Titanic submersible es morte (4 Viewers)

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0rion said:
In fairness probably neither is billionaire status but millions kinda deal. Way more money than I'd see in a couple lifetimes. Both are richer than I can really comprehend but you'd never know it in casual conversation.
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There is a huge difference between millionaires and billionaires.
 
jboss said:
That's why deep ocean exploration should be left to James Cameron. See? I kinda like some rich people
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I have read about Cameron’s dives and it seems like he truly has the explorer gene - that quality of a very few in a generation who work to go where no human has gone before, or only the very few. He completed just the second ever dive to Challenger Deep and he was the first human to solo dive to that depth.

I think those people are important, we need them to push the envelope for humanity - but at the same time they willingly take tremendous risk that they consider the partner of such ambition.

With OceanGate, it’s tourism not exploration- there just seems an element of foolishness. The whole thing seemed to lack the level of seriousness that accompanies the true explorers. But again, so what they didn’t deserve to die and no one should cheer it.
 
gavinj said:
James Cameron’s submersible was a lot more high tech than the ocean gate titan. And when I say “a lot more” I mean light years from this oceangate thing.
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I've made pretty clear on here how I feel about the rich. The so-called visonaries of our time. But I do in my cold, rich-hating, close-minded heart have a real soft spot for Box Office Jim. He's a truly an incredible man. Wealth be damned, he's got something that no one else has. That pure desire to do something no one else has done beyond the pursuit of profit.
 
TheRealJRad said:
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is basically a billion dollars
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Indeed, I think once you get into 9 figures, that's when you're getting into pretty rare air. There are more than a few in the tens of millions, but then the numbers dwindle quite a bit beyond that.

Where I live, you have to be a millionaire pretty much. I'm probably far and away the poorest in my neighborhood, lol. Mostly because I started my current career so late in life. Prices are going up and my salary isn't keeping up, so I gotta start another job search for a better opportunity that actually exceeds what I'm spending. I'm in the rat race, heh.
 
I'm learning a lot in this thread about the socioeconomic statuses of posters here I didn't know before. Lotta stuff clicking now, making a lot more sense.
 
TheRealJRad said:
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is basically a billion dollars
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There are 330 million people in the US.

There are an estimated 22 million millionaires in the US.

There is a significant number, perhaps 200,000 decamillionaires in the US - net worth north of $10M - and that’s probably where you get into real wealth in the US.

From what I can find, there appear to be about 10,000 centimillionaires or hectomillionaires in the US - those worth $100M or more. Clearly this is substantial, multi-generational wealth.

There are 770 billionaires. Just a tiny grain of sand (330,000,000 : 770) of the population controlling massive wealth.
 
superchuck500 said:
I have read about Cameron’s dives and it seems like he truly has the explorer gene - that quality of a very few in a generation who work to go where no human has gone before, or only the very few. He completed just the second ever dive to Challenger Deep and he was the first human to solo dive to that depth.

I think those people are important, we need them to push the envelope for humanity - but at the same time they willingly take tremendous risk that they consider the partner of such ambition.

With OceanGate, it’s tourism not exploration- there just seems an element of foolishness. The whole thing seemed to lack the level of seriousness that accompanies the true explorers. But again, so what they didn’t deserve to die and no one should cheer it.
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I watched a short interview with Cameron and he mentions he had specific issues with that vessel and the engineering behind it as well as other designs with similar engineering that as far as I know never ended up diving that deep. He also goes on to say something to the effect of "we do need people to push the boundaries and try new things and there's inherent risk in any kind of exploration or cutting edge technology but when you get the point of taking money for passengers (the tourism aspect you mentioned) you should no longer be using experimental technology". From what I understood, the technology and certification standards are there for it to be done but this guy decided he was going to push the envelope. This is fine if he's just going on it himself and with some paid crew that know the risks but once you're charging people you owe it to them to use the established standards. According to him, and some other guy in the field but the name escapes me, there hasn't been any deaths from deep sea exploration submersibles prior to this. Navy subs have however imploded from what I understand but they are not built to go as deep as the Cameron subs and this one was meant to be.

The Navy coming out and saying they heard the implosion hours after they lost contact does not sit well with me at all. If the reason for not saying they suspected that in the first place was to not inform other nations of our deep sea monitoring capabilities then I don't see why they felt the need to go ahead and say it now. They essentially created/allowed 4 days of grim media coverage, not to mention allowed mobilization of rescue efforts rather than recovery/confirmation efforts (assuming they didn't notify any of those parties prior to the public that they suspected they were dead), and in terms of people related to those on board gave them false hope. As it affects me directly it's basically just another case of government/media manipulation, irritating enough on it's own but not something that surprises me, but when I think about how I'd feel if I called anyone on board that thing family or a friend and was basically strung along for 3-4 days I would be very very pissed off.
 

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