Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

"The OceanGate CEO who is trapped on a 22-foot submersible on an ill-fated voyage to see the Titanic wreck once explained how he didn’t hire “50-year-old white guys” with military experience to captain his vessels because they weren’t “inspirational.”

The CEO, Stockton Rush, added that “expertise was unnecessary” because “anybody can drive the sub” with a $30 video game controller." [0]

[0] https://www.outkick.com/trapped-oceangate-ceo-refused-to-hir...

Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#5

Post by playa1 » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 8:16 PM UTC

When CEOs make statements like this I assume they know they are lying for sake of the company.

What makes this more interesting is that he clearly believed it was safe. So he wasn’t necessarily unethical. It is more that he was a bad engineer and a poor judge of risk.

Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#6

Post by mydogcanpurr » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 8:36 PM UTC

playa1 wrote: post #5

When CEOs make statements like this I assume they know they are lying for sake of the company. What makes this more interesting is that he clearly believed it was safe. So he wasn’t necessarily unethical. It is more that he was a bad engineer and a poor judge of risk.

I'd argue it's still unethical to put others at risk due to your own incompetence. I wouldn't offer to rewire someone's home because I'm not an electrician, and their house could burn down if I do it incorrectly.

Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#7

Post by erikpukinskis » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 8:37 PM UTC

I wonder, if his ghost could talk to us now, I’d he would have done anything differently.

Maybe that seems like an absurd question to ask because... he’s dead. But his position seems to be: some things can never happen unless someone just risks it.

And that math doesn’t really change with the knowledge “he dies”. It’s possible there are some alternative timelines out there where “he risks it and survives” and maybe there are zero timelines where “he plays it safe and makes it to the Titanic” and if that’s the case then maybe he did it exactly as he intended.

There are many pursuits like this: mountaineering, car racing, etc, where the choices (at a certain level of aspiration anyway) are: A) risk death or B) don’t do it.

I’m certainly not risking death, but I don’t really judge people who do.

I do judge that dad who convinced his teenage son to risk his life. That was absolutely evil.

Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#8

Post by melling » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 8:43 PM UTC

playa1 wrote: post #5

When CEOs make statements like this I assume they know they are lying for sake of the company. What makes this more interesting is that he clearly believed it was safe. So he wasn’t necessarily unethical. It is more that he was a bad engineer and a poor judge of risk.

Yes, maybe he just suffered from some sort of human bias. What’s the one where people are very good at lying to themselves?

Unfortunately, he killed those other people because no one could convince him that he was wrong.

Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#9

Post by scotty79 » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 8:45 PM UTC

mydogcanpurr wrote: post #6

playa1 wrote: post #5

When CEOs make statements like this I assume they know they are lying for sake of the company. What makes this more interesting is that he clearly believed it was safe. So he wasn’t necessarily unethical. It is more that he was a bad engineer and a poor judge of risk.

I'd argue it's still unethical to put others at risk due to your own incompetence. I wouldn't offer to rewire someone's home because I'm not an electrician, and their house could burn down if I do it incorrectly.

> due to your own incompetence.

Are you still unethical when you don't know about your incompetence?

Can you be unethical if you had no ability to know that what you do is unethical?

Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#10

Post by rc5150 » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 8:51 PM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #9

mydogcanpurr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue it's still unethical to put others at risk due to your own incompetence. I wouldn't offer to rewire someone's home because I'm not an electrician, and their house could burn down if I do it incorrectly.

> due to your own incompetence. Are you still unethical when you don't know about your incompetence? Can you be unethical if you had no ability to know that what you do is unethical?

Can you still commit a crime if you don't know that what you're doing is against the law?