5 ms·

The Titanic is famous because of the hubris involved; it was the biggest, fastest, most luxurious ocean liner ever, that sunk basically just because its captain

by bydo 6y ago

The Titanic is famous because of the hubris involved; it was the biggest, fastest, most luxurious ocean liner ever, that sunk basically just because its captain was trying for the Blue Riband on its maiden voyage (also, a lot of rich and famous people died). The Lusitania is famous because it was a hospital ship attacked during wartime and was used to drum up support for allies entering the war (it was a major factor in the US entering). For whatever reason we don't really care about normal civilians dying en masse during peacetime accidents. So many people died in the General Slocum disaster that it wiped out the Little Germany neighborhood of New York: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_General_Slocum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_General_Slocum

thaumasiotes 6y ago
The Titanic also killed many more people than the Eastland did. The headline here is intentionally deceptive, specifying that the Eastland killed more passengers. The past is a pretty different place. These hundreds of passengers died when they couldn't swim the twenty feet to the shore. It makes you question why they wanted to have their party on a boat.
- brazzy 6y ago
  > These hundreds of passengers died when they couldn't swim the twenty feet to the shore. Many of them were young children. Most of them were trapped below decks because the ship rolled over so quickly. > It makes you question why they wanted to have their party on a boat. Victim blaming here is not just disrespectful and mean but also factually wrong.
- pantaloony 6y ago
  > The past is a pretty different place. These hundreds of passengers died when they couldn't swim the twenty feet to the shore. It makes you question why they wanted to have their party on a boat. I’m not following this. Seems like a lot of people were trapped below decks, and a lot more were stuck in what amounts to a mosh pit in water while trying to look after vulnerable loved ones, which is a great way for even strong swimmers to drown in a hurry.
  - OldHand2018 6y ago
    > mosh pit in water In fresh water, which is far less buoyant than salty ocean water.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > These hundreds of passengers died when they couldn't swim the twenty feet to the shore. It makes you question why they wanted to have their party on a boat. I mean, should I be required to be able to flap my arms and fly to hop on an airliner?
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    I must have missed the part of my own comment where I suggested that the strange part of this was that those people were allowed onto a boat. The strange part is that they wanted to be there. If you can't swim, this is a self-evidently bad idea. People are still afraid of boats, just as people are afraid of airplanes. Those people are correct -- occupying a vehicle whose failure will instantly kill you is something you should be frightened of. But since you mention requirements, I'll note that my parents would not allow me on a boat -- any boat -- before I could swim. Unlike the ability to fly, the ability to swim is not all that difficult to learn. And while it won't save you if you get dumped into the middle of the sea, it will save you if you get dumped twenty feet from shore.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      Yes, people should learn to swim if only for safety reasons. I went to a school that required you to pass a swim test (or take a swimming class) to graduate. I approve with whatever reasonable exceptions are appropriate. But it's not obvious to me that large boats should particularly be avoided if you have otherwise never learned to swim for whatever reasons. And it's not clear that being able to swim would necessarily save many of the people who have died in major ferry, etc. accidents.
      - catalogia 6y ago
        > And it's not clear that being able to swim would necessarily save many of the people who have died in major ferry, etc. accidents. The ability to get off the ship and into the water seems like the trickiest bit to me, particularly if you're below deck sleeping when the accident occurs. Once you're in the water, I think the temperature of the water is likely the biggest factor. If the water is cold then you likely have minutes to survive no matter how strong a swimmer you are. If the water is warm, people could float for days before succumbing to the elements. The USS Indianapolis survivors were in the water for four days and were in pretty bad shape, but I think in the modern era a more timely rescue is likely.
Tokkemon 6y ago
That's not true. The Titanic was never competing for the Riband as it couldn't hope to compete with the Lusitania on speed. (That was made up for the movie.) The Lusitania was not a Hospital Ship, it was still a passenger ship at the time of its sinking. The Britanic, Titanic's sister ship, was a hospital ship that was sunk by a German mine in WWI. Maybe you're mixing the two up.
- catalogia 6y ago
  Besides passengers the Lusitania was also officially carrying hundreds of tons of rifle ammunition and more than a thousand cases of artillery shells. Some have asserted it had even more than that, undeclared/unofficially. From wikipedia: > Furthermore, there was a large consignment of fur, sent from Dupont de Nemours, an explosives manufacturer, and 90 tons of butter and lard destined for the Royal Navy Weapons Testing Establishment in Essex. Although it was May, this lard and butter was not refrigerated; it was insured by the special government rate but the insurance was never claimed.[111] That may not excuse Germany for sinking it, but even so I think operating in that capacity is a far cry from being a hospital ship.
  - stormdennis 6y ago
    I know someone who's grandfather saw the Lusitania being torpedoed. It was not unexpected, there was known to be a u-boat in the area and people watched from onshore
    - marcusverus 6y ago
      That and the Germans basically announced that it would happen. From Wikipedia: > The [German] embassy decided to warn passengers before her next crossing not to sail aboard Lusitania, and on 22 April placed a warning advertisement in 50 American newspapers, including those in New York: NOTICE! TRAVELLERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk. IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY Washington, D.C. 22 April 1915 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Lusitania https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Lusitania
endymi0n 6y ago
Pretty much this — there's a large mindshare bias towards the more dramatic and relatable incidents. My favorite party question is what the most deadly power plant accident in history was. And the predictable answer "Chernobyl" is wrong by a whole order of magnitude, which seems to surprise many: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam For even more extreme examples for drama & negativity bias, feel free to have a look at actual death causes vs. news exposure: Terrorism is overrepresented by more than three orders of magnitude, while almost nobody gets killed by a bad guy but rather by heart disease: https://ourworldindata.org/does-the-news-reflect-what-we-die-from https://ourworldindata.org/does-the-news-reflect-what-we-die... All in all, humans are pretty pathetic at objectiveness.
- jfk13 6y ago
  It's a bit of a stretch to refer to Banqiao Dam as a "power plant accident". It was a dam failure. Sure, it was part of "a project to control flooding and provide electrical power generation" (from the wikipedia article), but AIUI the failure was nothing to do with the power plant; it was simply the dam.
  - stickfigure 6y ago
    That seems overly pedantic, like saying Chernobyl was a "reactor failure" that has nothing to do with the power plant.
- georgiecasey 6y ago
  I find it much more newsworthy to hear of civilians being purposely killed by people in pursuit of their political aims than a disease where 80% of the deaths are people over 65
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

