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Comment by xwdv | Hacker News Reader

It’s definitely better for them, but its infuriating that this CEO died thinking he was a genius for building this shitty sub with very few safety precautions.

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What's more infuriating is that they fired an employee who raised safety concerns.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/06/21/oc...

(already submitted minutes ago)

At least he died doing it and not someone he employed.

Well his actions lead to several other people dying too. Maybe the ticket they bought has a contract that exempts OceanGate (tragic name for a company going through their own #OceanGate a la Watergate) from any liability, but I hope this company gets annihilated in court with criminal and civil penalties.

Slacking this hard on safety for a submarine engineering company should not be tolerated in our rapidly advancing industrial society.

My first thought was Heavens Gate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_(religious_g...

Same here.

39 to beam up.

Better buy the joystick they used before it goes like the Heaven's Gate tennis shoes.

Saying that you absolve yourself of liability doesn’t excuse gross negligence though.

OceanGateGate

It's also probably related to the "launch or die" ecosystem that Y Combinator, Sand Hill investors, and pretty much the entire ecosystem promotes.

When was the last time an investor handed an additional $10 million check for 0% to a startup to improve and test their safety systems before launching? Instead their usual mandate is "launch yesterday or die". Which is okay for a SaaS platform or grocery delivery app, but not a deep sea vessel.

Today's version of capitalism is every bit responsible for tragedies like this. While the CEO is directly at fault for certain things, the system is equally at fault for raising and educating a CEO (and huge numbers of post-2000s CEOs) to be like that.

> their usual mandate is "launch yesterday or die". Which is okay for a SaaS platform or grocery delivery app, but not a deep sea vessel

Hypothetical users of the SaaS platform or grocery delivery app who find out later that their personal information wasn't handled with the appropriate safeguards might disagree with that one.

> Today's version of capitalism is every bit responsible for tragedies like this

Correct.

true, i've never heard of issues with the engineering of a submarine produced under socialism

'Not capitalism' is not the same as 'socialism'

Yep, exactly. I was suggesting we need a better system in the future, not a worse system.

Techno-feudalism? I’m curious what other systems you think could be better.

Distributism could play.

There’s a lot of sleight of hand with confounding governments and financial systems, however.

i vote that this third, secret thing makes anime real as well

Well "move fast, break things" is fine in certain contexts... SpaceX could be said to have done that. Their first few launches exploded. But they put in the engineering discipline, extensively tested all new/innovative processes, and they didn't dare put a human or even a paying payload on top of their rocket until they'd done extensive work on the test stand and actual launches.

You can move fast and innovate in life-critical systems so long as you prioritize the engineering and testing.

Yeah, it really is a failure of the kind of engineering hubris that you see all over HN every day.

This event reads like nature going "no, seriously, you monkeys aren't anywhere nearly as clever as you think you are".

Honestly given all the red flags he ignored it seems like he had a death wish, or at the very least got a thrill from risking his life on these trips. Otherwise I can't wrap my head around the stupidity of the whole thing.

Some ultra-rich people have nigh-unconquerable survivorship biases

In his mind he never properly died though, it was damn near instant. He got to live his whole life and never realize the consequences of his actions through a slow, violent epiphany.

Yes, if this other person I know from the internet had more mental or physical pain I would be happier.

Do you have any particularl inside info on this other than what you’ve read in the news over the last couple of days? They’re pretty strong accusations you're making.

It's all over this thread

Here you go:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230619161930/https://oceangate...

From the page you linked:

>Why Isn't Titan Classed?

[...]

>Classing assures ship owners, insurers, and regulators that vessels are designed, constructed and inspected to accepted standards. Classing may be effective at filtering out unsatisfactory designers and builders, but the established standards do little to weed out subpar vessel operators – because classing agencies only focus on validating the physical vessel.

[...]

> The vast majority of marine (and aviation) accidents are a result of operator error, not mechanical failure.

Did they not consider that the reason for this fact is, oh I don't know, maybe because the vessels have passed the checks for mechanical integrity?

You can't make this stuff up...

It's that Dunninger Kruger thing. And it's nigh ubiquitous.

I live in this little personal bubble.

Believing with great confidence that the edge of my bubble and the edge of reality are one and the same is actually quite empowering.

Those who Dunninger Kruger with greater intensity tend to win.

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