Is the news cycle repeating itself? Did we learn nothing from last year? Another billionaire is stepping up to take a submersible to see the remains of the Titanic to prove that it is safe to do so? Sir, we all remember just last year and OceanGate’s tragedy!
A real estate investor named Larry Connor is ready to show everyone that if you have enough money, you too can repeat the same mistakes that other billionaires did just to see the wreckage of a ship and also maybe get smashed to death in the process. “I want to show people worldwide that while the ocean is extremely powerful, it can be wonderful and enjoyable and really kind of life-changing if you go about it the right way,” Connor told the Wall Street Journal.
Connor’s plan is to be part of a two-person sub along with Triton Submarines co-founder Patrick Lahey, and the two will dive down to see the wreckage. Why, when they can just watch the James Cameron movie Titanic (1997)? There is literally a whole section of this movie where you get an up-close and personal view of the wreckage, and you get to watch a great love story in the process. That’s a win-win in my book.
Lahey built the ship they’ll take, and Connor is excited, saying, “Patrick has been thinking about and designing this for over a decade. But we didn’t have the materials and technology. You couldn’t have built this sub five years ago.”
Apparently, Connor was inspired by the tragedy of the OceanGate Titan sub, which took the lives of all five of its passengers last June, and called Lahey to make a better sub. “[He said], ‘You know, what we need to do is build a sub that can dive to [Titanic-level depths] repeatedly and safely and demonstrate to the world that you guys can do that, and that Titan was a contraption,’” Lahey said.
Nothing like wasting more money to see wreckage
The OceanGate tragedy was a show of wealth and the destruction that flaunting it can cause. Connor’s reaction to that event is just as upsetting. No one thinks it’s smart to try this again. It felt foolish in the first place, and yet here we are, wasting money just to see what the Titanic looks like, a view that a camera can safely show you from the shore.
Many on social media began to … well, make fun of the fact that these billionaires have learned nothing.
Some even offered up their choice of billionaires to take a dive to see the ship.
All this shows is that Connor has money to waste. People need that money, and yet, he’s willing to spend it on the Titanic. Sir, I am begging you to put your real estate money into housing for the unhoused and being useful to society. Instead, you’re … playing with a submarine so you can see a wrecked ship underwater. Do you think you are better than Bill Paxton? I think absolutely not! He got in a sub and got close to the Titanic because IT WAS A MOVIE!
