All this news about the ding dongs who lost their lives in that incredibly dangerous sub visiting the Titanic has got me wondering what the comparative demand for visiting the wreck of the Britannic is like. It’s basically the same ship design but the wreck is in far better condition and is much, much easier to get to—only 300 feet deep in the Aegean sea. Trained deep-sea divers can even do it with SCUBA gear (though doing so is still very dangerous at that depth).
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But… but… TITANIC!~!!! /s
Seriously, I have never got the obsession with that fuckin’ ship… Do people have any idea how many ship wrecks are littering up our oceans, many that probably have a much more interesting history, and tell us much more about the history of sea travel? I think the history of pirate ship wrecks is probably more interesting and likely tells us more interesting stories… On top of that, the craze to visit a shipwreck is often problematic, since it often involves disruptions to those who wish to study these within their context:
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Notable within this group is Michael Smith, the billionaire founder of natural gas behemoth Freeport LNG. He has donated more than $5.5 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super-PAC tied to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. Smith also backed Virginia GOP governor Glenn Youngkin and a slew of Republican senators. He has donated—albeit smaller amounts—to several moderate Democrats, such as Montana’s Jon Tester and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin. Meanwhile, Smith’s wife, Iris Smith, another contributor to this No Labels project, has been a major donor to Democratic causes. In 2020, she gave more than $500,000 to Biden’s presidential victory fund—a joint fundraising committee that split the money between Biden’s campaign and other Democratic party groups. In the weeks before she made this donation, she wrote checks to the reelection campaigns for GOP Sens. David Perdue and Thom Tillis. She has also contributed to McConnell and Republican Sen. Tom Cotton.
The Smiths did not respond to a request for comment.
Hmm, yes I imagine they didn’t.
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That’s a shame.
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Why do I have a sudden urge to watch Dr. Zhivago?
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Hard to tell on my phone, but have any of them ceased to be billionaires (aside from drinking toxic tea or falling down stairs/from a window)?
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“Summer camp for billionaires”.
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Imagine having billions of dollars at your disposal and choosing to spend your vacation time with the likes of that crew.
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A thought occurs to me:
If I were, say, an advertiser trying to target this ultra-wealthy billionaire class. This gathering would be a real target rich environment, where you could really get your point across and get it into the heads of lots of these people all at once.
A very tempting prospect, if I were in that line of business (which I’m not).
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That’s basically what this gathering appears to be; an opportunity for a bunch of rich people to convince each other to make lucrative business deals. I’m sure the kind of people who market shit to the über-rich got clued into this gathering years ago, but they’re probably subtle about it since rich assholes don’t go to places like this with the expectation of seeing a bunch of tacky billboards.
This is in contrast to the other infamous summer-camp-for-the-rich-and-powerful at the Bohemian Grove, where overt networking and business dealings are very much frowned upon.
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It ruins the mood at an orgy to talk about business
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I guess Bohemian Grove is too Woke for them or something.
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You also can’t just buy your way into the Bohemian club, they’ve got a waiting list about 20 years long and they have actual standards for who they invite to join (for example, I have it on very good authority that Elon Musk was deemed “unclubbable”).
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