at some point, safety is just pure waste,” Rush told CBS’ David Pogue during an episode of his “Unsung Science” podcast. “I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed, don’t get in your car, don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question.”
Second, aside from being made from questionable experimental materials, the sub was being controlled by an old, off brand xbox controller. There were numerous design and safety issues that were known at the time of departure. They kinda just did whatever in the F they wanted to. It’s a millionaire game of Fuck Around and Find Out and they’re not used to finding out.
Third, the damage waiver
The disclaimer, read out by CBS correspondent David Pogue, read: “This experimental submersible vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma, or death.”
A nervous-looking Pogue makes a face and says, “Where do I sign?” in the footage recorded when he went on the $250,000 (£195,000) trip to see the Titanic at the end of last year.
I get that it’s just some rich idiots (and one of their kids) crossing the river styx, but it’s not very often you see such amazing disregard for basic safety.
I don’t get why the Logitech controller is so focused on. I get that it’s probably not the right controller due to it’s age and wireless only nature but COTS parts are often more reliable than in-house ones. The lack of certification as you mentioned is a much larger issue.
Any game controller, would be insufficient to put 5 peoples lives in danger.
If you were going to use a game controller to do so anyway, you’d use one that can be easily replaced, maybe something manufactured in the past decade. That F710 is old (2011) and honestly didn’t rate all that well compared to other controllers of it’s time. It’s wireless, adding needless risk.
The certification is all part of it. The control systems need to have backups. The gamepad aspect is interesting because it’s blatantly spitting in the face of safety which seemed to be the CEO’s style anyway.
Would it have been better than a new xbox controller? I’m not sure, perhaps not if it the new one was at least wired.
I work on robotics and drones for the military and we use game controllers for teleoperation all the time. There are some times we use more rugged and robust controllers, but they are essentially just expensive, yellow Playstation controllers with e-stop buttons on the bottom (look up Fort robotics controller).
I think you’d be surprised at how often the military uses game controllers for mission critical tech. The convergent design of game controllers has kind of solved the problem of minimal, handheld, input-output machines that are capable of commanding difficult procedures.
Do you think it’s fun killing people and pretending it’s a video game?
I don’t operate anything in the field but I design and build the stuff. Fortunately, I haven’t had to build any weapon systems or combat vehicles yet because I also have some moral apprehension to that as well, but I try not to shame those who do work on that stuff if I can avoid it. It’s a pretty standard meme that wide-eyed aerospace engineers with dreams of space travel get stuck designing missiles to pay the bills. I’m sure there’s not that many engineers in weapons tech that wouldn’t switch to rockets or self driving cars in a heartbeat if they could afford to and had an in.
Hey I appreciate the honest response. I was being a bit of a dick and I feel bad now. Peace.
How so? Seems like a shit way to die to me. It’s not fast. Plus you are crammed in with a bunch of other dudes.
I guess once you pass out from anoxic brain injury, it might peaceful.
I’ve heard that if the sub imploded that they’d have died instantly.
