I'm sure you've seen plenty of, ah, commentary on social media about the loss of the OceanGate submersible which was taking a group of visitors to the wreck of the Titanic. Some of it is similar to when there's a high-profile death of a free solo climber or a rider in the Isle of Man TT races: Some sympathy, but mostly a shrug. They knew what they were doing was extremely risky, but they accepted those risks when they took part.
But a lot of it has been almost gleeful. (The memesmiths over at Ireland Simpsons Fans have been having a fine old time.) The difference, of course, is that the passengers paid a reported $250,000 to be there. Three of those on board were paying customers, two billionaire businessmen and one of their sons. (Also onboard were the pilot & CEO of OceanGate, and a deep-sea explorer who seems to have been operating as a guide). The glee is apparently justified by the immorality of paying such a gigantic sum of money for essentially a sight-seeing trip. The argument, presumably, is that it's immoral to spend so much on a jolly when the money could do so much good elsewhere. Why not spend a few thousand snorkeling in the Caribbean and build a school with the change?
I'm definitely sympathetic to the argument. It's essentially the foundation of Effective Altruism. The classic version is Peter Singer's The Drowning Child and the Expanding Circle. In short, if we saw a child drowning in a pond, we would consider it our duty to jump in the pond to help. We might ruin our clothes, but the cost of a new set of clothes is nothing compared the value of saving a life. And of course this can be expanded out to anyone in need, not just those whose distress is right in front of our faces. We could save a life in the developing world, for the cost of holiday.
But the kicker is, this argument works just as well for everyone, not just billionaires! For Shahzada Dawood, half a million dollars was a relatively small price to pay for the trip of a lifetime with his son. And if you have ever paid a few thousand euros or dollars for a holiday, you have to reckon with the fact that that you could have bought a few hundred mosquito nets instead and possibly prevented a death from malaria.
So if all of your disposable income goes to GiveWell or Sightsavers, feel free to withhold your compassion for the death of 5 people at the bottom of the North Atlantic. For the rest of us, let's consider expanding our circle of sympathy to people who spent their money slightly differently to how we would have.
I don’t have a problem with the way they use their money. As you said it applies to all of us at different levels. What I found odd was just the level of attention given to this specific case. Clearly the reason is that it is a unique situation and full of drama, similar to the Chilean miners.
If you remove the unique details, the fact is simply “five people got into trouble and sadly passed away”. How many times is this happening all over the world every day at different scales?
Rather than the lack of compassion for the people on board the submarine, I am disturbed by the high level of attention it has received at the cost of paying attention to other issues.
The news, and consumers of the news, are just looking for drama and excitement.