4 ms·

Just nitpicking but is size of the fee ($250k) really relevant?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
JustBreath 3y ago
I view it as relevant, but not as they probably intended... Personally I think a $250K luxury service falls pretty firmly into the realm of buyer beware. This isn't some student loan for a degree in fortune telling an 18 year old was scammed into, you have to have some real wealth to consider doing this and have a responsibility to do your own research before you go diving 12,000 feet in the ocean.
- ke88y 3y ago
  Extremely expensive guiding services are not a new thing. And the degree of risk is often proportional to expense. So, rich people paying a lot of money to a guide service for the chance to risk their life is not new. More importantly, my critique isn't about the degree of informed consent to risk. It's about competent guiding and professionalism. Don't get me wrong: guiding people on dangerous objectives is fine. Good guides die. Clients die in circumstances that are truly accidental where there is no blame to assign, or where the client deserves the blame. That's not my critique. But if your client dies because you use el cheapo carabiners that failed cyclic load tests or weren't certified for the application, then that would be completely inexcusable incompetence. My critique is about incompetence, not failure to inform about risk. guides are paid both for the equipment/outfitting and also for the guiding. Being incompetent in a guiding setting is, at the very absolute least, an immoral failure to provide the goods for which you've been paid. Again, this isn' just one internet guy's opinion. Guiding is now a mature profession, and the conduct of OceanGate runs afoul of ethical guiding conduct. And, again, the issue isn't about informed risk. > This isn't some student loan for a degree in fortune telling an 18 year old was scammed into Suleman Dawood was 19.
  - nerdchum 3y ago
    I hope theres still a lawsuit even though they signed waivers. It seems the company misrepresented the safety risk.
  - JustBreath 3y ago
    > Suleman Dawood was 19. And his father had half a million dollars to blow on seeing the Titanic in person.
    - ke88y 3y ago
      That would be a more coherent argument if we were discussing design and regulation financial products. But it turns out that money can't buy a do-over on life. Again, people hire guides to do things that they cannot do on their own. Being competent and making appropriate risk assessment choices for your client, where possible, is a huge part of the service that a guide is being paid to perform. OceanGate failed on both counts.
      - JustBreath 3y ago
        I'm not defending OceanGate, I'm just saying it is relevant to the discussion because we're talking about an inherently risky leisure activity for wealthy elites, they should have done better research on the company. You hire a shitty guide to take you to the bottom of the ocean because you're bored and the guide gets you killed, that's two mistakes, not one.
        ke88y 3y ago
        > that's two mistakes That's certainly fair. OceanGate and its investors should be wiped out, to the extent liability allows, and I would be supportive of a prosecutor who pierces the veil if capital was extracted. The proceeds should go to the only set of victims who didn't have a say in risk -- perhaps the 19 year old, but BY FAR most importantly the taxpayers of the nation states who paid for this ridiculous SAR exercise.
andyjohnson0 3y ago
> Just nitpicking but is size of the fee ($250k) really relevant? Yes - because, in general, large rewards can disproportionately skew a decision maker's risk evaluation. Especially in a situation where there may be only verly limited opportunities to get paid. For an example see the 1986 K2 disaster [1]. I'm not saying this did or didn't happen in the present tragic situation. But its a risk. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_K2_disaster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_K2_disaster

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

I view it as relevant, but not as they probably intended... Personally I think a $250K luxury service falls pretty firmly into the realm of buyer beware. This isn't some student loan for a degree in fortune telling an 18 year old was scammed into, you have to have some real wealth to consider doing this and have a responsibility to do your own research before you go diving 12,000 feet in the ocean.

ke88y 3y ago
Extremely expensive guiding services are not a new thing. And the degree of risk is often proportional to expense. So, rich people paying a lot of money to a guide service for the chance to risk their life is not new. More importantly, my critique isn't about the degree of informed consent to risk. It's about competent guiding and professionalism. Don't get me wrong: guiding people on dangerous objectives is fine. Good guides die. Clients die in circumstances that are truly accidental where there is no blame to assign, or where the client deserves the blame. That's not my critique. But if your client dies because you use el cheapo carabiners that failed cyclic load tests or weren't certified for the application, then that would be completely inexcusable incompetence. My critique is about incompetence, not failure to inform about risk. guides are paid both for the equipment/outfitting and also for the guiding. Being incompetent in a guiding setting is, at the very absolute least, an immoral failure to provide the goods for which you've been paid. Again, this isn' just one internet guy's opinion. Guiding is now a mature profession, and the conduct of OceanGate runs afoul of ethical guiding conduct. And, again, the issue isn't about informed risk. > This isn't some student loan for a degree in fortune telling an 18 year old was scammed into Suleman Dawood was 19.
- nerdchum 3y ago
  I hope theres still a lawsuit even though they signed waivers. It seems the company misrepresented the safety risk.
- JustBreath 3y ago
  > Suleman Dawood was 19. And his father had half a million dollars to blow on seeing the Titanic in person.
  - ke88y 3y ago
    That would be a more coherent argument if we were discussing design and regulation financial products. But it turns out that money can't buy a do-over on life. Again, people hire guides to do things that they cannot do on their own. Being competent and making appropriate risk assessment choices for your client, where possible, is a huge part of the service that a guide is being paid to perform. OceanGate failed on both counts.
    - JustBreath 3y ago
      I'm not defending OceanGate, I'm just saying it is relevant to the discussion because we're talking about an inherently risky leisure activity for wealthy elites, they should have done better research on the company. You hire a shitty guide to take you to the bottom of the ocean because you're bored and the guide gets you killed, that's two mistakes, not one.
      - ke88y 3y ago
        > that's two mistakes That's certainly fair. OceanGate and its investors should be wiped out, to the extent liability allows, and I would be supportive of a prosecutor who pierces the veil if capital was extracted. The proceeds should go to the only set of victims who didn't have a say in risk -- perhaps the 19 year old, but BY FAR most importantly the taxpayers of the nation states who paid for this ridiculous SAR exercise.

andyjohnson0 3y ago

> Just nitpicking but is size of the fee ($250k) really relevant? Yes - because, in general, large rewards can disproportionately skew a decision maker's risk evaluation. Especially in a situation where there may be only verly limited opportunities to get paid. For an example see the 1986 K2 disaster [1]. I'm not saying this did or didn't happen in the present tragic situation. But its a risk. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_K2_disaster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_K2_disaster