I am fully willing to admit half the reason it’s so popular on the news is the novelty of it. A submarine goes missing, possibly sunk, near the Titanic? The truth is the accidents iwth immigrants and migrants happen so often that most of the media doesn’t really care about it so much any more. But it used to, I remember seeing stuff about bodies washing up on the shores of Italy. When it was novel is was more popular and ‘sold’ well so it was reported on. i guarantee you if subs went missing anywhere near as often in the future you would not see as much about it. That’s just how the media works these days, it’s unfortunate.
Billionaires or not I don’t envy them and if they can be saved I hope they will be. Especially the young guy there with his father.
5 deaths is a tradgey. 500 deaths is a statistic.
One is the adventure story that almost seems scripted, one is a tradegy that is so common it makes my brain hurt.
I do concede that the missing sub is missing something, so I’m hoping that International law catches up and demands that all these “experimental” commercial subs also has $500 million in gold as balast . . . so it’s a treasure hunt also, just to make the story perfect (because right now it’s moved from an adventure story, to a horror, it needs a third act).
I don’t need to know migrants are dieing, that’s just a function of our world. I know why overloaded fishing boats sink, there is no mystery there, it’s inherently a less “fun” (god that’s terrible to say) story.
Agreed.
With the submarine story, it’s like a film scenario. Every detail is something unusual, and not tragic in itself. Well, depends on who you ask. There are many people who think billionaires existing is a very real tragedy, and rightly so, but I digress.
With billionaires in a comic-book-supervillain submarine lost on their way to see the Titanic wreck, you can laugh at the $30 controller, or wonder where their brains were, or if anybody looked at their financials because this also would work as a movie scenario where 4 billionaires pay someone to disappear them because they didn’t pay taxes or something.
Refugee boat sinking is actual tragedy, with the added bonus of the entire western world having some level of guilt in creating. When the average, empathy having person hears about it, they feel complex emotions from sadness to guilty conscience for casually hearing about it from the comfort of their couch… It’s difficult to deal with.
I think you just made something really clear for me. We are all rich compared to most of the world that lives in almost complete abject poverty. We hate that part of ourselves that could do something about it but just sits on the couch consuming and adding nothing, and we project that hate on to billionaires so we can feel it outwards.
Then there was Elon Musk, trying to make a cave submarine to save those kids in the thailand cave, but instead slandered the real hero as a pedophile.
Top news is sad.
Bottom news is uplifting.
It’s unusual, and taps into some deep-seated fears - people imagine themselves trapped in a submarine running out of air, get seriously frightened, and start desperately hoping they make it out OK just because they don’t want to think about the alternative.
There’s also the Colossal Fuck Up angle - people love stories about incredibly stupid disasters because it makes them feel smart and competent. “I’d never get in a submarine that uses a shitty Logitech controller” they say, congratulating themselves on their foresight. (Even more satisfying when the victims include a billionaire, because those are the very best people to feel superior to)
