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I am curious how we (the society) justify the shared costs incurred in searching for people involved in such a reckless mission.
by hawk_ 3y ago
I am curious how we (the society) justify the shared costs incurred in searching for people involved in such a reckless mission.
- krisoft 3y ago> how we (the society) justify the shared costs incurred in searching for people involved in such a reckless mission Nobody asked me if I want to pay for it or not. So i don’t feel that the “we” is justified. But if they would have asked me i would have voted to not move a finger unless some private entity (the company or the families, or literally anyone who wants to) pays for it. They went out of their way to do something knowingly recklesly dangerous, and the cost of any rescue attempt is enermous.
- hawk_ 3y agoYes well you're paying through your taxes at least (assuming you are a tax resident in the jurisdictions involved)
- krisoft 3y agoI understand. I’m not doubting that. What I’m saying is that I don’t need to justify anything. The people who have control over spending the money or not need to justify it. And since that is a very small set of people I don’t feel it is fair to ask how “we “ justify it. But even in a hypothetical where the government sent out a snap poll saying “Sup citizen. 5 fellas lost in a sub. Need $140m for rescue attempt. Send yay or nay.” I would have responded with “nay”. So even in that hypothetical I wouldn’t feel I need to justify why we should spend money to rescue these people. (By the by, this hypothetical sounds crazy, but we could totally have this kind of direct say in matters. We have the tech for it.)
- ghaff 3y agoSo who gets to arbitrate whether some activity is "unnecessarily" dangerous? I'm sure I do things that some people who mostly stick to good weather urban activities would consider unreasonably dangerous.
- cracrecry 3y agoWell, the army needs training in order to become operative. If training is not real, they create it. They spend billions every year simulating events. But anyway, I expect them passing at least part of the bill to the company, that will go bankrupt.
- troppl 3y agoIs this for sure all paid with tax money? Here in the alps, if you have an injury hiking and need a helicopter ride then you are required to pay for the ride (normally a few thousand euros). I assume it's the same if you're lost. And I would assume it's the same on high sea...
- carbine 3y agoyes, same in Canada afaik. seems quite plausible to me that some of these bills will be sent to OceanGate, we don't know. ofc their ability to pay is another question.
- furyofantares 3y agoAs someone who isn't very reckless, if I'm ever in trouble I'd love if people would search for me without trying to debate exactly how reckless I was being. Then recoup what you can from me or my estate if you determine I was reckless after the fact, when you have plenty of time to evaluate the facts.
- amatecha 3y agoAh, in fact, search & rescue organizations are pretty outspoken in their view that compensation is never sought from the people they rescue. It's a heavily-discussed topic and they are really steadfast in this view. Our provincial organization BC Search & Rescue Association actually published a series of videos on this subject, where they go into quite some detail about the rationale behind different arguments and why they've settled on this stance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR6hxFphCSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR6hxFphCSc (and more info and links to the other videos at https://bcsara.com/no-charge-for-sar/ https://bcsara.com/no-charge-for-sar/ )
- watwut 3y agoWhen you need rescue in mountains, you pay. Full stop. If they deployed chopper, you pay full price of it too. Obviously there is an insurance for mountain climbing. But search party is not free, just that insurance pays if you have it.
- alphanullmeric 3y agoYou now get to have a say in how someone else lives their life because you are held financially responsible for the consequences of their own actions. Aren’t government services wonderful?
- mc32 3y agoThe Navy gets to learn, perhaps make good use of the information learned in the future. They occasionally need to conduct rescue and other times recovery missions and this could help inform those missions in the future.
- blibble 3y ago"privatise the profits, socialise the losses"
- vkou 3y agoIf the resources involved would have been doing scheduled training anyways, this doesn't really cost society anything. The better question is 'Who do we refuse to help?'
- shepherdjerred 3y agoMaybe it makes sense to think of it as something similar to insurance. We pay into it (through taxes), hope we don't need it, and really appreciate it when we _do_ need it. Even if it doesn't balance out or make sense financially, I'm much happier living in a world where we care about each other rather than one where we're weighing the value of saving a life. I had this same thought when watching The Martian. If you're unfamiliar, an astronaut is accidentally left on Mars. The story is about how he survives and the immense measures those at NASA and the CNSA go to just to save one life. It's an inspiring thought.
