#the titan disaster

[mask131]

I am reposting this in its own post, since a reblog usually doesn’t get seen much.

It is about the disappearance of the Titan underneath the sea. The current “Titanic disaster” happening. I originally wrote this because if you are on Tumblr, all you see is “Who cares about a handful of billionaires?” “Just eat the rich!” “Let the billionaires die” “Everybody is making a fuss about some rich people’s endangering themselves for pure tourism”. And I need to add something, something a lot of people if not everybody on Tumblr seems to have completely missed, an info that apparently you can only have if you are in France. Just to explain why, for example, this event impacts France a bit more directly than other countries, and why simplifying the situation to “A bunch of stupid billionaires killed themselves due to being stupid” can be very annoying to hear. And it all lies in the fact that there’s one specific man in Titan. This introduction being done, here is the copy-paste of my original reblog:

The reason France talks so much about it, for example, is because there is one French man inside this machine: Paul-Henri Nargeolet. And the whole thing that is taking everybody’s mind is the fact that Nargeolet is one of the greatest French experts of the Titanic. He is described by everyone as an adventurer and explorer, and he has always been doing jobs related to underwater diving (his first job was to work as a deminer-diver from the 60s to the 80s, getting care of a lot of underwater bombs and explosives. But in the 80s it is when he started getting involved with the Titanic - and became one of THE French names tied to it. His first descent to the Titanic was in 1987 in the submarine Le Nautile, and he kept going down there again and again, decades after decades.

Because as I said, he was an explorer. He studied the Titanic, he explored the sunken ship carcass - and more importantly he brought back a lot of objects from the Titanic. He brought up more than 800 different objects (he was part of the RMS Titanic and oversaw a lot of other exploraton operations of the Titanic). Mind you, him bringing up the 800 objects was in the 90s. In his own word, I think he said that in 1993 (but I’m not sure), he brought all these objects because he wanted that future generations might have something that came from the Titanic. Mind you, his explorations have been quite divisive - in fact, he perfectly resumed it in one of the books he wrote about exploring the Titanic. He had received the visit (when he was still digging up the Titanic objects) of two sisters, survivors of the Titanic sinking. One came to him to say “I do not like what you are doing. Our father died in this ship, and I think what you are doing is wrong.” But the other came to him saying “I appreciate a lot what you do. Before the sinking, our mother had placed her pearl necklace by the little cupboard near her bed. Could you try to fetch it back for us?”. As he explains in his book, it was the best illustration of how polarizing him, his explorations of the Titanic and his fetching of items were.

But the point I am trying to make is that this man’s life was entirely about the Titanic. He was part of many research and studies about the Titanic, he kept writing books about the Titanic, he dived down there and explored the Titanic more than two dozen times, and he is the man responsible for us having today more than 800 items taken out of the carcass on the seafloor. In fact, in the French news this was brought up when we learned he was aboard “But... he has been down there like 25 fives already! Why would he pay to go down there yet again? On top of that he’s 77 today, he should just quit going down there!”. And one of his friends answered on TV that, basically, Nargeolet had described him how seeing the Titanic, exploring it, going down there to be near it, became like a drug - an addiction. He wanted to keep going down there for as long as he could, to keep exploring and searching for the ship’s secrets, before its total destruction.

As I do a quick fact-check to make sure I don’t say anything stupid (and I probably will have because I am not a Nargeolet’s biograph) I discover that there is some British billionaire aboard this machine - and I will say you honestly, I have been stuck near 24h info channels in France (thanks to having to work with sound in the background) and never once did they mention this rich British guy. All we talk about here is Nargeolet and his life - and what nobody says but everybody thinks, is how much of a tragic irony it would be if one of the great French explorers and experts of the Titanic died by wanting to see it one last time. This is why, at least in France, we talk a lot about this. (And to be frank, honestly the French news REALLY do not care about the others - if you listened to them there’s only Nargeolet in this little machine down there and nobody else)

EDIT: I just learned he wasn't even going down there purely to see the Titanic. He was going down there to test the Titan - because he had some hopes that maybe, if a mechanical arm was added to the Titan, he could get some items and objects he couldn't have with his own exploration submarine, the Nautilus.  Though it was quite a slim hope, because apparently he also didn't believe the Titan could work with a mechanical arm - but he still decided to do one descent with it just to see how it worked down there...

[mask131]

It is a bit complicated to reblog this because I want to answer the dozens of reblog under Neil Gaiman’s response, but I can’t reblog them all - so I am forced to reblog the original answer. I want to reblog this because all the reblogs underneath go like “Who cares about a handful of billionaires? Just eat the rich, let the billionaires die, etc etc...”. And I want to give an additional information that doesn’t pop up - to explain why for example French news are talking so much about this underwater machine. And Tumblr being Tumblr I need to put a warning beforehand - I do not pronounce myself on whether it is justified or not to talk so much about this, I am not saying “Gaiman is wrong or Gaiman is right”, I just want to add an information for the context that people might not be aware of if they are not in front of a French news channel.

