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Titan sub: crew have died after catastrophic loss of pressure chamber, US Coast Guard confirms
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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I’m inclined to characterize this loss as reckless and needless, but I find myself agreeing with likewise here. Some opportunities are the once-or-so in a lifetime sort. There’s likely such opportunities out there that I’d love to take if I had the means, even if the risks were great.
I can completely understand people wishing ill on those lost here. As I said, I think there’s an element of hubris and needlessness in this disaster that makes it upsetting, and that doesn’t even get to the likes of the discrepancy in coverage between this incident and the greater loss near Greece this week.
Still, I suppose I hope this risk was worth it to at least a few of the souls on board.
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[Open Only if you’re down with adding another bummer of a news article to the pile.]
-I say “at least a few of the souls” rather than “the souls” for a regrettable reason. The aunt of Suleman Dawood has gone on record to claim that he told a relative he was “terrified” to go. Whether this is the likes of pre-trip jitters or substantial anxieties is not for me to say, but however way it checks out, it adds to my disappointment in how this submarine was slapped together.
Did paying customers fully understand the risks, though? Seems the CEO was rather adept at bullshitting. And saying he didn't want military experts on the team because they weren't "enthusiastic" is just a load of crap. I bet they saw what a death trap the sub was and wanted no part of it.
Yeah. Paying customers fundamentally can't become submersible experts overnight, even if they were inclined to do as much research as possible. Our modern society relies on trusting that experts know what they're talking about, and that they are involved where they should be in the first place, and often assuming that "they wouldn't be allowed to do this if it wasn't safe, surely".
Yeah, we're sorta inclined to believe in what an authority tells us and it's not easy to tell when we're being fed tasty looking bullshit. Especially when we want it to be true.
You know what, that’s a good question and getting to a perspective I somehow found hard to explore on my own 🤔.
Generally I’m quite strongly in favor of regulations precisely because of this kind of question. The lay customers likely didn’t fully understand the risk they were taking—fully and throughly understand as an expert would. Achieving that kind of understanding takes expertise in a field, and expertise takes years, if not a lifetime to build. I don’t it’s reasonable to expect everyone to have an expert and informed opinion on everything, so I think a society ought to have the responsibility of establishing regulation to protect people from that kind of valid and inevitable ignorance. Sure, the five on board were billed as brave adventurers, but can I confidently say they were informed? Save for the negligent CEO, I’m not so sure I can.
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I think my hesitation to extend that mindset to this is because the idea of underwater tourism, let alone deep sea tourism felt like uncharted territory to me. Not “against” mind you, more “hesitant.” I think we ought to make progress safely and responsibly, especially if we’re doing so with lay people tagging along, but part of me worries that putting up too many guard rails and too much red tape can stymy legitimate, good faith progress. A regrettable part of regulations is that a fair amount of them are written in blood. Sacrifice, in a way, is sometimes necessary to know just where those guard rails ought to be.
But I’m starting to realize that this is likely not as uncharted as I thought. I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me on my first impressions, but of course we have the potential to make informed safety decisions here—submarines have been around a hot minute, we have the precedent to build an informed understanding of what’s safe and what isn’t. It’s starting to settle more in now, too, that we have more expert individuals and groups in this area than I thought that can help define informed standards.
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For the sake of those that were on board and their families, I still hope that this was indeed a risk that at least some of them legitimately wanted to take. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if you’re right in that most of them didn’t fully grasp the risk they were taking.
As for my stance on how this should be approached going forward, I dunno if it was your intention or just a side question, but I suppose I can say I changed my mind! I think we’re at a point where we can make informed decisions on how to regulate this, and we ought to do so sooner rather than later 🤝.
I can't say I fully thought out my comment to that extent, but I do agree that we need proper regulations to protect us from shady business practices, even if the CEO in this case believed it to be safe enough to take the same risks as the customers. But that is beside the point. Proper regulations protects the public even in that case.
How those regulations could be enforced on international waters is whole bag of cats that I don't even have a shoot-from-the-hip kinda opinion on. UN somehow? I don't know.
I certainly wouldn't have an informed idea on how that could be handled, either. What I have to offer toward particulars amounts to spit balling 🤷♂️.
If I had to guess though, I'd bet you and @patchymoose@rammy.site are getting at it. A UN treaty could play a part in establishing a baseline to build up on. Perhaps the key could be to indirectly govern it rather than trying to directly govern happenings in international waters? Operations that depart from signing countries could guarantee that their vessels meet basic standards, even if those offshore operations are ultimately conducted in international waters.
I'd imagine that it may shift a noteworthy amount of operation departures to non-signing countries, but I'd also think that increasing the barrier of entry and making such standards highly visible would make a noteworthy difference regardless.
Although, the CEO did go down with his ship. I think he at least believed his own bullshit.
Fair enough. If he had done it all by himself, it would've been fine. If someone wants to risk their own lives, it's up to them. It is honestly kinda impressive to roll your own bat like that and actually manage to get it sorta working. But as soon as he started selling the trips, the situation is completely different. He knew his glorified tub wouldn't pass any sort of inspection and still went full steam ahead. He had numerous people telling him it wasn't safe and he just ignored them. He knew, he just hoped it would work anyway because he was in to deep.
I forgot to mention in my earlier reply that this was a reminder that also helped change my perspective. Putting your own life in danger unfortunate, but ultimately your own decision. Making a negligent decision that affects a wider industry is unfortunate, but seems like a risk in business in general.
Willful negligence that costs the lives of others demands consideration for how things can be done differently. The first best time to have defined and enforced those standards would’ve been before we lost these lives. The second best time to do so is now.
I agree. Can't really see how it would work in practice in international waters though. Who should enforce it for example? UN, maybe? Some new international coast guard type organization operating only on international waters? Should the local marine or coast guard be responsible for the vessels under the same flag even on international waters? Kind of a big job, that. I'm no maritime expert by any stretch and international law and treaties aren't in my book of tricks either. It can't be entirely impossible, but I'm not your man on this. There's quite possibly some simpler solution that would at least improve the situation, but... Maybe if local companies was bound to local regulations even on international waters and their actions could be prosecuted according to that, things might at least improve. At least for a case like this, provided his company was US based in the first place and/or the boat they used. I dunno.