just wondering. Does an American who makes $12,000 a year have any standing to criticize billionaires? Great article, Noah, but you should have told whoever said an American was wealthy by world standards is a pauper, just barely (if single) above poverty level.
Great column! One observation — I haven’t observed billionaires as a class getting more empathy, unless they’re also male. Might be a function of how most billionaires are male to begin with, I suppose....
"Spending your time happily dreaming about the death’s of billionaires is a kind of empathy too; you can put yourself in someone else’s place to savor their suffering, after all."
(Yellow Submarine)
🎼'We all died in a shitty submarine
a shitty submarine
a shitty submarine
a shitty submarine'
When the news said they had lost comms I assumed they lost comms because they suffered a hull integrity failure. At those depths it means quickly. An actual implosion (rather than a leak) means they died instantaneously. 2 seconds top but the crew would have stunned into unconsciousness in a 100 milliseconds - maybe. Getting clubbed in the back of the head might not be as quick. There are lot of ways to die horridly - that isn't one of them, they did not suffer. The kids that drowned in the Med almost certainly took a lot longer to die.
People die in car accidents every day and they die in a thousand other ways everyday and I don't feel a damn thing about this particular episode. I suppose it was on TV so people were drawn into the situation.
elm
it's not so much about empathizing with or hating any group, they were just displayed on tv a lot
In fairness, the imploded sub is quite the unusual story. The media coverage is simply going to rival the latest immigrant vessel to sink. I'm not being callous; rather I have seen this happen too much in the last few years.
I do not know the preparation for this type of dive, but I would assume certain risks are accepted. Like climbing Everest, there is the chance for no return.
Oh, and if the occupants did not do their own research on the risks, that's on them. I've read elsewhere there were possible safety measures this sub was not equipped with.
I don't empathize with billionaires, nor suffer from himpathy.
I do despair at the pointlessness and avoidability of these deaths. I feel sorry for their families, who will have to live with the knowledge of the unbearable circumstances of the deats, and will likely have no bodies to bury or mourn. It's improbable they'll ever find out what actually happened. I hope none of them run with the hackney "they died doing what they loved". Passively sinking to the bottom of the ocean in a sardine can in the hope of catching a glimpse of the most famous sunken ship in the world isn't a hobby or a pass time, it's a money can buy anything time. The Titanic is the ultimate death tourism, it's perverse, and was never safe or edifying.
Any rescue event requiring heroic and international efforts always attracts saturation media attention, and captures the public imaginations. It happened when a soccer team was trapping in a cave, it happened when two miners in Tasmania survived a cave in, requiring endless days of logistics and careful drilling to bring them up without killing them.
The resources, the technology, the ingenuity needed to find, keep alive, and rescue is real life drama, whether an impoverished 13 year old in a cave, or a billionaire at the bottom of the ocean. The former was by accident, the latter was deliberate, a ticket for the rich rolling the dice with their own lives.
I can understand why the level of attention would be dismissed as a misguided interest in billionaires, even though it's about heroic human efforts to save people with impossible odds of success and a ticking clock. These scenarios have occurred before, and a ticking clock invariably magnifies the interest.
Pulling easily found refugees from the top of the ocean doesn't have the same cache, doesn't have the heroics or ingenuity or nail-biting clock of these other rare events. One scenario is cinematic and tragic, the other is indifferent politics.
Caz Hart, I was more or less agreeing with you right up to your last paragraph. It sounds there like you're saying, "IDGaF about peasants drowning, because their narrative isn't exciting enough."
Noah's point is that stories of the super-wealthy is, for some reason, inherently interesting to us, which is why a Billionaire drowning while engaging in extreme tourism (going down in a mini-submarine just to get a look at The TITANIC at the bottom of the ocean) means so much more than a boatload of migrants drowning while trying to make it to safety. We care more for Mr. Superrich and his entourage, and did more to rescue them, than we did to try and save those migrants—and maybe we need to be aware that Billionaires' lives (and deaths) aren't inherently more interesting than the lives of the less fortunate, even if they don't have an exciting narrative attached to them.
No, not what I intended to convey at the end. Although I expect there's an element of that thinking in real minds when those all too regular events occur.
A perfectly crafted and perfectly delusional press release from OceanGate Expeditions: "These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world's oceans".
Meanwhile, the NYTs has bafflingly chosen to frame the drownings of 650 refugees (or 100, depending on who is estimating, we'll never know an actual number) as demonstrable of oceanic inequality, because a superyacht rescued 100 men (no women or children saved) and salvaged a dozen bodies. The Greek coast guard had watched for 24 hours before the overloaded boat sank. Apparently, the teak of the yacht was in stark contrast to the bedraggled refugees. No mention of the morally reprehensible political indifference, no explanation for the lack of media attention, or why nearly 10 days passed before it became public that a private yacht, not a government vessel, undertook the rescue.
Where to begin to understand or untangle such euphemistic and inventive reporting?
Level of public interest? Not much, as far as I can tell.