- tim333 3y agoThe will of the people. I'm sure most of the taxpayers who will end up footing the bill would want the rescue attempt here.
- jackothy 3y agoBecause it was interesting to hear about. Literally tens of millions of people thought that this was interesting to hear about.
- mycentstoo 3y agoNot an expert, but I would expect that these sorts of events are used as training.
- AH4oFVbPT4f8 3y agoDoes the search team/agency simply eat the cost or does the cost get passed back to the insurance for the company, the company itself, or the CEO personally since he has the means to pay. Further, everyone on board has the means to pay for a recovery, should they too share some of the cost?
- thinkling 3y agoI believe almost all Search and Rescue is free because S&R organizations don’t want people to hesitate to call 911 (or equivalent) because of cost concerns, and have the situation deteriorate while they delay calling. As to who should share in the cost… my take is that it’s time to discuss whether some expeditions (e.g. risky commercial tourist rides) should sign a Do Not Rescue pledge before they head out and/or self-fund a commercial rescue operation.
- davidw 3y agoYeah this question gets asked somewhat frequently in the mountain(ish) town where I live after someone does something dumb and requires extraction. It's just better that they call right away rather than wait too long and die. If you search around on the internet, you can find people writing this up in much more detail and more eloquently.
- flaminHotSpeedo 3y agoFrom anecdotal evidence, the few search and rescue units I've been involved with (all non-technical volunteer units) have been overwhelming against charging subjects, at least as a general rule. But the considerations for something like this are pretty much entirely different, risk to non-technical rescuers is pretty minimal and the costs are just gas and the time spent on what is essentially just an unplanned hike with some extra gear.
- mahogany 3y agoThere has been at least one case in the White Mountains where the leader of a search and rescue team recommended charging the person they rescued, because that person acted with negligence and put the lives of the search and rescue team in unnecessary danger. I'm sure this is rare though.
- faangsticle 3y agoCompassion and curiousity
- TheFreim 3y agoThere's more to be said, but I'd say the training experience in a real-world situation alone is probably valuable. Helps identify actual stress points in the rescue process, for example.
- carbine 3y agoThe same way we justify the significant resources devoted to the attempted rescues of the Thai boys in the cave and the Chilean miners.
- cma 3y agoEffective Altruists would point out buying several castles with stolen crypto money is more effective than this search and rescue because the castle vibes improve their work on raising more money and growing the community.
- js8 3y agoForgiveness. We frequently forgive stupid a5es, and adopt regulations to prevent other a5es causing too much damage. It was Jesus' message, after all.
- krisoft 3y agoYou can easily find 10 people in any metropolis who are down on their luck. Spending the equivalent amount of resources on those 10 people you could achieve a lasting positive impact on their lives. Why not spend the money on those 10 people? Did Jesus teach us that a5es in submarines are more valuable than a5es in an ER or sleeping in an underpass?
- partiallypro 3y agoYou can make this argument for literally anything. It's cheaper to feed 100 kids in Africa for a month than to give someone treatment after a car accident. It's cheaper to give mosquito nets to African villages to fight malaria than to put out a house fire started by someone that ignored warnings of grease fires. Basically everyone in this thread is in the top 1% of global wealth (not just industrialized or western wealth) and does stupid things all the time and get treatment or are rescued. Happens every day. So, the argument is really weak.
- js8 3y ago> Did Jesus teach us that a5es in submarines are more valuable than a5es in an ER or sleeping in an underpass? No, and that's not what I am saying. The poor people you mention deserve help or assistance, not forgiveness, they did nothing wrong. You're making a categorical error, I think. Forgiveness is a separate deal from charity or inclusion or equality. We forgive actions, not living conditions.
- vsareto 3y agoReal-world training for the newbies, exercise for the journeymen, and teaching moments for the experts. That alone is worth my tax dollars for keeping a robust search and rescue force. At least some of the CEO's estate should go to paying for it, but pay out to victims' families first.
- raldi 3y agoExactly. Same reason that, even setting aside basic humanitarian ethics, it made sense for fire departments from all over America to send their crews to help out after 9/11 even though the victims didn't fund them; the experience is well worth the expense.
- hawk_ 3y agoWhich of the victims asked those planes to be sent their way?
- raldi 3y agoI'm not sure what you're trying to say.
