Thread by @AlexandraErin

Here's a reason I'm a pro-mockery of the OceanGate fiasco: that whole "regulations stifle innovation" thing that crops up in their PR to present the whole "untested and unlicensed" thing as a feature rather than a bug: people who want us eating heavy metals for breakfast say that

The idea that safety regulations and oversight are anti-business, anti-competition, anti-future, and anti-human survival (because the geniuses who would save us have their hands tied)... that's a huge and consequential part of right-wing/libertarian mythology.

And no, I'm not saying that libertarian and right-wing are the exact same thing. That's why I said both of them. Because they aren't exactly the same thing.

But there's a lot of areas where their goals and methods overlap perfectly, even if their professed beliefs do not.

And there are people who don't believe in Deep State conspiracies and who would say they don't share the values of Trump or DeSantis who will cheer and join in on any push to gut the administrative and regulatory state apparatus, because regulatory.

Everybody who buys into the mythology of "long-termism" and "effective altruism" and who believes that "innovators" like Elon are all that stands between us and extinction, if only the plebes would get out of their way long enough for them to do it... they all spout this stuff.

And then people pay six figures to crawl into what is barely more than a Calvin & Hobbes cardboard box designed by Homer Simpson because they were told, "Yeah, we're only rated to 1.3km... because we're so cutting edge that no authority on earth could certify our safety at 4km. "

So the whole world is getting a vivid and evocative illustration of the fact that safety regulations don't exist to impose artificial consequences on dangerous actions, but to prevent the natural consequences of dangerous actions.

Quite often they function -- or are intended to function -- by making sure those who cause such consequences will share in consequences, but the theoretical goal is not "companies do bad things and suffer for it", it's "companies don't do these things and no one suffers."

This time, the people directly in the path of the natural consequences of circumscribing regulatory authority in order to commit dangerous acts are rich and powerful. That's unusual. It doesn't usually happen that way.

That makes it vivid and harder to ignore.

Do I think those who really need to learn the lesson we're all being shown is likely to have their mind changed and their eyes opened by this?

Not really.

But I have enough sunny optimism to hope it blunts the mass appeal of the ethos.

If nothing else, it provides a vivid rebuttal to "regulations stifle innovation".

Regulations would have prevented anyone from boarding a $250,000 deathtrap for disaster tourists.

And yes, yes, I know. No national regulatory authority applied to an operation in international waters. Instead of treating that as a loophole, OceanGate could have chosen to accept the regulations exist for good reason and hewed to them as a best practice.

"But why on earth would they do that?"

Because the alternative is one heck of a wedgie and being shoved into Davy Jones's locker.

And now everybody knows that.