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Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

theguardian.com

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Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#41

Post by jamessb »

ryanmercer wrote: post #8
bmmayer1 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk had no business being involved. Really, 'inventing' a MVP prototype of a submarine which he 'tested' in a swimming pool and then intended to test for real on live children, when an existing rescue effort underway was working? This was egoism at its finest, taking public credit for 'helping' with a rescue he wasn't invited or asked to help with. And the media ate it up hook, line and sinker.

>and then intended to test for real on live children, when an existing rescue effort underway was working? It was a good alternative to telling them to hold their breath and dragging them through dark and claustrophobic submerged spaces... They tested it to make sure it was water-tight and easy to maneuver. Worst case you throw an oxygen tank in it and put a full-face regulator on each kid in the event it would have…

The closest alternative would probably have been to immobilise the children by strapping them to a spinal board stretcher, and putting a full face SCUBA mask on them [and it seems that the other alternative of letting them swim/walk themselves actually worked].

I don't really understand how the more claustrophobic "submarine" capsule would be an improvement on this.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#42

Post by Theodores »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #6
ryanmercer wrote: post #3

Awesome! I love how the global diving community came together to rescue them, it's unfortunate that Petty Officer Saman Gunan died after doing a run of oxygen tanks to the caves though. I even liked how Musk came out of left field "grab that tube, we're making a rescue pod!" and then hopped on a plane with it when it was tested and ready. While it didn't really matter I like that sort of thinking outside of the box a…

Musk had no business being involved. Really, 'inventing' a MVP prototype of a submarine which he 'tested' in a swimming pool and then intended to test for real on live children, when an existing rescue effort underway was working? This was egoism at its finest, taking public credit for 'helping' with a rescue he wasn't invited or asked to help with. And the media ate it up hook, line and sinker.

I wonder how many on HN are thinking more about Elon Musk's now-not-needed rescue plan than the delight those mothers of those boys must be feeling!

There is also a tragedy going on in Japan right now with a lot of people actually with us no more. But a few million people with flooded homes is a 'statistic' whereas a few boys in a cave is a 'tragedy' to paraphrase Stalin.

I think that there is a time for offering assistance in a big public way, there is also the 'George Michael' approach. He was willing to help many desperate people that happened to get into the news, however he helped out anonymously or in a way where it was clear that publicity was not sought. When he passed away a lot of people then learned how many people he had extended his hand of friendship to.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#43

Post by dgritsko »

tgb wrote: post #31

Why wasn't the death of Saman Gunan more widely publicized? I barely heard about it - in the NYT article on this it's a single sentence 2/3rds of the way through the article. I'd have thought that the concept of someone sacrificing themselves for the recovery of 12 children would have been a major story. The Guardian's liveblog (or whatever this is) doesn't mention it in the first couple pages, nor do the responses o…

It was all over Reddit when it happened (which is where I heard about it).

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#44

Post by pcnix »

tgb wrote: post #31

Why wasn't the death of Saman Gunan more widely publicized? I barely heard about it - in the NYT article on this it's a single sentence 2/3rds of the way through the article. I'd have thought that the concept of someone sacrificing themselves for the recovery of 12 children would have been a major story. The Guardian's liveblog (or whatever this is) doesn't mention it in the first couple pages, nor do the responses o…

It was something that happened last week, and was very widely publicized then. I remember reading it on the front page of every newspaper site I visited.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#45

Post by IpV8 »

joshmaker wrote: post #33
ryanmercer wrote: post #3

Awesome! I love how the global diving community came together to rescue them, it's unfortunate that Petty Officer Saman Gunan died after doing a run of oxygen tanks to the caves though. I even liked how Musk came out of left field "grab that tube, we're making a rescue pod!" and then hopped on a plane with it when it was tested and ready. While it didn't really matter I like that sort of thinking outside of the box a…

Call me cynical, but I couldn't help but notice Musk seemed to be going about his effort with the maximum amount of tweeting and publicity possible.

Agreed. The man is a master of public relations.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#46

Post by Tomte »

WilliamEdward wrote: post #25
bmmayer1 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk had no business being involved. Really, 'inventing' a MVP prototype of a submarine which he 'tested' in a swimming pool and then intended to test for real on live children, when an existing rescue effort underway was working? This was egoism at its finest, taking public credit for 'helping' with a rescue he wasn't invited or asked to help with. And the media ate it up hook, line and sinker.

One of the biggest philosophical questions is whether helping people because you see it benefiting yourself is still a good deed... Ask yourself, does it really matter what his motivations for helping were? At the end of the day he was prepared to help. If someone volunteers at the soup kitchen not because they want to help people but because they need community service hours, are you really going to complain about t…

If the volunteer was telling other people constantly in all kinds of situations that he was helping the poor, many people would turn the other way, somewhat embarrassed.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#47

Post by js2 »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #15

Can anyone explain how the heck they found the children in the first place? Seriously, I can't wrap my head around it. The kids were stranded 2.5 miles inside the cave. All anyone knew was that the kids didn't return form their hike. How does that lead to "Hey, let's dive into the cave and maybe we'll find live children"? I guess they were expecting the worst, but still.

Partially dumb luck.

- “A ranger of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation alerted authorities to the missing group after seeing their unclaimed belongings at the cave entrance.”

- “Volanthen was placing guidelines in the cave to later assist others in navigation. He ran out of line, which led him to swim to the surface—there, he found the missing team and its coach.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tham_Luang_cave_rescue

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#48

Post by astura »

laurent123456 wrote: post #29

That's good news, but I don't see how it's relevant to HN. The FAQ even says it: "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."

Pulling off a successful cave rescue takes tremendous skill and planning and involves the world's domain knowledge experts - its not an idle task.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

>On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

>Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it.

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