this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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The way I see it, making jokes about this kind of thing is a fundamentally human reaction. People often react to grim scenarios with humor, consider all the jokes about things like wars that exist- and being trapped in a failing submarine is a pretty grim thought that people might seek to distract themselves from by twisting it into humor. I don't think joking about an event like this that resulted in deaths is the same thing as wishing for people to die, they are, after all, already dead, and uncomfortable as the thought is, the dead are not as far as we can probably know capable of taking offense to anything. There is no possible harm that jokes or anything else can do to them anymore.
Obviously I would consider it pretty rude to joke about it around someone who knew one of the deceased, since you can at least cause emotional distress to those people, but I don't see a problem with joking about it on the general internet.
Another thing to consider is that some of the jokes have been mocking the quality of the sub itself, rather than the people on board (save for the ceo I guess). If you cheap out on stuff and that decision kills people, I think it's perfectly reasonable for people to mock you over it.
We're joking about deaths all the time. The Titanic itself has been used for jokes for decades.
I think the main point of all the jokes in this case is the absurdity of the situation. Like, a bunch of ultimately inconsequential people die in admittedly somewhat weird circumstances and the media seems to go haywire. Nobody should care about this, since it's not more than a weird story for anyone not related to the people. Joking about that is just a way to put the situation into its place, so to speak.
Honestly I do get why it got so much media attention. Media companies exist to make money, to do that they need to get people's attention. Submarines, especially civilian ones that go deep like this, are rare and unusual things, so this story, while of little practical consequence to most, is very good at getting people's interest.
And I hate them for that.
"News" like that is absolutely worthless information, it's just used as a tool to place ads. And for some reason people still click on it? I don't get it. Maybe humans weren't a good idea.
My initial reaction to this comment was to assume you meant you hated the human for falling for the distraction. I was worried at the generalized dehumanization in general, and how difficult that might make meaningful interaction for you in real life.
But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that hating the news corp and it's almost parasitic need to feed on human attention in order to make money wasn't just what you intended, but an interesting way of looking at it. I've had that thought before but never in a conscious way. So thank you for moving that idea into a place where I can more readily interact with it.
I think you have a great point. Thanks for your comment :)