[justrealist]

I mean, I get it, it was a clown show. And yes, give it 15 minutes of fame, because it's the Titanic and all.

But I feel like some people care about this far more than I can understand, and the news cycle on this is quite protracted. People die in stupid ways every day and this doesn't seem more egregious than most.

[abnry]

If you mean that the event isn't significant in a societal sense, I totally agree. I don't really think there is any big moral conclusion to take from it. However, the story just has so many fascinating elements to it. The whole titanic story is fascinating, and it is incredible people found the wreck and can observe it. The technology is incredible. Then there is the thrill of exploration and the natural danger to it, but there is also the hubris of the OceanGate CEO, significant enough that he was blind to his own danger, which resulted in the deaths of more people than him. And what was the moment like? An implosion in an instant of a second... as opposed to being trapped and slowly suffocating. Those are two images hard to get out of one's head.

[ummonk]

Engineering disasters (e.g. the FIU bridge, the Boeing 737 MAX, the Miami condo collapse, and now the Titan submersible) are rightly subjects of significant interest in the press in general and hacker news specifically.

And rightly so - one can derive lessons on organizational culture and risk management from such incidents that are applicable to one's own life and career.

[vikramkr]

Sure but we're in a string of silicon valley come to Jesus moments and finally having a case where the founder was so deluded they got even themselves killed is going to get airtime. I don't think there's be nearly as much interest in this story if we weren't in also dealing with Theranos and FTX and the aftereffects of Cambridge analytica etc etc

[nradov]

OceanGate, FTX, and Cambridge Analytica were not headquartered in Silicon Valley. Out of the companies on your list Silicon Valley can only take the blame for Theranos.

[vikramkr]

The term silicon valley has long since transcended geographic boundaries to signify the tech and vc/startup sectors as a whole. Facebook and Amazon and Uber and Theranos and FTX are all a part of it. It's about the culture and the people that participate in that culture, move fast break things etc. That's what's been going through trainwreck after public trainwreck. And even if you wanted to tie it to a geographic region, which frankly is irrelevant - the vcs are based out of here

[panick21_]

Silicon Valley investors rejected Theranos. Most of them actually consider Tharanos a great victory. Tharanos funding come from lots of large private investors, like family fortunes and so on.

[vikramkr]

That particular overconfidence in bashing Theranos as an outsider company who would never have been able to fool Real Silicon Valley (tm) is definitely a core part of the narrative that's developing, since nobody believes they'd have disowned her if she had succeeded, and those very same VCs got rugpulled with FTX not that long after making all those confident assertions look very silly in hindsight.

[panick21_]

> who would never have been able to fool Real Silicon Valley

I mean its a fact. They were rejected by the traditional VCs.

> since nobody believes they'd have disowned her if she had succeeded

I mean why would they? VCs always talk about companies they could have gotten in early and didn't.

If Theranos was actually successful, then there would be no reason to 'disown' her.

> and those very same VCs got rugpulled with FTX not that long after making all those confident assertions look very silly in hindsight.

What confident assertions?

I don't get what they have to do with each other. Getting FTX wrong (if they did) has nothing to do if they got Tharanos right.

[hadlock]

The summer is historically a Very Slow News Season, they are going to milk this for all they can get. There are a handful of meaningful elections in 2023, and the legislature is on vacation through the middle of August.

[arghandugh]

It takes a tightly closed mind to not glean some insight from (or sense the import of) a one-in-a-billion story that touches on class, tech, and trust.

Five people died in an unprecedented fashion due to a rich con artist sending maliciously incompetent engineering to the bottom of the ocean. Stretch a bit, please.

[voidfunc]

Most people that die in stupid ways aren't rich. That's the difference

[Animats]

"Critics say that submersible should have been tested with poorer passengers first."[1]

[1] https://www.theonion.com/critics-say-submersible-should-ve-b...

[WalterBright]

That's because most people aren't rich. Your post has a statistical problem :-/

[tim333]

I think it was more an interesting way to go. I mean rich people die in everyday car crash doesn't get headlines but people die in deep sub to the Titanic or on space mission to the moon etc do.

[blitzar]

Most normal people dont die in stupid ways. The rich are special in that they disproportionaly die in rich people toys like planes, helicopters etc.

[no_butterscotch]

I agree. I actually rolled my eyes when people initially complained that the Greek migrant boat collapse wasn't getting as much attention. This is a one off whereas migrants die all the time.

However as time goes on and the articles are STILL ongoing, after as you say the 15 minutes of fame, I have to agree that at this point in time any writer still writing about this is worthy of an eye-roll in the other direction.

While it was news it was worth covering. Now, if you're a journalist and you're still covering it, then I do think you're a piece of **.

(https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/23/world/europe/titan-sub-gr...)

[JCharante]

> While it was news it was worth covering. Now, if you're a journalist and you're still covering it

I hold the opposite opinion. I think that covering it when everyone else was covering it would have been a waste of time because there is only limited information out there. Covering it 2 weeks or months later is much better and more information will have emerged and you can weave a narrative to tell the story better than some AI-written articles that just repeat the same 3 sentences from the Coast Guard.

[watwut]

I strongly disagree. I am for follow ups. Don't leave events to nothingness once initial peak of interests ends.

We are nit goldfish. We have memories. Tell us about how investigation continues - whether in this case or others.

[Arcanum-XIII]

Except that in Europe we have multiple report per day about the migrant death, all year long. And the difficulties, and problem arising, and…

There’s no mystery, no doubt, only pain. This sub failing, well, the pain is self induced so it’s hard to feel concerned, and it’s a mystery (not a big one, ok). It’s light news.

So both have their place. They don’t have the same impact, and well, let’s hope both will be solved… faster for the migrant problem though!

[UberFly]

"if you're a journalist and you're still covering it, then I do think you're a piece of *"

If there's something interesting in the conclusion of the story why get so hot and bothered if someone reports on it? Your reaction is strange to a story that many found interesting and may have follow up details.

[eternityforest]

People die in stupid ways, and a lot of them have aspects in common with this.

It's a pretty interesting case study on safety culture. Dying in a stupid way is often preventable, and yet we just accept it, for probably some of the same reasons Rush did.