Everything is a risk, at least in terms of probabilities. Is it a reasonable risk is a more interesting and open-ended consideration. A solo day-hike is a reasonable risk in my estimation, but not when you add the issue of inclement weather. In the US Rocky Mountains prudent hiking culture urges hikers to descend below tree-line by "afternoon" as inclement weather is likely to occur after then in the day and trees can provide some protection.
Descending far below rated depths in a carbon-fiber single-hulled "submarine" operated by a lunatic seems to the average person to be a simple reckoning of supreme foolishness or gullibility on the parts of the victims of the Titan implosion.
it doesn't matter if the adventurer is wealthy or not, people why take extraordinary risks, should pay their rescue themselves (or have special insurance covering that stuff).
why does the public have to pay for all those extreme sports people who need rescuing?
they obviously should be required to have additional insurance...
People can and do object on ethical and sometimes religious bases when they are forced to buy insurance against their will. An approach that wouldn't force anyone to buy anything and would be socially efficient is to just not send a rescue for people who haven't bought rescue insurance (effectively privatizing rescue, most likely) but this is politically unpalatable for most western cultures - you see the same with medicine.
Also, how would requiring insurance for this even work logistically? Do we station cops anywhere a risky activity could conceivably happen? Do we arrest people if we think, post facto, they did something with a risk of rescue (like go on a hike) and didn't buy insurance for it?
In general, those sports do require special insurance. Includes rock climbing in alps - rescue gets really expensive if you do not have it.
And second, these rescues are typically cheaper then searching bottom of the sea or moving massive military equipment half the world around without advanced warning. Rescures in these situations simply do not have infinite resources and work with what they have.
And third, climbers typically do not try to use the situation to launder liberarian "public sector bad" while being actively rescued by damm military. The company called for help 10 hours after loss of contact, the company made whole series of "yolo" decisions too and then tried to turn the situation against their political enemies... who were just paying their customers rescue.
Austria, Switzerland, same rules apply for mountains in Slovak Republic.
The mountains themselves are not expensive. The expensive part happen when you need rescue after your climbing and don't have insurance. The insurance itself is not expensive and is super easy to get.
NH Fish & Game offers a “Hike Safe” card [0] for $25 ($35 for family) which is approximately an insurance program offered by the state. It acts like a “get out of jail free” card if you need a rescue and are adequately prepared. The funds contribute to the search and rescue fund (along with hunting / fishing licenses / OHRV registrations, which receive the same benefits).
We do this to some degree already, but it would be nice if rescues could be repurposed as military training. The cost of a rescue is small compared to baseline military burn rate, and it's good training. Someone gets lost in the forest? Pretend the person who got lost is a high value military asset and bust out those fancy thermal camera drones for some practice. (Civilian departments in wealthier/larger areas have those now too, but less expensive ones.)
Poor person gets cancer? Well we don’t have enough money to treat them, sorry but they have to die a preventable death through no fault of their own. Rich person does stupid, risky things? We have millions to spend on search and rescue efforts.
Yes, since the structure of OP's complaint was whether or not we have "enough money" to do things. I'm not advocating for any particular expense policy here, just pointing out that we can easily afford to fund all rescue missions, while paying for all cancer treatment is a much larger expense, so it's not unreasonable that people don't funge those two categories.
On the one hand, we have the cost of paying for "all rescue missions". On the other hand, we have the cost of paying for "___ cancer treatments". In your opinion, what is the value of ___ that makes this comparison most coherent and symmetric?
> On the other hand, we have the cost of paying for "___ cancer treatments". In your opinion, what is the value of ___ that makes this comparison most coherent and symmetric?
The symmetry would be from the (gross, hand-wavy) average cost of a cancer treatment for 1 individual * the number lost at sea. I thought this was implied. This is not relevant to private insurance and other supplemental solutions. The issue is in regard to state owned response.
Two issues to unpack. The majority of people lost are people doing dangerous things for immigration/money like trying to sail from India to Australia on a plank of wood to get better pay.
This was a submarine under water with alive people running out of air. The location was known and people monitoring were able to contact government immediately which gave them a chance. When a piece of wood is used to sail across the ocean and the boat capsizes rescuers don't know the location, no one is monitoring on shore to alert countries and they cannot survive days under water.
Rich / poor doesn't play into this but makes a great narrative to sell a story that you bought
This is the Mediterranean. I am sure most countries know the location of most vessels. If a rich guy would try to cross in wooden plank we would call him adventurer, and I'm sure the effort to rescue him would be far greater.
By not saving people in the Mediterranean, it acts as a deterrent to future attempts.
Conventions on rescue come from a time when seafarers intended to complete their journeys unaided, not launching with an expectation of needing rescue.
The public expense in the Mediterranean sea is very large when you add up diversions of commercial traffic, rescue volunteers funded by donations, national agencies coast guards, and EU Frontex.
If I decide I don’t want my life in Texas and, for whatever reason, there are better opportunities in Mexico (much better beaches, for example), I should be able to just trek down from Texas and the Mexican people should have to fund my trek and receive me with open arms? Whatever needs to be the case to where my life is better in Mexico, let’s just grant it, like maybe I’m in incel in Texas but not in Mexico where I can start a family with a BBL latina. Bonus if I have to trek through the deserts of Chihuahua because it’s risky?
You’re acting like this is obvious to everyone rather than the center of massive controversy.
Sure, it’s a massive controversy. But neither is it a foregone conclusion that public funds should be spent on rescuing billionaires who signed a waiver indicating they understood the risks of taking a dangerous pleasure trip on an uncertified vessel.
Some of those who cross the Mediterranean in flimsy boats are adventurers, maybe not so different from the passengers of the Titan. Many others are children and adults trying to escape genuine threats to their lives, and they’d be entitled to refugee protection. Personally I don’t think we should sacrifice the latter to dissuade the former.
> Why would the novelty of a leathal crisis influence the amount spent on the effort?
Frequency more than novelty, though novelty certainly brings attention. If we were launching multi-million dollar submarine rescue missions every day, we’d quickly see a system of cost controls and incentive management arise around it, too.
To be fair, even a poor cancer patient that would receive this much press attention would suddenly be showered with treatments.
Lets face it, this one had the right mix of ingredients (Titanic, adventure, recklessness, tech, scams, greed, dramatics, and most of all, a 90 hour deadline clock ticking, perfect for a news cycle) to get in the limelight, and maybe there were some other breaking stories that would benefit from something else drawing away attention ...?
I've heard this argument multiple places. While I agree with the underlying sentiment, the US spent $592 billion on Medicaid in 2022.
There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of the US medical system, and government support programs, but the lack of nuance detracts from your position.
Yes, I don't know if they transmit any kind of individualized information though, like a serial number. But as it stands, what sort of incentive do rescue workers have to actually find you? I'm willing to bet they get paid either way. The trick would be to place some money into escrow as a bounty to the one who finds you.
What's the point of being wealthy if you're treated like just anyone else?
You buy insurance for this kind of trip, part of that insurance goes to paying rescue costs. Generally $100-200k is enough for private rescue. Otherwise, yes, the Navy and Coast Guard have units solely dedicated to at-sea rescue.
Every rescue attempt is a practice run for something more important in the future. Whether it's a cat stuck in a tree or a Billionaire in the bottom of the ocean, first responders must attempt rescue for the benefit of humanity.
Explorers always make plenty of rookie mistakes. I'm sure there are plenty of lessons for future explorers, first respondents, regular people from these events.
Isn't this similar to the type of thing we see here on hn all the time... some journalist, or person with a big following does something (sometimes semi-stupid) that runs afoul of big tech's automated policies and loses access to their account, they use their influence to pressure real eyes on the thing to fix it.
While there are of course major differences, I think the point is that public opinion would dictate that if we know about something like this people would want a search are rescue mission launched. The only reason it wouldn't be launched for someone with less money is because that person's family/friends wouldn't have the PR team to tell everyone about it.
I don't want to live in a world were if we know someone is lost at sea we just sit back and say, "well they made their bed." That's a pretty callous world to live in, where we see someone in trouble and turn our backs...
and by the way there is a parallel for poor people, just ask Italy/Spain, they're constantly dealing with migrants trying and failing to come across the Mediterranean in boats not built for that, as soon as they see it's not gonna work, they do launch rescue missions.
Owning a car comes with the obligation to get insurance in most jurisdiction, so it's not that outlandish to require insurance for these types of things too.
The question is what exactly "huge risks" are; I've been hiking on my own and sometimes didn't see anyone for days; is that a "huge risk" or just a "risk"? Do I need an evaluation to see how "prepared" I was? In the end everyone takes some amount of "risk" at times, so how do you define "exceptional" risk and codify that in law? I'm certainly not looking forward to a future where everything that could possibly perhaps be risky are regulated to the microscopic level.
