[lisper]

Well, let's start with the title. It is simply not true that anything on a cruise ship is "nearly lethal". Cruise ships are ridiculously safe environments compared to the rest of the world. Just about the only place you're going to be safer is on an airplane. Even your own home is almost certainly more dangerous than a modern cruise ship.

The other thing that really struck me was his characterization of the cruise environment as "an enormous primordial stew of death and decay." It isn't, at least not any more than anyplace else on the planet. Sure, boats rust, but so what? This is just another example of the continual struggle of life against the Second Law. This entire planet is "an enormous primordial stew of death and decay." It is, of course, also an enormous nursery of life emerging from that death and decay. That's just the Way It Is. Cruse ships are just part of the human phenotype, no different from any other artifact. Nothing lasts forever. Getting maudlin about it is a choice.

Some other random examples: he renames the ship from Zenith to Nadir as a dark joke, but then he keeps referring to her that way. The micromanagement he describes on page 37 doesn't happen, except insofar as the staff will try to be helpful in allowing you to make the most of your limited time.

Reading back over it I guess the problem is not so much blatant factual inaccuracies as it is continually and unrelentingly putting the worst possible spin on every detail of what is actually a very enjoyable experience -- if you allow it to be, which he emphatically did not. The most charitable interpretation I can come up with is that this was the clinical depression talking.

[gizajob]

or a writer really just goofing around in the same way as, say, Seinfeld.

[lisper]

I didn't like Seinfeld either. There are enough people behaving like assholes in the real world. I don't need more of that in my evening entertainment.

[gizajob]

Or George Carlin. Or Bill Hicks. Or a bunch of other people you don't like but that many enjoy regardless.

[lisper]

The problem with Seinfeld is that they deliberately set out to make a show with unsympathetic characters whose central personality trait is that they care about no one but themselves. Basically, they're sociopaths. Carlin can be abrasive, but I don't think he's a sociopath.

[10u152]

Why is that a problem? The whole point is to make the viewer laugh and mock them for comedy.

[lisper]

Because I don't believe in mocking people for their personal shortcomings.

I also think a fundamental principle of good drama is that it should have a protagonist that you can root for even if they are flawed. (Frasier is a good example.) None of Seinfeld's characters had any redeeming qualities whatsoever.

[veave]

Hence the finale ;-)

[bob1029]

> The most charitable interpretation I can come up with is that this was the clinical depression talking.

I think cruises are kind of shitty. Is it possible that one could dislike the experience without suffering from something in DSM?

To me they're the crowning jewel of shameless consumerism. It's like getting one of those 14-in-1 tools from the dollar store. Sure, you got everything in one pocket but they're all pretty crappy versions of the original.

I get the travel angle, but airplanes are a hell of a lot faster. I've never found myself reading sky mall thinking I'd prefer to be roaming through an actual mall.

[ses1984]

He’s using hyperbole.

Anyway, if you’ve ever been on a cruise ship during a norovirus outbreak, stew of death and decay doesn’t seem so far off.