Here's why people are being so mean about the Titan going down - CBC
Here's why people are being so mean about the Titan going down - CBC
I have to say I'm not sure what they were hoping for, the discourse hasn't felt overly mean by internet standards, but maybe that's just my bubble. I'm sorry they died, but now that we know all the details it's a bit like the guy that decided to hike up a lava field last year.
Also,
People's fascination with the wealthy is fuelled by both curiosity and envy. And when rich people find themselves in trouble, it makes the rest of us feel better, Pamela Rutledge, director of the California-based Media Psychology Research Center, wrote in a piece about social media and the submersible for Psychology Today.
I feel like "outrage" should be in there somewhere. It makes me mad that people can be that dumb with a quarter of a million dollars while I'm just glad to have a safe roof over my head, and other people (like the mentioned boat migrants) aren't even that lucky.
Alright, back off my soap box.
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To me, they were people doing a super risky thing who died doing that risky thing. It's a shame, but they made the choice to do that super risky thing.
What annoys me is the "privatize the wins, socialize the losses" aspect. I'm pretty sure these guys weren't paying any taxes to Canada, but it's Canada paying for the search and rescue operations. Making it extra galling is that the owner cut corners, presumably to increase profits. Sure, high profits hopefully means high taxes somewhere, but even at $250k/pop the profits would never be enough to pay for the Search and Rescue efforts that that corner cutting was going to eventually require.
Yeah, cutting corners to make himself more money, and then we the taxpayers have to foot the bill for it. It's the reason we have things like "sin taxes". We allow people to make risky decisions because it ends up costing us more in things like medical expenses to treat their self imposed aliaments. In cases of gross negligence like this you should be on the hook for the costs to the emergency services.
What a pleasant worldview to have with "high profits hopefully means high taxes".
I think the countering point is that when my mother was still a teller for the Bank of Montreal, in most years toward the end of her working life she paid more tax than the bank. Note: she paid more tax, not higher rate. Than the Bank of Montreal. The whole bank, not a single branch.
And even in the years that the bank paid more tax than she did, they certainly didn't pay more tax than, say, all the tellers in an average branch.