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Comment by steveBK123 | Hacker News Reader

I think there's an argument that even crazy unsafe stuff that only harms yourself shouldn't be exempt from regulatory frameworks purely on the "personal harm only" basis.

Stuff like this triggers costly (and sometimes dangerous) search & rescue parties.

A regular boat has to be registered in most US states. I'm not a boating expert, but it would seem some combination of "well its not a boat" & "International waters" lead to it being less regulated/inspected than Joe 6 packs fishing boat.

Or more specifically, because the sub is taken out to international waters by its support ship, it would seem the sub falls under less regulation than the support ship carrying it, despite being a higher risk profile..

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An interesting counterpoint is that these people are pushing science and engineering forward, and are risking their own time, money and lives in the process. Attempting to rescue them seems like a fair trade.

I don't think this situation is a particularly good example, but I don't think blanket condemning experimental deep sea vehicles is the right response.

But they aren't. As we see here, there was a pretty solid wall of consensus saying that the sub was a death trap. Heck, the reason why it was the only submarine built with carbon fiber is something an engineering undergrad can grasp at glance.

Not only that, but we have known how to reach ever lower depths for decades now. A human being has already reached the bottom of the Challenger Abyss. We know how to do this stuff and, while there's certainly room for improvements, ignoring the properties of the materials you're using and not doing proper testing is not how you get any improvement done. At best, all the advancement this tragedy will bring is a more comprehensive regulation of this kind of activities. Which is exactly what the original Titanic brought to the world.

It doesn’t need to, you could put yourself on a risky-behavior list which would result in skipping the search.

Yeah, sign a DNR - Do not recover.

By international maritime law, any ship at sea is required to assist in search and rescue, if they can do so safely and there is a chance of saving lives. That doesn't mean everyone is required to send expensive assets for deep sea recovery of debris and remains, but for that time that there seemed like there was a chance, however remote, that the submersible might be bobbing on the surface with no way to open the hatch, there was a real legal obligation to search if possible.

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