And if we look at the overall costs, are we really talking about that much money? Is it unreasonable for the public to carry these costs? Personally I'd say yes. But is it enough money to act upon, considering any legislation will also restrict normal people? A lot less sure about that.
> Owning a car comes with the obligation to get insurance in most jurisdiction, so it's not that outlandish to require insurance for these types of things
Arizon’s stupid motorist law “states that any motorist who becomes stranded after driving around barricades to enter a flooded stretch of roadway may be charged for the cost of their rescue” [1].
This transfer of liability is simpler than insurance requirements. And it doesn’t strike me as callous when dealing with wealthy people voluntarily engaging in risky activities within a jurisdiction that has the capability to save them.
This is extremely narrowly defined and doesn't really translate to generic "huge risks".
This is really the problem, because you can narrowly define specific situations like "drive around barricade to enter a flooded road" or "go on a deep-sea dive in an uncertified experimental sub built by some cowboys", but the list is basically infinite so it's not really practical to codify all of those situations, except those that occur frequently enough that it's a structural issue (which I presume is the case with this specific law).
It should be. Recreational risks with a reasonably high probability of peril seems to fit the bill. Perhaps limited to cases where the life is actually saved, and capped when reasonable safety precautions are taken to avoid disincentivising one from calling for help.
So how would you codify "recreational risks with a reasonably high probability of peril" in law? Or "capped when reasonable safety precautions are taken" for that matter? I don't see how that's workable and seems far too broad and vague.
Car insurance is mostly to cover damage to other people/cars if you run into them. Emergency services being called to say clear burning wrecks off the motorway is still mostly on the taxpayer.
Most of the reason why internet discourse feels weird / uncanny valley to me is that it seems to often be made up of teenage debate society level "hot takes" on the bloody obvious.
Attractive, rich people get more attention.
People who try and push the envelope, as misguided as it might be, get more attention than everyday human #66384385 on the street.
GPT4 gets more attention than some neural net demo I make on my Raspberry Pi.
Why would it ever be otherwise? A world like that would have us still in caves.
This is an example of the is-ought fallacy [0]. Especially when it comes to the spending of public funds by a democratic government it makes sense for people to make their preferences known.
If it had been in American waters, and they had been detected, then the USCG would have taken them aboard and to shelter while their status was sorted out.
It is problematic that such class/wealth-based rhetoric is used even in mainstream publication like apnews.com and not just some far-left rag.
It does not matter whether adventurers are wealthy or not, there are plenty of high-risk activities that sometimes require costly rescue missions, while being affordable to middle-class people (e.g. mountaineering or caving). The mechanism to footing the bill should be the same, so there is no reason to single-out wealthy ones.
During the same week two Pakistanis were imploded into meat cloud and probably tens of their fellows sunk in the boat on the Greek coast. From two extreme social casts, all of them paid for their trips. Both trips incurred expenses by US and EU taxpayers. Why don't they share food and get along together?!
I think as a species, we tend support people who we percieve could or might do something for us in the future. It's not just about rich/poor or race, it's whether you think the people being rescued could provide future opportunity for you or your group. There's also the question of whether the risk you are taking to rescue someone will be valuable to them. Are you going to risk anything to intervene in a dispute between apparent meth addicts, or move on?
The calculation is based on your perception of the quality of their choices leading up to their circumstances. Like if there were the hands in the water of people drowning that you can pull into a boat, when do you grab the one with the possibly-racist tattoo?
You rescue small groups of adventurers because they are engaged in a socially valuable activity. The whole point of having search and rescue helicopters to rescue skiiers and hikers is that hikers and skiiers represent people who help themselves, and they are part of the positive group we have organized our society to encourage and incentivize. Some societies encourage and incentivize corruption and exploitation, and so they don't need to rescue hikers unless they can be used to extract favours from foreign governments. There's a limited amount of effort you're going to make to rescue a narco-sub crew because they're a hostile and invasive force that is importing poison, violence, and exploitation into your society. There is a notion of "us," and "not-us," everywhere in the world, and in the case of some rich toursts in a sub, they were still "us."
The sadistic glee about these rich people dying in a sub, and the fantasies some people have written about their suffering, makes me wonder who among us would be really worth saving.
I guess mostly either taxpayers do or they are covered by volunteers / voluntary organisations like the British lifeboat service. A problem with charging is what about the non wealthy people who need rescue attempts?
I know a bit about Everest rescues. The government is pretty useless being nowhere near the action and insurance services are kind of useless on the whole too. Rescues are mostly done if at all by other climbers / sherpas on the mountain and usually free though offering the sherpas a few thousand in cash probably would help. Helicopters won't fly without credit card payment (about $15k from base camp).
77 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 144 ms ] threadDescending far below rated depths in a carbon-fiber single-hulled "submarine" operated by a lunatic seems to the average person to be a simple reckoning of supreme foolishness or gullibility on the parts of the victims of the Titan implosion.
why does the public have to pay for all those extreme sports people who need rescuing?
they obviously should be required to have additional insurance...
Also, how would requiring insurance for this even work logistically? Do we station cops anywhere a risky activity could conceivably happen? Do we arrest people if we think, post facto, they did something with a risk of rescue (like go on a hike) and didn't buy insurance for it?
And second, these rescues are typically cheaper then searching bottom of the sea or moving massive military equipment half the world around without advanced warning. Rescures in these situations simply do not have infinite resources and work with what they have.
And third, climbers typically do not try to use the situation to launder liberarian "public sector bad" while being actively rescued by damm military. The company called for help 10 hours after loss of contact, the company made whole series of "yolo" decisions too and then tried to turn the situation against their political enemies... who were just paying their customers rescue.
Not in France. Not sure which alps are expensive?
The mountains themselves are not expensive. The expensive part happen when you need rescue after your climbing and don't have insurance. The insurance itself is not expensive and is super easy to get.
[0] http://www.hikesafe.com/
That was particularly distasteful of that company.
Search and rescue isn’t the same thing as health care.
Not all. Additional. No moving the goalposts.
The symmetry would be from the (gross, hand-wavy) average cost of a cancer treatment for 1 individual * the number lost at sea. I thought this was implied. This is not relevant to private insurance and other supplemental solutions. The issue is in regard to state owned response.
The nations whose responsibility it would be to help these people have been trying their best to look the other way.
It seems the public expense spent on rescuing those lost at sea is very much in proportion to the net worth of the people in distress.
Who has this responsibility is at the heart of the controversy.
This was a submarine under water with alive people running out of air. The location was known and people monitoring were able to contact government immediately which gave them a chance. When a piece of wood is used to sail across the ocean and the boat capsizes rescuers don't know the location, no one is monitoring on shore to alert countries and they cannot survive days under water.
Rich / poor doesn't play into this but makes a great narrative to sell a story that you bought
By not saving people in the Mediterranean, it acts as a deterrent to future attempts.
The public expense in the Mediterranean sea is very large when you add up diversions of commercial traffic, rescue volunteers funded by donations, national agencies coast guards, and EU Frontex.
You’re acting like this is obvious to everyone rather than the center of massive controversy.
Some of those who cross the Mediterranean in flimsy boats are adventurers, maybe not so different from the passengers of the Titan. Many others are children and adults trying to escape genuine threats to their lives, and they’d be entitled to refugee protection. Personally I don’t think we should sacrifice the latter to dissuade the former.
Money gives you a huge megaphone to ask for help
Why would the novelty of a leathal crisis influence the amount spent on the effort? I dont understand your reasoning.
Frequency more than novelty, though novelty certainly brings attention. If we were launching multi-million dollar submarine rescue missions every day, we’d quickly see a system of cost controls and incentive management arise around it, too.
Lets face it, this one had the right mix of ingredients (Titanic, adventure, recklessness, tech, scams, greed, dramatics, and most of all, a 90 hour deadline clock ticking, perfect for a news cycle) to get in the limelight, and maybe there were some other breaking stories that would benefit from something else drawing away attention ...?
There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of the US medical system, and government support programs, but the lack of nuance detracts from your position.
I don't have the confidence that they will.
0. https://www.sail-world.com/Australia/Unsinkable-A-Young-Woma...
What's the point of being wealthy if you're treated like just anyone else?
[0]: https://beaconregistration.noaa.gov/RGDB/registrationRequire...
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/20/1171063782/missing-american-s...
Explorers always make plenty of rookie mistakes. I'm sure there are plenty of lessons for future explorers, first respondents, regular people from these events.
