Thread by @BigSquishyDM

Apparently one of the people on the sub is a 19 year old kid. And there is a lot of shaming going around for people having a knee jerk reaction to a bunch of rich people dying on a sub because of that.

And the narrative would be different if but for a few changes.

If he were poor and in the back seat of his best friends car as it crashed into a lake going 90 miles an hour here in rural Indiana, it would be tragic but he would be "a grown ass man that should have known better than to get in that car."

If he were black and walking down the street at night and cops beat him to death because he didn't react fast enough, or reacted too quickly he wouldn't even be a grown man. He would be "just another thug," according to the media. A danger. A threat.

If he were one of the refugees drowned by Greek authorities recently he wouldn't even be a blip on the radar. He would be one of hundreds lost in an act of cruelty as they pushed their stalled boat into a capsize. Collateral damage.

Because he is rich and paid a quarter of a million to see the graves of quite a lot of poor people, his life is somehow worth more pity, and more respect.

Do not get me wrong, absolutely none of these situations, or his, are good. They aren't situations that should be happening

But somehow he, who signed a waiver that said no more than three times that he could die, gave informed consent to hop on the death trap and see the Titanic - he's just a kid, and none of the others are. Nothing the kid fleeing danger.

Not the kid just existing near the wrong cop at the wrong time, or the kid who just had the worst luck in friends and didn't know that car ride was his last. Those aren't kids.

He is.

It's an interesting disparity.

The more I learn about #OceanGate the more I hate the CEO. He was told by an engineer that the vessel wasn't sea worthy, he fried him. He was begged by engineers not to use the submersible, he ignored it. He even showed investors diving suits that are going to do shit.

Those were his safety measures. Even if they were somehow rated for the depths they were going to (they weren't,) they couldn't get out because they are bolted into the sub.

This man flagrantly played with people's lives. In this instance it was other wealthy people that he killed. You'll note that disparity is back. The wealthy kill us with neglect and it's no big deal, it's international news if they kill each other.

Everything about this guy is just shit. I'm pissed off at that far more than any jokes about this craft, or that the rich have been eaten by the sea, or that Titanic is raising her kill ratio. Cause if he is out here doing it, there are others out here doing it.

Exploiting the same loophole and claiming to be a research vessel while just doing dark tourism for the rich. There needs to be regulations to stop this, just like there needed to be regulations to make all ships on the ocean (not just white star line ships) safer.

The government NEEDS to be up the ass of guys like this because the "free market" and those that protect their little money deities want to get rid of the regulations that exist that apparently don't reach what this asshole did. Cause apparently it wasn't illegal!

But yeah, probably won't happen. Because the folks lining up to wail the loudest for these lost rich folks? They are going to vote for mother fuckers that are going to get rid of the current regulations because capitalism I guess.

So more 19 year olds are going to die.

And nothing changes other than crocodile tears about how these folks that have no problem killing us, die due to their own hubris.