For those who are unaware: A couple billionaires, a pilot, and one of the billionaires’ son are currently stuck inside an extremely tiny sub a couple thousand meters under the sea (inside of the sub with the guys above).
They were supposed to dive down to the titanic, but lost connection about halfway down. They’ve been missing for the past 48 hours, and have 2 days until the oxygen in the sub runs out. Do you think they’ll make it?
It is an interesting dilemma though isn’t it? On the one hand, emergency services are there for a reason. In general, you don’t want people to hesitate to call them because seconds matter in life threatening situations. What makes people hesitate? Fining them a shitload of money for being dumbasses who need rescuing.
On the other hand, it creates a bit of a moral hazard. People feel like they can go out and be morons, get in trouble, then get rescued by expensive professionals.
I feel like these people should face some punitive measures for being dumbasses and ignoring all kinds of safety advice etc. But again, people in the future might not call 911 or whoever when they should, because of that thought “what if I get fined a million bucks for being a dumb dumb?”
Just something to think about.
That is a good point and I fully recognize it’s nearly impossible to draw the line somewhere. But this situation is just so extreme. Like it’s not just someone who went out on a boat, maybe got caught in bad weather because they weren’t paying attention to the forecast or didn’t make needed repairs on their boat and got stuck. Even if someone was out boating for leisure you could chalk it up to an honest mistake or just boneheaded decision. But there’s something about taking such a HUGE risk of intentionally paying $250k to go down to the ocean floor and then necessitating a harrowing rescue that puts so many other lives at risk that just seems incredibly different. It’s way beyond any line most reasonable people could even fathom.
Reality too is that there’s a good chance they won’t be found in time and I’m sure rescue crews know that. Just hope no one else here hurt in the process.
Yeah it’s a fair point. There’s a different between an amateur doing something stupid without enough research etc…vs billionaires with presumably the resources to do enough homework and take care of themselves, or better, prevent it from happening.
In general I still think it’s just a really really good idea to NOT make people scared to dial 911 or whatever. Not a hill I’d die on but still super important. Maybe a compromise, some kind of other fine/penalty to the company/estate/survivors from…idk some agency…OSHA maybe lol…