While there are of course major differences, I think the point is that public opinion would dictate that if we know about something like this people would want a search are rescue mission launched. The only reason it wouldn't be launched for someone with less money is because that person's family/friends wouldn't have the PR team to tell everyone about it.
I don't want to live in a world were if we know someone is lost at sea we just sit back and say, "well they made their bed." That's a pretty callous world to live in, where we see someone in trouble and turn our backs...
and by the way there is a parallel for poor people, just ask Italy/Spain, they're constantly dealing with migrants trying and failing to come across the Mediterranean in boats not built for that, as soon as they see it's not gonna work, they do launch rescue missions.
The question is what exactly "huge risks" are; I've been hiking on my own and sometimes didn't see anyone for days; is that a "huge risk" or just a "risk"? Do I need an evaluation to see how "prepared" I was? In the end everyone takes some amount of "risk" at times, so how do you define "exceptional" risk and codify that in law? I'm certainly not looking forward to a future where everything that could possibly perhaps be risky are regulated to the microscopic level.
And if we look at the overall costs, are we really talking about that much money? Is it unreasonable for the public to carry these costs? Personally I'd say yes. But is it enough money to act upon, considering any legislation will also restrict normal people? A lot less sure about that.
Arizon’s stupid motorist law “states that any motorist who becomes stranded after driving around barricades to enter a flooded stretch of roadway may be charged for the cost of their rescue” [1].
This transfer of liability is simpler than insurance requirements. And it doesn’t strike me as callous when dealing with wealthy people voluntarily engaging in risky activities within a jurisdiction that has the capability to save them.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupid_motorist_law
This is really the problem, because you can narrowly define specific situations like "drive around barricade to enter a flooded road" or "go on a deep-sea dive in an uncertified experimental sub built by some cowboys", but the list is basically infinite so it's not really practical to codify all of those situations, except those that occur frequently enough that it's a structural issue (which I presume is the case with this specific law).
It should be. Recreational risks with a reasonably high probability of peril seems to fit the bill. Perhaps limited to cases where the life is actually saved, and capped when reasonable safety precautions are taken to avoid disincentivising one from calling for help.
Leave it to the agencies who need to actually conduct the rescues. The APA’s public notice requirements should ensure it’s predictable.
Attractive, rich people get more attention.
People who try and push the envelope, as misguided as it might be, get more attention than everyday human #66384385 on the street.
GPT4 gets more attention than some neural net demo I make on my Raspberry Pi.
Why would it ever be otherwise? A world like that would have us still in caves.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
> How many times a year do you think people get cancer vs get lost at sea?
> Not to mention that if a poor person does something stupid and gets lost, millions could still be spent in their rescue.
> Every rescue attempt is a practice run for something more important in the future.
I want to remind, that at same time about 700 refugees were lost in Mediterranean. Without any SnR, practice run or another.
Were there Americans on board?
Governments treat their citizens’ lives differently. It’s not fair, but it’s an obvious consequence of our organisation around nation states.
It does not matter whether adventurers are wealthy or not, there are plenty of high-risk activities that sometimes require costly rescue missions, while being affordable to middle-class people (e.g. mountaineering or caving). The mechanism to footing the bill should be the same, so there is no reason to single-out wealthy ones.
The calculation is based on your perception of the quality of their choices leading up to their circumstances. Like if there were the hands in the water of people drowning that you can pull into a boat, when do you grab the one with the possibly-racist tattoo?
You rescue small groups of adventurers because they are engaged in a socially valuable activity. The whole point of having search and rescue helicopters to rescue skiiers and hikers is that hikers and skiiers represent people who help themselves, and they are part of the positive group we have organized our society to encourage and incentivize. Some societies encourage and incentivize corruption and exploitation, and so they don't need to rescue hikers unless they can be used to extract favours from foreign governments. There's a limited amount of effort you're going to make to rescue a narco-sub crew because they're a hostile and invasive force that is importing poison, violence, and exploitation into your society. There is a notion of "us," and "not-us," everywhere in the world, and in the case of some rich toursts in a sub, they were still "us."
The sadistic glee about these rich people dying in a sub, and the fantasies some people have written about their suffering, makes me wonder who among us would be really worth saving.
I know a bit about Everest rescues. The government is pretty useless being nowhere near the action and insurance services are kind of useless on the whole too. Rescues are mostly done if at all by other climbers / sherpas on the mountain and usually free though offering the sherpas a few thousand in cash probably would help. Helicopters won't fly without credit card payment (about $15k from base camp).