Category Archives: Technology and Society

Law, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Titanic Submersible

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It has ties to space exploration.

There are a lot of parallels with space tourism here. It is a high-risk, high-cost activity for wealthy individuals, that is currently unregulated. It is a visit to a harsh environment (worse than space in some ways), where life support is required, and finite. I hope that this incident doesn’t result in clamoring for regulation, of either submersibles, or space adventures. In the case of the submersible, it’s not clear who would regulate something that’s taking place in international waters.

[Update a few minutes later]

[Noon update]

One of the people on the boat is an adventure addict.

Well, that’s the sort of people who do this sort of thing.

[Wednesday-morning update]

It’s looking more and more like this was negligence, and the people who did it were daredevils.

And then there’s this.

[Bumped]

[Noon update]

The company was warned twice of potentially catastrophic consequences. It will be ironic if Rush is killed by his own decision, but it shows his misplaced confidence in it.

[Thursday-afternoon update]

“They likely didn’t know what hit them.”

[Bumped]

[Update a while later]

Thoughts from James Cameron:

Business, Economics, Education, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

A Question For The Climate Crazies

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What evidence would it require for you to change your mind, and for you to realize that it is not a crisis, and that we don’t have to destroy the economy in the name of climate?

This is a (semi)serious question, but mostly a note to write a longer essay about science and falsifiability, that I didn’t have time or gumption to write tonight.