The best part is that the first 10 customers get their very own Evil Lair! Hurry, before Volcano Lair is sold out!
165 m private submersible superyacht
71–80 of 125 posts
Re: 165 m private submersible superyacht
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the name of efficiency I'd say we should cut out the middleman here and set an appropriate tax rate for potential customers of the mega yacht submersible.
Yeah billionaires will never actually effectively spend all of their money. Rather than try to entice them into buying increasingly ridiculous things, we should just make being a multibillionaire financially unviable so that the money is distributed better to begin with. Perhaps if the tax rate truly rose to somewhere near 99% as individuals reach the billionaire mark, we'd see whether these folks truly are philanthr…
Oh they'd be philanthropists, whether they like it or not.
Re: 165 m private submersible superyacht
#73Re: 165 m private submersible superyacht
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's beautiful engineering (if real), but all I can think about is the number of people that could be fed, housed, and educated for that amount of money. The world could be made a permanently (slightly) better place instead of building this.
The people building it will be fed, housed, and their children educated with that amount of money. Jobs are what the world gets out of this sort of thing.
Jobs are a cost. Production and education, material and intellectual wealth are what matters. How we get those involves work and thus (some) jobs, but please, let us not mistake the means for an end.
And jobs are an opportunity cost - the people who would be working on this supervillain fantasy are not doing anything else. What could they, or would they be doing instead?
If building a submersible superyacht adds to the world, then well and good. Personally, I find the opportunity cost to humanity of doing so highly suspect. But I don't think I, or anyone, has a perfect picture of all the knock-on effects from particular money flows. (I think this is why a free market can have benefits.)
Jobs are not good because they are jobs, they are good because of what they accomplish, and should be measured by that yardstick.
Re: 165 m private submersible superyacht
#75Once ordered this will take years to build. I don't see a figure, but would guess 5+ years...?
> Once ordered this will take years to build. I don't see a figure, but would guess 5+ years...?
As an early funder of Star Citizen, I cannot feel superior about this.
Re: 165 m private submersible superyacht
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Check out narco submarines - they have people in the jungles of Columbia building submarines that they pack with tons of cocaine (literally), which are discarded after a single ocean crossing. In general, it seems to be more economical to ship illicit materials with cheap/disposable vessels and vulnerable/impoverished people, rather than risking an expensive yacht to government seizure.
I would find it funny if a country managed to bootstrap its way into high tech manufacturing like that. It sounds like the Columbian jungle would have a lot of demand for good engineering and machining know-how and if they are building disposable subs they'd have a lot of incentive to perfect cheap manufacturing technique. If the drug trade doesn't work, they probably have the expertise to get involved in navel drone…
> I would find it funny if a country managed to bootstrap its way into high tech manufacturing like that.
Didn't something similar happen with U.S. muscle cars during Prohibition?
Re: 165 m private submersible superyacht
#77I would swear there was a company in the late 90's that sold luxury submarines. Not submersible super-yachts. I thought it was the neatest thing till I realized you needed like 20 close friends to crew the thing. And far more dollars than I had. But that was like a real diesel electric that could dive to avoid storms and cruise fast on the surface. Definitely smaller than this. Toys are neat. I dunno, if that's what…
https://ussubs.com/ ?
that might be it! same flavor at least.
Re: 165 m private submersible superyacht
#78Oh, to have the privilege of spending my time on a grey brutalist vessel ... all my friends on their slick yachts would be envious, I'm sure.
Re: 165 m private submersible superyacht
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
The boats they use for this smuggling are the least seaworthy vessels I think I’ve had the pleasure to experience. We caught one go-fast because all four engines died and it was sinking, so they radioed for our help since we were already chasing them. These were very unsafe boats. The dudes onboard are not very important, their qualifications were they had been fishermen before and had families to hold over them to e…
Do you work in the Coast Guard? I think that the future for the drug smuggling is computer controlled submarines, and I'm not even talking about AI. I think drug producers will pre-program a route for a submarine that will autonomously navigate until the destination where it will be picked by a receptor. I read that it's extremely hard to spot submarines, I can only imagine the kind of things that will be smuggled on…
Navy, we were technically under coast guard command during interdictions though. It was also ten years ago or more so they’ve probably upped their game by now on both sides.
I don’t know about automated subs though, as three guys in a shitty boat can’t really be beat on price. An automated boat would be easier to catch if it was spotted but I suppose you could also put some trap on it to sink it fast when it’s boarded. We were only able to capture one semi submersible because they are very easy to scuttle.
Re: 165 m private submersible superyacht
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don’t want this type of sub for drug smuggling, I chased the smugglers and this massive monster will definitely be harder to operate and disguise than what they use currently.
Following your reasoning an airplane can't be hijacked because it's difficult to operate: in reality you only need a gun to operate anything, in right circumstances.
You misunderstand how many people are necessary to operate a sub at this scale, with all the machinery onboard, for weeks at a time. It’s on the order of a dozen rather than two or three for the current narco boats.
Also, it would be way way easier for us to track this sub versus what’s out there today. It’s way louder, I guarantee.
I don’t know about airplanes, but I’m a SWO qualified former naval officer that was onboard a sub hunting platform that we used to track narco boats and subs in different deployments, so I can tell you about ships and a little about subs since they share many similarities. I guarantee this type of sub isn’t used by narcos.