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?
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I think it’s because the story about a missing submersible is unusual, and moreover, it’s about a rescue attempt. This makes it more interesting than many other, albeit more dreadful, news stories.
And they were diving to look at the titanic, everyone’s favourite maritime disaster.
750 people drowning is also unusual, and there’s also been rescue attempts.
All these victims have loved ones, and i don’t wish death on anyone, but for the billionaires I find it quite hard to care much.
I still hope they’re saved, though; and if they are I very much hope the experience will have changed them.
It’s terrible but not that unusual.
That’s just not the same. Drowning is quick and if you don’t save them immediately they’re most likely dead. Slowly suffocating in a sub while the clock ticks and something can be done about it is a different story.
Learn to care.
Unfortunately it is not that unusual since the EU stopped Mare Nostrum to save money
sure. It has nothing to do with the fact that in one of cases they are 5 billionaires while in the other one they are 750 poor migrants. No, totally not.
The Thailand cave rescue was all over the news and they were poor.
Its about novelty, nothing more nothing less.
A bunch of rich ppl have died on Mt Everest this year, nobody gives a shit as its a common occurrence.
Not entirely no, I didn’t see any news outlet leading the story with “5 Billionaires missing after Submersible lost contact”. For quite some time we didn’t even know who was on board. It’s more the fact that boats in the Mediterranean sink all the time, it’s still tragic but we know that that’s an issue we have now (most people unfortunately seem to have decided that they do not care that much). A submersible going missing and the coast guards of 2 countries looking for them, while thei only have air for a couple days, no one knowing where they are and it involving the titanic guarantees clicks, it’s almost like a movie plot. The fact that they are wealthy is certainly not the reason for it though, it’s the circumstances surrounding it, it’s unusual. People also know how ships work and why they capsize, while most people don’t have the slightest idea how deep sea submersibles work.
So yes, the ship capsizing and killing that many people is horrible and should get more attention, especially from the Goverments involved. It’s ridiculous that we let those poor people drown by the thousands and treat the ones who made it like scum. But I’m not convinced the Titanic story got traction BECAUSE the victims have money.
really? The first point of information I found out was that it cost 250k to get on.
"hey did you hear about the submarine that’s lost?
“no?”
“It cost 250k to get on, to go see the titanic wreck”
pretty much how my entire day went yesterday with various coworkers
That may be true to your experience but for the first few days I heard about this story it had nothing to do with the who or how much it cost. Stories with novelty will always sell more than stories without much novelty. Edit: And I’m not saying that’s right. The accident in Greece is a horrible tragedy, and we should value everyone’s lives equally no matter how much wealth they have. There are legitimate points where we as a society turn a blind eye to the poor (always). But, this is not a story that’s surprising why it’s getting so much attention. It’s gross how some people in this comment section are choosing to increase their hatred toward the rich rather than increasing their compassion for the poor
I agree with you, mostly, but you could also argue that the situation only exists/is only possible because they’re wealthy (the same reason the only sub apparently capable of rescuing them is owned by another billionaire). But that doesn’t diminish your point–were these somehow 5 poor people stuck at the bottom of the ocean in a sub near the Titanic, it would still probably get a lot of attention.
so you think that 2 governments would had started spending millions if 5 migrants had somehow been trapped in the seabed of the Mediterranean?
5 migrants? No fucking way. 5 average citizens of any developed nation? Sure. We perform expensive and resource intensive search and rescue operations for people lost in the wilderness or out at sea all the time. And once the media brings attention to it, there’s a lot of pressure to keep the funding going, otherwise next election cycle people are going to remember the current leadership as “those guys who just left some poor people to die to save money.”
I see your point, but I do think the poster above is right: “rescue” situations do tend to get a lot of media attention. The Thailand cave rescue and various mine collapses also spring to mind (Baby Jessica, anyone?). None of those involved particularly wealthy people (I don’t think?) and they got some measure of global attention.
It’s the mystery, where are they, what’s their condition, what’s going to happen, etc. ? It’s like watching a movie. We’re shallow and just want to be entertained.
The Greece tragedy is lacking the irony and hubris of this.
I mean, it’s a tourist submersible that was aiming to bring billionaires to view the Titanic wreckage and it likely got wrecked itself. And they named the submersible Titan.
The sub’s company OceanGate was dinged by a former employee for all sorts of safety issues and they fired and sued him. There are also lots of choice quotes from the CEO (who happens to be on the vessel) about moving fast and breaking things, and regulations stifling innovation. So there’s some possible karma involved.
“OceanGate” sounds a lot like Heaven’s Gate right now ;P
And Watergate. Anything [something]gate is bad news.
Ah, another dummkopf manager who thinks a software methodology can be applied to hardware.
Well, better hope he can deploy the fix in production within the next what, 10 or so hours?
I don’t disagree, but missing sub is an unusual phenomenon and mystery that gets people interested.
I don’t think the billionaires part is all that important, I didn’t know about it until today. The Kursk, the kids trapped in a cave, the miners that have spent months in a mine, those were all news too.
But yea immigrants from war-torn regions - nobody cares unless they have “blond hair and blue eyes”.
People tend to care more about the stuff that happens closer to them, or is somehow related to them. You probably don’t care all that much about the armed conflict in Mali between the government, ISIS and Wagner Group.
if you live in europe, the Mediterranean sea is you know, right next to you. And way much closer than the distance of the titanic to the shore in America, which is about 1000 nautical miles.
I don’t know anything about Mali, which is closer to to me than Titanic, but I do know a lot about the Titanic.
Or things that happen to rich white people.
It was an issue for a lot of international organizations, but Greece and EU made themselves look like fools https://vlemmy.net/post/119595
That’s what I’m more upset about.
Who gives a shit about a couple of billionaires. Why does this have to be a world-wide news story? Why don’t we care about the 100s of refugees that die all the time in maritime accidents and why are those things dominating the news?
Time and time again we give the rich people all of our attention. Fuck that. We shouldn’t be letting the media direct our attention like this.