Imploding Submersibles

Just some points to make.

Firstly, I don't care that the people on board were millionaires and billionaires.  They're people, no matter how much money they have.

If they made their millions and billions through insider trading, accepting bribes, embezzling funds, trading in political power, through "art auctions" and all the rest... then I'm glad they will now get to give account to God, who will give them a far fairer hearing than they deserve.

But if they made their millions and billions by trading goods and services that other people found useful and willingly used and purchased, then good for them.  If all of their money came from free will economic actions, then fantastic.  Or even if they inherited their millions and billions, but they have been responsibly re-investing the money and donating parts of it as they see need, then good for them.  I do not begrudge them a single cent.

Whether they are billionaires, or common people, the governments of the US and Canada should have spent every bit as much time looking for them.

Secondly, the governments of the US and Canada should have spent exactly 0 hours looking for them.  It is a complete waste of taxpayer money.

These were not people who became shipwrecked when their boat capsized at sea.  These were not people who suffered a terrible disaster.  There were people who deliberately sought out the most dangerous frontier of exploration they could find, created their own means to get there, understood all of the risks involved, then went underwater anyway.

If they die, then they die doing something brave.  That's more than most of us get to say, anyway.

If they knowingly took on all of these risks, then it is the responsibility of absolutely no one --- except maybe the company or their families --- to look for them.

This applies to submersibles, it applies to mountain climbers, it applies to arctic explorers, it applies to people trying to walk across a desert with a single bottle of water.  If you knowingly do something that is likely to kill you, then you get to die being brave if things go wrong.  That's your reward.  No taxpayer money should fund your search and rescue.

Thirdly, despite thinking it a waste of taxpayer money to look for them, I do not actually wish any kind of death to them.  I'm glad to hear, at a minimum, that they died by a sudden implosion, likely so quickly they never realized it.  The horrific possibility that they were stuck shoulder-to-shoulder underwater inside a metal tube at the bottom of the sea, slowly waiting to run out of oxygen, banging on the sides of the craft, is a disturbing thought.  It involves so much continual fear, stress, and discomfort, and I would not wish that to anyone.

Fourthly, the submersible was exactly as safe as it needed to be.  The point of the submersible was to push new horizons of exploration and take risky expeditions beyond what is otherwise safely possible.  The CEO is exactly correct in his defenses of his craft, the design choices used, and why he didn't need to submit to a safety classing agency.  You can't make a safe submersible that carries humans to the literal bottom of the ocean.

Fifthly, just as there is no reason for governments to waste resources looking for people who deliberately put themselves in unrecoverable danger, there is no need for governments to stop people from deliberately getting into unrecoverable danger.  Everyone signed waivers and knew what they were doing.  If they want to travel in a tiny metal tube to the bottom of the sea, so much so they pay a quarter of a million dollars to get there, and they know the tiny metal tube could at any many be destroyed by the surrounding ocean, then let them go in the tiny metal tube.  The government doesn't need to regulate tiny metal submersible tubes.  It doesn't need to make sure they are safe, because they are inherently not safe.  It doesn't need to make the activity illegal, because people should be allowed to seek out the danger they want.  We should just leave them alone when they do it.

Sixthly, the only place the government should enter the picture here is when people inevitably try to sue the company.  And it should come in and say, here is the legal contract the people signed waiving all risk of bodily harm or death.  And that's the end of the case.  It doesn't matter if the ship had been literally constructed of paper mache and bailing wire, if you do something stupid knowing it's stupid, and knowing you can die, and you sign words to that effect, then your survivors are perfectly right to be mad at you, but can't make legal demands on the guy with the paper mache submersible.

America was once a country of explorers and frontiersmen, who went out into the wilderness to find success.  We were built with the spirit of exploration and survival.  Good for the OceanGate company to keep that alive.  The American government should respect that.  Leave them alone when they go underwater, leave them alone when they don't come back above water.  Seems fair.

Those are my thoughts.  I'm saddened to hear of the loss of life, especially of the young man who died so early.