The reason France talks so much about it, for example, is because there is one French man inside this machine: Paul-Henri Nargeolet. And the whole thing that is taking everybody’s mind is the fact that Nargeolet is one of the greatest French experts of the Titanic. He is described by everyone as an adventurer and explorer, and he has always been doing jobs related to underwater diving (his first job was to work as a deminer-diver from the 60s to the 80s, getting care of a lot of underwater bombs and explosives. But in the 80s it is when he started getting involved with the Titanic - and became one of THE French names tied to it. His first descent to the Titanic was in 1987 in the submarine Le Nautile, and he kept going down there again and again, decades after decades.

Because as I said, he was an explorer. He studied the Titanic, he explored the sunken ship carcass - and more importantly he brought back a lot of objects from the Titanic. He brought up more than 800 different objects (he was part of the RMS Titanic and oversaw a lot of other exploraton operations of the Titanic). Mind you, him bringing up the 800 objects was in the 90s. In his own word, I think he said that in 1993 (but I’m not sure), he brought all these objects because he wanted that future generations might have something that came from the Titanic. Mind you, his explorations have been quite divisive - in fact, he perfectly resumed it in one of the books he wrote about exploring the Titanic. He had received the visit (when he was still digging up the Titanic objects) of two sisters, survivors of the Titanic sinking. One came to him to say “I do not like what you are doing. Our father died in this ship, and I think what you are doing is wrong.” But the other came to him saying “I appreciate a lot what you do. Before the sinking, our mother had placed her pearl necklace by the little cupboard near her bed. Could you try to fetch it back for us?”. As he explains in his book, it was the best illustration of how polarizing him, his explorations of the Titanic and his fetching of items were. 

But the point I am trying to make is that this man’s life was entirely about the Titanic. He was part of many research and studies about the Titanic, he kept writing books about the Titanic, he dived down there and explored the Titanic more than two dozen times, and he is the man responsible for us having today more than 800 items taken out of the carcass on the seafloor. In fact, in the French news this was brought up when we learned he was aboard “But... he has been down there like 25 fives already! Why would he pay to go down there yet again? On top of that he’s 77 today, he should just quit going down there!”. And one of his friends answered on TV that, basically, Nargeolet had described him how seeing the Titanic, exploring it, going down there to be near it, became like a drug - an addiction. He wanted to keep going down there for as long as he could, to keep exploring and searching for the ship’s secrets, before its total destruction.

As I do a quick fact-check to make sure I don’t say anything stupid (and I probably will have because I am not a Nargeolet’s biograph) I discover that there is some British billionaire aboard this machine - and I will say you honestly, I have been stuck near 24h info channels in France (thanks to having to work with sound in the background) and never once did they mention this rich British guy. All we talk about here is Nargeolet and his life - and what nobody says but everybody thinks, is how much of a tragic irony it would be if one of the great French explorers and experts of the Titanic died by wanting to see it one last time. This is why, at least in France, we talk a lot about this. (And to be frank, honestly the French news REALLY do not care about the others - if you listened to them there’s only Nargeolet in this little machine down there and nobody else)

EDIT: I just learned he wasn't even going down there purely to see the Titanic. He was going down there to test the Titan - because he had some hopes that maybe, if a mechanical arm was added to the Titan, he could get some items and objects he couldn't have with his own exploration submarine, the Nautilus. Though it was quite a slim hope, because apparently he also didn't believe the Titan could work with a mechanical arm - but he still decided to do one descent with it just to see how it worked down there...

Hello Neil, have you seen the news about an amateur submarine that sank in the Atlantic Ocean and now there are people there without much hope of salvation. Do you think they will be saved? I feel sorry for these people, I hope everything will be fine

I have indeed seen that news. Did you know that last week a ship with about 750 migrants on it sank off the coast of Greece? 82 bodies were recovered, about a hundred people were saved, another 500 people are unaccounted for and probably drowned. The vessel may have capsized due to the Greek Coast Guard trying to tow it. Most of the people on the ship were from Pakistan, trying to get to Italy.

[prideprejudce]

people saying that users aren’t being compassionate enough towards the billionaires stuck in the death coffin at the bottom of the ocean and calling us “ghouls” for bringing up the absolute absurdity of the entire situation and it’s like……of course no one ever deserves to die by suffocation or freezing to death and it’s a hope that by some miracle that these people are found and somehow saved. however people are aloud to point out the irony of how our current wealth gap is so high that there are people who are able to spend 250k, an amount that most people don’t see in their entire lives, like it’s a movie ticket. except instead of seeing a movie they are entering a death chamber to the bottom of the ocean so they can gawk at the mass grave of over a thousand people

