They say that getting squeezed can release fealings of anxiety. Imagine how good it must feel getting crushed by titanic depth pressure.
this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2024
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The internet was so ruthless almost immediately on this one. I feel like every newsworthy event has detractors and defenders but this submarine business had literally everyone shitting on them the second the news broke. In a sick sort of internet way it was practically wholesome.
There were some bootlickers asking for decency but nah. This was basically billionaires paying an obscene amount of money for the most spectacular group suicide of the last 10 years and decency was already off the table after the word "billionaire"
When the news broke, we were talking about it at work (trust me, I’m an engineer) and looking at the design scratching our heads.
Then someone says “that main body is made of carbon fiber!” All of us started laughing in hysterics, then someone goes “yummy yummy crab food!” and it just got worse.
It was hilarious watching interviews with the owner, who had zero formal engineering training, talk about how he was a rule breaker and maverick, and how rules were just holding back his amazing design. Dive a little deeper (har har), and every actual trained engineer he hired was almost immediately fired for calling out the poor design and material.
He settled on an 18 and 19 year old kid (not the one that got squished) as his engineers. I can’t even comprehend how this was even allowed to happen, but appreciate the memes.
Even the choice of colour was an interesting one. "Should we make our submersible brightly coloured like every other submersible in the world? In case we are stuck floating barely above the surface of the ocean, literally bolted shut inside this tube?" "Nah, let's do white and grey, looks more modern."
It was allowed to happen because there are no regulations covering these submarines, especially in international waters. Safety is generally opt-in because the people who commission them intend to use them, so of course they'll listen to engineers and do it right.
Of course sometimes you'll get someone so far up their own ass that they can't hear anything except their own farts.
You can also see the move-fast-and-break-things bullshit in what he said. That mentality sort of works for software development but silicon valley is exporting it into realms where breaking things means killing people.
and a kid who got pressured into going by his father, but you didn't bring him up, did you?
The Internet rarely agrees on something but we all agreed these people dying was hilarious.
As Behind the Bastards elaborated Stockton Rush got a bit mad scientist about it and ignored all the deep-sea experts that were telling him the carbon fiber shell was deteriorating even from the test dives.
It didn't have standard safey mechanisms. For example, the door could be opened from the outside only. There was no emergency escape (say, in the event of an emergency surface situation.)
Rush laughed at safety, but then he went down in it, so full mad science cred.
The billionaires could afford to hire a team to do due diligence to make sure they would safely come back, and lawyers to tell them to do due diligence. But the kid and the family didn't. Superrich families often are super-dysfunctional.
So now, to get Stockton Rushed is to be sold a ride or experience for a conspicuously high price. And that kills you, like eating at the Hawthorn.