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There is definitely a difference, but it doesn’t really matter philosophically speaking. If people want to take huge risks, then so be it. Whether they build t
by brutusborn 3y ago
There is definitely a difference, but it doesn’t really matter philosophically speaking.
If people want to take huge risks, then so be it. Whether they build the sub themselves or pay and give that responsibility to a proxy, it is still up to them to make their own risk assessment.
- fasthands9 3y agoThis is not really how the government operates. If this was operating at scale the government would absolutely be involved. You can't just run cruise ship operations and advertising without government involvement. I dont see how this is any different. Perhaps you personally have a "so be it" libertarian view but thats not the view the government takes.
- Osiris 3y agoIt’s international waters. What “government” are you referring to?
- pohl 3y agoDoes the first sentence here help narrow it down? https://oceangate.com/about.html https://oceangate.com/about.html
- greiskul 3y agoAny ship needs to fly the flag of a country. They do so by registering with a country, following the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. By doing so, the ship has to follow the laws of the registered country. If a ship or submarine does not register to any country, I think most coast guards will assume it to be pirates or drug smugglers. And they will probably surrender and arrest anyone on board or sink you if it comes to that.
- mwint 3y agoYeah, and there will always be a country willing to let you do anything short of actual piracy under their flag, maybe for a fee. There’s no world government, thank goodness.
- yxhuvud 3y agoAssumedly the sale of the service didn't also happen on international waters.
- fasthands9 3y agoA cruise ship is on international water but there are still strict laws about what cruise ships can operate at US ports or can advertise to US consumers.
- strawhatguy 3y agoOh government likes to step in alright. Doesn't mean they should, or that it helps as much for 'safety' as people would like to believe. Just as often rules can cause safety issues as not. But always more expense.
- rdtsc 3y agoIt's one thing for them to take the risk for themselves, but it's a whole other level selling to others. For example, if someone wants to drink a refreshing glass of strychnine soda, it's hard to stop them. But opening a stand and selling at the street corner is a bit different.
- brutusborn 3y agoThe distinction is artificial, both parties paid for either the materials or the final product. Financial gain doesn’t fundamentally change who is responsible, that it just you applying your personal values to the situation.
- bluepod4 3y agoYou must be a huge Ayn Rand fan. LMAO.
- afiori 3y agoAs an hypothetical would you say that someone should be allowed to sell "mystery drinks" where the customer is told that the ingredients are a secret but the seller knows that it is heavily poisonous?
- ikekkdcjkfke 3y agoA kid walks up and wants one
- stOneskull 3y agothe CEO is drinking one with them
- rdtsc 3y agoIndeed. He put his life on the line. I don't know the circumstance that lead to this and I hope everyone gets rescued, though it's looking quite desperate. But, yeah, that's pretty convincing from a marketing point of view.
- phs318u 3y agoA “risk assessment” by customers is typically based on attestations to safety made by the company. If the company is hiding or misrepresenting pertinent information then the customers have been denied the opportunity to make a reasonable assessment. At best it’s a case of gaining money by deception. At worst the company principals will be liable for deaths the deaths of those customers.
- brutusborn 3y agoI completely agree that if the company lied they should be liable. Truth is essential.
- aksss 3y agoLet’s not rob the clients of their agency. Remember the proposition: you’re going to dive 2.4 miles underwater, in the middle of the Atlantic. On a nuclear sub with the best collision avoidance and mapping data available, with highly regimented procedure, this is still a riskier proposition than most people appreciate. But you’re going to do it in a carbon fiber hull. This is at the very minimum an adventure, with a very high risk of turning into a disaster. You sign the liability waiver and have the balls to get on board the boat, and have the further commitment to board the submersible day-of. I’m not saying this to blame them or extol their courage. It just is what it is, and sometimes - oftentimes - with adventure sports and tourism, we don’t need to search for bad guys and villains. It’s risky living and this is what it looks like sometimes.
- peterashford 3y agoI totally think it matters, philosophically. Clearly there's a moral difference between risking your own life and profiting off risking other people's lives.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- xpe 3y ago>> There’s a difference between Jacques Cousteau building a janky submarine rig for himself vs. Creating a business model of selling tickets to random strangers on that janky submarine. > There is definitely a difference, but it doesn’t really matter philosophically speaking. I'm unconvinced. The phrase "philosophically speaking" is very vague. Which philosoph(y/ies)? > If people want to take huge risks, then so be it. You didn't say who is affected by said risks. Only the person taking the huge risk? What about externalities? "Huge" risks would include an existential threat to an individual and thus anyone who knows or depends on them. > Whether they build the sub themselves or pay and give that responsibility to a proxy, it is still up to them to make their own risk assessment. Sounds like we're in the domains of legal and/or moral philosophy. The phrase "up to them" suggests a responsibility, a kind of normative claim. Perhaps a responsibility to make wise decisions? Perhaps a responsibility that cannot be transferred or delegated? Using the phrase "philosophically speaking" invites these kinds of questions, particularly when the underlying philosophy is unsaid and its reasoning unclear.