by bydo 6y ago

thaumasiotes 6y ago

The Titanic also killed many more people than the Eastland did. The headline here is intentionally deceptive, specifying that the Eastland killed more passengers. The past is a pretty different place. These hundreds of passengers died when they couldn't swim the twenty feet to the shore. It makes you question why they wanted to have their party on a boat.

brazzy 6y ago
> These hundreds of passengers died when they couldn't swim the twenty feet to the shore. Many of them were young children. Most of them were trapped below decks because the ship rolled over so quickly. > It makes you question why they wanted to have their party on a boat. Victim blaming here is not just disrespectful and mean but also factually wrong.
pantaloony 6y ago
> The past is a pretty different place. These hundreds of passengers died when they couldn't swim the twenty feet to the shore. It makes you question why they wanted to have their party on a boat. I’m not following this. Seems like a lot of people were trapped below decks, and a lot more were stuck in what amounts to a mosh pit in water while trying to look after vulnerable loved ones, which is a great way for even strong swimmers to drown in a hurry.
- OldHand2018 6y ago
  > mosh pit in water In fresh water, which is far less buoyant than salty ocean water.
ceejayoz 6y ago
> These hundreds of passengers died when they couldn't swim the twenty feet to the shore. It makes you question why they wanted to have their party on a boat. I mean, should I be required to be able to flap my arms and fly to hop on an airliner?
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  I must have missed the part of my own comment where I suggested that the strange part of this was that those people were allowed onto a boat. The strange part is that they wanted to be there. If you can't swim, this is a self-evidently bad idea. People are still afraid of boats, just as people are afraid of airplanes. Those people are correct -- occupying a vehicle whose failure will instantly kill you is something you should be frightened of. But since you mention requirements, I'll note that my parents would not allow me on a boat -- any boat -- before I could swim. Unlike the ability to fly, the ability to swim is not all that difficult to learn. And while it won't save you if you get dumped into the middle of the sea, it will save you if you get dumped twenty feet from shore.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Yes, people should learn to swim if only for safety reasons. I went to a school that required you to pass a swim test (or take a swimming class) to graduate. I approve with whatever reasonable exceptions are appropriate. But it's not obvious to me that large boats should particularly be avoided if you have otherwise never learned to swim for whatever reasons. And it's not clear that being able to swim would necessarily save many of the people who have died in major ferry, etc. accidents.
    - catalogia 6y ago
      > And it's not clear that being able to swim would necessarily save many of the people who have died in major ferry, etc. accidents. The ability to get off the ship and into the water seems like the trickiest bit to me, particularly if you're below deck sleeping when the accident occurs. Once you're in the water, I think the temperature of the water is likely the biggest factor. If the water is cold then you likely have minutes to survive no matter how strong a swimmer you are. If the water is warm, people could float for days before succumbing to the elements. The USS Indianapolis survivors were in the water for four days and were in pretty bad shape, but I think in the modern era a more timely rescue is likely.