I continue to be so very glad I subscribe to this “stack.” Your writing and logic are superb!
thank you! I am glad you subscribe also!
just wondering. Does an American who makes $12,000 a year have any standing to criticize billionaires? Great article, Noah, but you should have told whoever said an American was wealthy by world standards is a pauper, just barely (if single) above poverty level.
Great column! One observation — I haven’t observed billionaires as a class getting more empathy, unless they’re also male. Might be a function of how most billionaires are male to begin with, I suppose....
yeah; I guess it's like 87% of billionaires are men?
I have no clue how it breaks down(I know, “Google is your friend”), but honestly I thought it was even higher than that.
"Spending your time happily dreaming about the death’s of billionaires is a kind of empathy too; you can put yourself in someone else’s place to savor their suffering, after all."
(Yellow Submarine)
🎼'We all died in a shitty submarine
a shitty submarine
a shitty submarine
a shitty submarine'
When the news said they had lost comms I assumed they lost comms because they suffered a hull integrity failure. At those depths it means quickly. An actual implosion (rather than a leak) means they died instantaneously. 2 seconds top but the crew would have stunned into unconsciousness in a 100 milliseconds - maybe. Getting clubbed in the back of the head might not be as quick. There are lot of ways to die horridly - that isn't one of them, they did not suffer. The kids that drowned in the Med almost certainly took a lot longer to die.
People die in car accidents every day and they die in a thousand other ways everyday and I don't feel a damn thing about this particular episode. I suppose it was on TV so people were drawn into the situation.
elm
it's not so much about empathizing with or hating any group, they were just displayed on tv a lot
In fairness, the imploded sub is quite the unusual story. The media coverage is simply going to rival the latest immigrant vessel to sink. I'm not being callous; rather I have seen this happen too much in the last few years.
I do not know the preparation for this type of dive, but I would assume certain risks are accepted. Like climbing Everest, there is the chance for no return.
Oh, and if the occupants did not do their own research on the risks, that's on them. I've read elsewhere there were possible safety measures this sub was not equipped with.
I don't empathize with billionaires, nor suffer from himpathy.
I do despair at the pointlessness and avoidability of these deaths. I feel sorry for their families, who will have to live with the knowledge of the unbearable circumstances of the deats, and will likely have no bodies to bury or mourn. It's improbable they'll ever find out what actually happened. I hope none of them run with the hackney "they died doing what they loved". Passively sinking to the bottom of the ocean in a sardine can in the hope of catching a glimpse of the most famous sunken ship in the world isn't a hobby or a pass time, it's a money can buy anything time. The Titanic is the ultimate death tourism, it's perverse, and was never safe or edifying.
Any rescue event requiring heroic and international efforts always attracts saturation media attention, and captures the public imaginations. It happened when a soccer team was trapping in a cave, it happened when two miners in Tasmania survived a cave in, requiring endless days of logistics and careful drilling to bring them up without killing them.
The resources, the technology, the ingenuity needed to find, keep alive, and rescue is real life drama, whether an impoverished 13 year old in a cave, or a billionaire at the bottom of the ocean. The former was by accident, the latter was deliberate, a ticket for the rich rolling the dice with their own lives.
I can understand why the level of attention would be dismissed as a misguided interest in billionaires, even though it's about heroic human efforts to save people with impossible odds of success and a ticking clock. These scenarios have occurred before, and a ticking clock invariably magnifies the interest.
Pulling easily found refugees from the top of the ocean doesn't have the same cache, doesn't have the heroics or ingenuity or nail-biting clock of these other rare events. One scenario is cinematic and tragic, the other is indifferent politics.
Caz Hart, I was more or less agreeing with you right up to your last paragraph. It sounds there like you're saying, "IDGaF about peasants drowning, because their narrative isn't exciting enough."
Noah's point is that stories of the super-wealthy is, for some reason, inherently interesting to us, which is why a Billionaire drowning while engaging in extreme tourism (going down in a mini-submarine just to get a look at The TITANIC at the bottom of the ocean) means so much more than a boatload of migrants drowning while trying to make it to safety. We care more for Mr. Superrich and his entourage, and did more to rescue them, than we did to try and save those migrants—and maybe we need to be aware that Billionaires' lives (and deaths) aren't inherently more interesting than the lives of the less fortunate, even if they don't have an exciting narrative attached to them.
No, not what I intended to convey at the end. Although I expect there's an element of that thinking in real minds when those all too regular events occur.
I didn't think it was, which was why I brought it up....
A perfectly crafted and perfectly delusional press release from OceanGate Expeditions: "These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world's oceans".
Meanwhile, the NYTs has bafflingly chosen to frame the drownings of 650 refugees (or 100, depending on who is estimating, we'll never know an actual number) as demonstrable of oceanic inequality, because a superyacht rescued 100 men (no women or children saved) and salvaged a dozen bodies. The Greek coast guard had watched for 24 hours before the overloaded boat sank. Apparently, the teak of the yacht was in stark contrast to the bedraggled refugees. No mention of the morally reprehensible political indifference, no explanation for the lack of media attention, or why nearly 10 days passed before it became public that a private yacht, not a government vessel, undertook the rescue.
Where to begin to understand or untangle such euphemistic and inventive reporting?
Level of public interest? Not much, as far as I can tell.