- brutusborn 3y agoI admit I didn’t put much effort into that comment. I meant ‘philosophically’ as opposed to legally. Fundamentally every risky decision is up to the individual. Even trusting the regulator is a decision (I don’t trust some regulators in my country because they have a bad record for competence, so I avoid/minimise using things that they regulate). Therefore the final ‘responsibility’ for your safety is always personal, unless you were forced on board, or lied to about the construction. Legally it’s anyone’s guess who is responsible, that depends on the polity involved and the political philosophy it uses (libertarianism or authoritarianism being the 2 extremes). I think we should protect those who truly cannot judge (children and mentally handicapped) but in this case it was grown men taking a risk for the chance of a reward. I hope they are found alive and well but I think they had every right to go aboard.
- xpe 3y ago> Fundamentally every risky decision is up to the individual. Even trusting the regulator is a decision (...). Therefore the final ‘responsibility’ for your safety is always personal, unless you were forced on board, or lied to about the construction. It seems you are trying to say something along the lines of: A. In cases where an individual has the freedom to make decisions (i.e. not coerced or manipulated) B. The individual bears moral responsibility for the consequences of those decisions To what degree did I convey what you were hoping to convey? This is an flawed argument for at least two reasons: 1. The consequences flow from many people's actions. Figuring out credit and blame is a hard project in philosophy, even theoretically. In practice, it can often be impossible. 2. Humans have imperfect abilities to predict consequences Point A does not always hold -- not even most of the time. Individual conscious awareness and volitional control is limited. We are largely driven by subconscious and non-volitional parts of our brains. Not to mention by environmental constraints.
- branko_d 3y agoWere the customers aware of the risks? There is a difference between somebody selling me poison and somebody selling me “lemonade” that’s actually poison.
- rgmerk 3y agoThat’s not how regulation of transportation works. You can build your own plane and fly it with relatively few restrictions, but as soon as you a) manufacture a plane for sale to someone else, or b) get paid for transporting someone in it, the regulators become much much stricter.
- pryce 3y agoLibertarian students have a notoriously difficult time in philosophy departments because of these kinds of eager statements. The question of whether or not organisations, businesses, states, armed forces, educational institutions, self-declared medical providers, and other entities incur some obligation to preserve peoples lives - and if so in which ways and to what extents - are far from settled questions. It helps no one to adopt a hard-libertarian position, omit the framework being employed, and imply the matter is settled. A fair number of regulatory efforts trace their roots to a groundswell of public distress in the aftermath of preventable deaths; and questions such as "should I, a computer programmer, be undertaking my own untrained risk assessment of the particular type of cladding used in Grenfell tower" are perfectly fair objections to a libertarian free-for-all position.
- brutusborn 3y agoAs you say, these kinds of questions are not ‘settled’ so it’s somewhat up to personal opinion. I think the best policy is to enforce rules only when there are obvious benefits. In the same way that theories should be simple, regulations should be too: “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler” I’m not a hard line libertarian, I think regulations are good in many cases. But not in the case of high risk adventuring. If you want to climb Everest, visit the titanic or the stratosphere, then that’s up to you: the state need not hold your hand, the risks are obvious to anyone with eyes. The fact that libertarians have a difficult time just goes to show how close minded and dogmatic universities are. If all flavours of opinions were respected enough for discussion then I think you would end up with less extremists online and in general. I think the demarcation problem applies just as well to politics as to science. What is good policy? Impossible to know absolutely, so we must rely on heuristics, judgement and intuition. Claims to truly objective knowledge just don’t hold up. Regulators often fail, and in many cases no regulation is preferable. I can’t prove that, but critics can’t prove otherwise, so we discuss and learn and change our opinions as we go. The Grenfell tower is good example of failure of regulation. And I think the fundamental problem _is_ over regulation. When regulations become bloated beyond the capacity to enforce them, most of them are ignored and the most obvious ones are the only ones enforced. If the regulation was simpler it would be easier to enforce because you would only focus on _critical_ aspects. Instead of simplifying, people campaign for more regulation, forgetting second order effects that make things less safe.