“the CEO of the company tricked them and he’s the real capitalist villain while the other passengers are blameless” I agree that the CEO (who is also stuck in the submarine with them) is as grimy as they come and cut corners in order to make as much money as possible. that’s a given. but as we are seeing now, most people who have never even stepped foot in the ocean their entire lives could see that this was a disaster waiting to happen. you don’t have to be a maritime expert to see that. the submersible has no emergency beacon, is controlled by an off brand game controller, made from parts from a camp store, navigated by texts from above, is bolted in from the outside, and has a contract that passengers sign that mentions “death” three times on the front page. most people couldn’t be paid to step foot in it - and these people paid 250k to go to the bottom of the ocean in it

once again, no one is relishing at people dying stuck in an essentially gutted out minivan at the bottom of the ocean. especially when one passenger is 19 and the other is a legitimate titanic researcher. but people are allowed to be mad that thousands upon thousands of dollars of taxpayer money and resources are being used to try and literally pluck these people out of the ocean and save them from a grave that they literally helped dig themselves into without a care in the world. they are the 1% who can put themselves in peril as much as they please and spend money and waste resources like it’s water but will always expect to be saved from the brink of death by us regular folk so they can call themselves an “adventurer” at their next luncheon

[paddysnuffles]

Part of why I'm glad the sub never made it to the Titanic

One of the things that I feared about the Oceangate trip was that they’d break with tradition regarding the engine room.

You see, since the first expedition to the wreck, it has been considered absolutely taboo to go near it.

This is because the engineers volunteered to stay behind to keep the lights going as long as possible to make it more likely that help would arrive on time. As a way of showing respect for those men who knowingly chose to die to help others, their area of the ship is considered taboo for exploration.

And I sincerely doubt that the Oceangate dudebros would have cared about keeping up the tradition of respecting the sacrifice of those men.

[lyesander]

Not crazy about people writing off the Titan submersible incident as some schadenfreudic buzzstory they can rag on for a handful of internet funny points. I get the frustration, I really do. At least three of the passengers had to shell out $250,000 a ticket for a glorified deep sea Disney ride. The CEO of OceanGate is a capitalist wackjob who has been complaining about and bypassing safety regulations for years, despite multiple warnings, and now the retrieval is taking up time and resources from multiple countries that could have been put to better use. But one of the crew members on board was also the nineteen year old son of another passenger. I doubt his involvement extended much beyond “I’m going on a fun trip with my dad.” Another was an unaffiliated researcher who joined the expedition to collect environmental samples for DNA analysis. Not everyone on board was a high-rolling corporate yuppie. (And even if they were, it’s still a pretty objectively horrific way to die.) Instead of memes, I’d rather see this prompt a discussion on the ethics and potential regulation of scientific tourism.

The above also doesn’t change the fact that this is dragging media attention away from more pressing issues, such as the sinking of the Andriana. I guess “THE TITANIC CLAIMS ANOTHER FIVE VICTIMS” is a more colorful headline than “the EU’s xenophobic migration policies have led to the deaths of hundreds of migrants seeking asylum in Italy, and an active cover up is now taking place, headed by Greek authorities.” Seeing all this energy be funneled towards dragging this tiny capsule out of the Atlantic when up to five hundred refugees - mostly women and children - were locked in the hull of a ship and left to suffer the exact same fate, while Coast Guard vessels looked on and did nothing (or even had an active role in the capsize after a botched attempt to tow it, according to some testimonies), illustrates the sway money and race have in what we pay attention to. It’s a gruesome example of inequity in action.

I had compared what happened to the Titan to the Kursk incident, but the Andriana doesn’t have the luxury of being a freak accident. Over 25,000 migrants have disappeared or drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean since 2014, with over 2,000 deaths taking place in 2022 alone. Those are staggering numbers. Protests have broken out across Greece over the past week in the wake of the tragedy, advocating for migration reform.

While these sorts of mass casualty events tend to leave us feeling disheartened and helpless, there are ways to help. Below is a link to SOS Humanity’s donation page. Reputable search and rescue organizations such as SOS Humanity or SOS Mediterranée built their mission statements around helping migrants like the ones on board the Andriana. Donate if you can, spread the word if you can’t.

[lucasdoesnotcare]

Well, the titan "submarine" is your local fucking reminder that "Regulations are written in blood" Is NOT a just a fucking saying or just a fucking joke.

[andrigyn]

I think people are too focused on the game controller piloting the submersible (this can work, although it should’ve been wired imo) and not on the fact that it was made of CARBON FIBER ??

[greenpitbullzombie]

Mr. Whitmore having an aquarium of coelacanth in the year 1914 is hilarious. 😅

[fortunekitten]

lumity frames because i miss them sm

[plaguedocboi]

New conspiracy: tumblr users given the gift of prophecy aren’t predicting the future. They’re causing it.

[bluescreening]

Ok I know everyone's enjoying the submersible full of capitalists sinking to the bottom of the sea but like, can we pls bear in mind:

One of the passengers is a 19 year old boy whose father bought him along

The Titanic itself was not full of rich people either - most passengers who died were middle and lower class immigrants from Eastern Europe and Ireland looking for a better life in the USA

[prideprejudce]

The Ocean is terrifying!

Here are some book recommendations to prove it!

[this-is-krikkit]

levi: four eyes, i think i'm falling for you hange, Focused™️: well, get up! we've got stuff to do! hange, months later: O H

[burningchandelier]

No matter which one wins, everybody loses!

[hussyknee]

Pitchbot Hall of Fame tweet 💀💀

(alt included)

[morebird]

gonna start posting sketches and wips so here’s a yeehaw titan that I never finished