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by deadballcretin 1090 days ago
On one hand, 'if it ain't broke' etc.

On the other, 'wait, what?'.

The entire operation manages to somehow feel both incredibly sophisticated (it's not easy to get a sub to that depth) and simultaneously incredibly stupid.

4 comments

There has to be a name for this kind of phenomenon.

I am smart enough to know that I'm too dumb and ill-equipped to make a safe tourism business out of a homebrewed submarine.

These people are smarter than me, but too stupid to know that they aren't smart enough to make a safe tourism business out of a homebrewed submarine.

Correction: these people were smarter than you, and they may have at some point recently come to understand that they couldn't make a safe tourism business out of this sub.
That would be hubris
Foolishness
Conditional Risk https://xkcd.com/795/
Elon Musk effect.
Dunning-Kruger effect.
Did you know the Dunning-Kruger effect isn't real?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-you-know/2020...

I’m not really convinced. If everyone is a little overconfident (in the sense that they think they’re above average) then the least competent are indeed the most mistaken about their relative competency. Which is (I think) what most people—at least ones not trying to use it as a debate tactic—understand Dunning-Kruger to be.
Another domain, but I feel that way when I watch some universally panned TV show/movie. One where a random person can think of simple changes to the script or plot that would make it far more interesting. I find myself wondering...how did these people recruit hundreds of people, and spend millions of dollars to make this, but no one took a second glance at the script to fix some glaring issue.
What's wrong with using COTS components?
Nothing, the issue is who is buying and implementing it.
Exactly what's the issues, then?
buying wrong COTS components, ones that are not fit for intended purpose
> buying wrong COTS components, ones that are not fit for intended purpose

What could possibly lead you to presume that? Do you feel in a better position to make that call than all the engineers who actually work on that task at a professional level?

The part most surprising to me was that there is no way to see out of the craft besides the camera system. Why not watch the video on land after the fact? It seems so senseless to endanger yourself as a participant.
There's a porthole in the front of the sub, where the toilet is.

Funny enough, I've also seen "it doesn't even have a toilet" repeated around HN in the last couple days.

IIRC an earlier design or planned design used cameras only.

Edit: Wow, they were actually sued by a whistleblower over the pressure rating for the window on an earlier design! https://newrepublic.com/post/173802/missing-titanic-sub-face...

Yeah, I think I made a mistake when researching if it had a window. It clearly had one when the reporter went down last year.
Serious? what about the "window" in the front?
window was in front of tourist toilet they had there, question is I'd they had enough flood lamps so that it was possible to see anything further than a meter away