- inferiorhuman 3y agoYou're comparing a terrorist attack (9/11) to reckless malfeasance (this sub). The more apt comparison would be of 9/11 to the Andriana disaster. It's a bit ridiculous to champion the humanitarian benefits of sending a throng of people to look for a handful of people in a very unusual situation while ignoring the larger humanitarian disaster that is far more likely to happen again (ergo far more important to practice for). And, yes, it's a zero sum game. People looking for the five rich guys are people that cannot look for the hundreds of children trapped on a sinking ship.
- kelthan 3y agoAt this point, we don't know that there was reckless malfeasance at play. However, there is plenty of circumstantial data to indicate that may have been the case. There was certainly an explicit and willful disregard for expert advice or battle-tested opinions. However, we don't have enough information yet (and may never get it) to conclude that was the cause of the accident. It could be that someone/something damaged the hull (oceans and boats are notoriously hostile environments) and that created a weak spot that failed under pressure, or that some other mechanical failure occurred. However, those are both every bit as speculative as what I'm cautioning against. They are provided for illustration, only.
- sebzim4500 3y agoI think there is value in living in the kind of society where you know that if you are lost at sea there will be arguably irrational levels of resources thrown into trying to find you. And not just the rich either, no matter what Twitter would have you believe.
- krisoft 3y ago> I think there is value in living in the kind of society where you know that if you are lost at sea there will be arguably irrational levels of resources thrown into trying to find you I wouldn’t know, because i live in the kind of society where if you are lost at sea and you call for help but the call handler assumes that you have the wrong kind of passport they just tell you to call some other country and then hung up on you. [1] But i would rather live in the kind of society where we spend our pooled resources to heal those who have fallen sick, than in one where we spend our pooled resources to rescue statistical anomalies. Everyone can become sick one day, not everyone will get suckered to buy a deluxe sea going group coffin by a conman. 1: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/13/uk-coastguard-telling-refugees-in-british-waters-to-contact-the-french https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/13/uk-coastguar...
- ApolloFortyNine 3y agoPretty disingenuous when those 'refugees' were simply planning on illegally entering the UK, and everyone involved knew it. >The refugee said it was his fourth attempt to cross the Channel. During the previous three attempts French police had caught them on the beach and punctured their dinghies with knives. Honestly didn't realize though refugees thought the benefits in the UK were better than France's.
- cooljacob204 3y agoI guess it's great practice for the coast guard / navy which they need to do anyways.
- LanceH 3y agoImpromptu rescue sessions like this provide tremendous training opportunities. The US Navy was going to be out there sailing around anyway. Solving an unknown problem with whoever is available on hand at that moment. Coordinating between that ad hoc group and analyzing the results afterward is a real world activity that can't truly be simulated.
- mock-possum 3y agoEasy - if it was us down there, or someone we cared about, we’d want the search to happen
- School-Cotton 3y agoThat’s not a sound argument. I would like the government to give me a billion dollars. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’d like the government to give a randomly selected person a billion dollars.
- hawk_ 3y agoOf course we'd want that. But here's a rich CEO who fired safety whistleblower. Why take all that burden? A bunch of rich people who were lost at sea - we could charge all of their estates for this.
- jb12 3y agoWhat's your definition of reckless? Were the boys stuck in the cave in Thailand reckless? Should we not have rescued them? Where is the line of who is deserving of our sympathy?
- watwut 3y agoThe Thai boys got stuck when rains came too soon. They were in cave where they were allowed to be and followed usual seasonal rules. They were unlucky. The owner of subversive bragged about safety being useless, punished employee warning about safety ossies, by all reports pushed the luck again and again and his missions had track record of failures and issues. not the same
- hawk_ 3y agoThe grown ups involved in that who didn't pay heed to warnings would be reckless. We still rescue them but we can charge those who can pay for it.
- jb12 3y agoAnd the 19 year old who didn't want to go on the submarine but wanted to spend time with his dad? Was he reckless? Was he worth searching for?
- vanattab 3y agoDo we know he did not want to go?
- chrononaut 3y agoAccording to his aunt: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/titanic-submersible-shahwood-suleman-family-tragedy-rcna90678 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/titanic-submersible-shahw...
- hawk_ 3y ago> We still rescue them We still rescue them. I never argued against rescuing them.
- dmonitor 3y agothey don’t have time to judge whether someone is worth rescuing