Tokkemon 6y ago

That's not true. The Titanic was never competing for the Riband as it couldn't hope to compete with the Lusitania on speed. (That was made up for the movie.) The Lusitania was not a Hospital Ship, it was still a passenger ship at the time of its sinking. The Britanic, Titanic's sister ship, was a hospital ship that was sunk by a German mine in WWI. Maybe you're mixing the two up.

catalogia 6y ago
Besides passengers the Lusitania was also officially carrying hundreds of tons of rifle ammunition and more than a thousand cases of artillery shells. Some have asserted it had even more than that, undeclared/unofficially. From wikipedia: > Furthermore, there was a large consignment of fur, sent from Dupont de Nemours, an explosives manufacturer, and 90 tons of butter and lard destined for the Royal Navy Weapons Testing Establishment in Essex. Although it was May, this lard and butter was not refrigerated; it was insured by the special government rate but the insurance was never claimed.[111] That may not excuse Germany for sinking it, but even so I think operating in that capacity is a far cry from being a hospital ship.
- stormdennis 6y ago
  I know someone who's grandfather saw the Lusitania being torpedoed. It was not unexpected, there was known to be a u-boat in the area and people watched from onshore
  - marcusverus 6y ago
    That and the Germans basically announced that it would happen. From Wikipedia: > The [German] embassy decided to warn passengers before her next crossing not to sail aboard Lusitania, and on 22 April placed a warning advertisement in 50 American newspapers, including those in New York: NOTICE! TRAVELLERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk. IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY Washington, D.C. 22 April 1915 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Lusitania https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Lusitania

endymi0n 6y ago

Pretty much this — there's a large mindshare bias towards the more dramatic and relatable incidents. My favorite party question is what the most deadly power plant accident in history was. And the predictable answer "Chernobyl" is wrong by a whole order of magnitude, which seems to surprise many: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam For even more extreme examples for drama & negativity bias, feel free to have a look at actual death causes vs. news exposure: Terrorism is overrepresented by more than three orders of magnitude, while almost nobody gets killed by a bad guy but rather by heart disease: https://ourworldindata.org/does-the-news-reflect-what-we-die-from https://ourworldindata.org/does-the-news-reflect-what-we-die... All in all, humans are pretty pathetic at objectiveness.

jfk13 6y ago
It's a bit of a stretch to refer to Banqiao Dam as a "power plant accident". It was a dam failure. Sure, it was part of "a project to control flooding and provide electrical power generation" (from the wikipedia article), but AIUI the failure was nothing to do with the power plant; it was simply the dam.
- stickfigure 6y ago
  That seems overly pedantic, like saying Chernobyl was a "reactor failure" that has nothing to do with the power plant.
georgiecasey 6y ago
I find it much more newsworthy to hear of civilians being purposely killed by people in pursuit of their political aims than a disease where 80% of the deaths are people over 65
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]