I’m going to level with you guys. It’s 2:00 a.m. and I’ve said “do you have Hendricks gin?” to no less than five bartenders in the last eight hours. As such, I am not really in the position to push out a thoughtful, nuanced write-up this week. But I love you all, so here I am - eating chips on my bed at low budget hotel in Parsippany, New Jersey, trying to maintain my weekly newsletter commitment. I won’t get into all the places I’ve been tonight, but one topic of discussion was consistent in every place we went… wtf is up with this Titanic submarine?
When I was a little girl, I had a book about the mysteries of the ocean and the bizarre sea life that inhabits it. There were all kinds of creepy mock-ups of mutant fish that scoot along the bottom of the sea - some with no eyes, others with adaptive light-up anglers, and others gargantuan in size. Couple that with several viewings of “Jaws” and the very real hurricanes that ravished the coastline of my former Florida community, and you have a neurotic woman with a very healthy fear of the ocean.
Experts say we’ve only explored 20% of the ocean floor. That means that 80% of the ocean is a dark, cavernous abyss capable of either freezing, crushing, or devouring humanity. So why, then, are multi-billionaires so keen on fishing over massive six-figure payments to give them access to a watery grave, all in the name of extreme tourism?
These particular lost-at-sea billionaires were focused on the exploration of the Titanic remnants. Forgive me for being a touch salty that the guys who would fork over $250k for a shipwreck tour would be the same ones who likely chastised me and my friends for seeing “Titanic” in the theaters at least a dozen times in junior high. Ironically, had they watched the film with the same passion, they would recall that there were two key missteps that contributed to the tragic demise of so many on board. First, they were moving too fast to course-correct when approaching the iceberg, and second, there weren’t enough lifeboats on the deck due to their cluttery appearance. Well, we all know how that story ended and so did the people in charge of the missing submersible, and yet here we are.
Obvious issues with aggressive corner-cutting aside, the public’s hot take du jour is on the twisted propensity billionaires have with thrill seeking. There seems to be this insatiable drive among the 1% to pursue extreme tourism, from rocket launches to ocean deep dives. Of course, these “allocentrics” are free to expend their own resources however they please. The problem is when said resources shift from theirs to the taxplayer’s in the form of search and rescue when the adventure goes awry - highly probable since the thrill is largely hinged on the risk of failure.
I have two beefs with this. First, extreme tourism is predicated on a sort of “edgelord” mentality, which is effectively neutered when multiple nations have to scramble to deploy search and rescue resources. Second, extreme tourism is, by nature of its recklessness, subject to very little regulatory oversight. This is all born out of the tech bro “agile” mindset around innovation - to tackle new horizons, you have to DISRUPT! FAIL FAST! SPEED TO MARKET, etc., etc. Many of these guys see government and its regulatory fancies as a barrier to progress. That may be so, but interesting how the guys who lambast the government’s role in free enterprise are same ones rushing to social media to chastise government for not mobilizing fast enough when the enterprise crumbles. This notion of privatizing the gains but socializing the losses is very ick.
Speaking of ick, all that gin has me rode hard and put away wet. That is to say, I don’t have it in me to parse this topic any further. All I know is that I’m perfectly content with exploring the heavens and the seas from exactly where I’m sitting right now - in this fluffy hotel bed with iPhone in hand, no rescue mission necessary… unless someone wants to bring me a Gatorade and an ibuprofen?
Check back next week another piping hot take, plus a new Weekly Pour recipe and my thoughts on the just-released Spider-Man movie.
Great headline, that alone cracked me up
Loved this. While I pray for a successful outcome for these men and their families (I am a leftist Christian woman!) I cannot help feeling exactly as you do. When I think of what good that $250,000 from each could have done I want to smack someone. The food banks and homeless shelters it could have funded. The medical research it could have funded. The struggling arts organizations it could have funded. I also think how it is the rich-as-Croesus class that resents poor people for wanting cell phones (a necessary lifeline for all today) or buying an occasional steak with food assistance programs (like maybe they’re celebrating a milestone birthday or a child’s high school graduation)??? Judgement is so easy when it comes downward, and extremely resented when it is aimed upward. No wonder Jesus said it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than to go to heaven.