I ve been reading about this submarine for days in the frontpages along with live coverage. I wonder how many knew about another shipwreck where more than 500 are feared dead trying to cross to europe.
You've probably heard of Kim Wall. She wasn't rich, but she was murdered on a submarine so that became international news too.
Thinking about refugees, on the other hand, is depressing and there is also almost nothing anyone can do about it. As macabre as it is, the "startup sub kills rich guys" story is just more fun.
Specifically he left to "make a better life for [his] family" because of economic conditions.
So while you are certainly free to empathize with people taking desperate measures to improve their lives, it's important not to confuse them with people seeking refuge from imminent harm, such as government oppression or something similar.
The later is unfortunately a story about instance of something happening since years and has wide social implications, unlike the billionaire sub. It’s a politically charged topic, these people did not choose the sketchy boat because all the flights were booked. They were on these boats because large number of Europeans don’t want them there for this reason or another.
I get the impression that this submersible situation has been continuously in the news for days because the status has been unresolved for days.
Edit: I meant this literally. I didn’t know about this or that it also happened this week.
By the same token you could just argue that since both cases involved people who were certainly already dead, the pageantry of a search serves purposes other than efficient use of resources.
The Navy heard it as it happened. Apparently they were aware of the loss of communications nearly in real time.
> However, on Wednesday a U.S. Navy official told ABC News it had sent a portable crane system that can reach 20,000 feet deep to St. John’s, Newfoundland, so it can be welded onto a ship to take it to the search area for the missing submersible.
> Additionally, the Navy announced it was sending experts and a Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System, or FADOSS, which it described as a “motion compensated lift system designed to provide reliable deep ocean lifting capacity for the recovery of large, bulky, and heavy undersea objects such as aircraft or small vessels.”
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/missing-titanic-tour-sub-rescu...
And the Sixth Fleet operates out of the Mediterranean, so, sure, there’s no political valence to any of this: