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Eating the Rich is Not the Solution
A lot of people are very openly not expressing sympathy for the people who died in the submersible. There are lots of jokes about it, which is understandable because tickets to get on that thing cost a quarter million dollars. A price the majority of people could not afford.
It is true that’s a lot of money that could’ve been spent on better things. But if you’re a billionaire that amount is a drop in the hat.
Really I believe the problem is not that these people chose to get on an unsafe submarine. If I had a billion dollars and was a bit gutsier maybe I would choose that too. The Titanic is fascinating and doing scary things can be fun.
I believe that the problem is that we have a system that allows people to have that much disposable money while people are not getting their basic needs met. While people are drowning trying to escape from dangerous circumstances.
I don’t think it’s surprising that the submersible got so much more coverage and social media attention than the refugee ship. The refugee ship is just sad. You can hate the people on the submersible if you want to. Some people even seem happy that they drowned.
But rich people are people too. Just like we shouldn’t dehumanize poor people, I don’t think we should dehumanize rich people.