Super-technology, super-useless

[ddstory]

Comments

[the_rukh]

purely from the fact it is all over the news when one does sink, I have to say they are very safe.

[hey_its_michael]

Comparing this to the Titanic is much like comparing a schoolyard fight to World War II. This is nothing like the Titanic.

[ddstory]

Fine, and yet you may understand why such parallels are everywhere now.

[msretro]

I was coming here to say the same thing.

[ddstory]

Good. Anything else?

[meus_ovatio]

Well, you'd think that technology would make things safer over time, but instead technology simply allows us to take greater risks and be more dangerous. That's why going to the Moon is dangerous. Driving on the freeway is dangerous. Working on a skyscraper is dangerous. And so on.

[msretro]

One point six million people die in car crashes every year. That comes to around 23,000 a week, which is the length of your average cruise. The best reference I could find lists one or two cruise ship sinkings a year, and they had to include ferries to get any sort of numbers. And, most of those incidents resulted in very few deaths: http://www.cruisejunkie.com/Sunk.html

Splashy newsworthy stories scare us, but, they're newsworthy because they are rare occurrences.

[weswilson]

Exactly... Cruise ships are incredibly safe. The captain, while appearing to be a certified jackass, made a detour that many other captains of that ship have taken... he just did it poorly. I have a hard time looking at this as anything other than a freak occurrence with very little insight to offer for the future.

[ddstory]

I think people took most issue with the way he "handled" the situation after the crash. Meaning that he didn't handle it at all. And didn't even try to handle it.

[weswilson]

I can agree with that.

[okmewriting]

Speaking as someone who does not like water and would not set foot on a cruise ship if someone paid me, I think you're seriously reaching here linking this with the titanic.

As for Schettino from what I've read he seems to have had a meteoric rise in Costa - the guy joined in 2002 as someone in charge of security and ends up as Captain in 2006. While the company is busy throwing him under a bus one has to ask the question if this guy was ready to be Captain.

[meus_ovatio]

Hey I was a security guard once. Where's my ship?! I want to be a Captain!

[luzribeiro]

No problem.

[ddstory]

As responding above, I acknowledge the flaw in the parallel with the Titanic.