OUT ON A LIMB: Don’t Turn the Titanic Submersible Tragedy Into Fodder for Class Warfare.

The world waited with bated breath to learn the fate of the five people trapped in a submersive called the Titan near the wreckage of the Titanic after news broke that contact with their vessel had been lost. After several days where we held out hope they could be rescued, we finally learned that the Titan had imploded, and tragically, all five had died. The unique, strange, and, frankly, terrifying circumstances of these individuals’ death led to outsized media and public attention on the tragedy—so activists, inevitably, have since dragged it into our political fights and ideological warfare.

Some fringe voices on the online Left actually celebrated the demise of the submersible passengers simply because they were wealthy. (Tickets to ride in the tourist vehicle cost $250,000 per passenger). Ill-wishers riddled with class envy have reviled one passenger especially, British billionaire Hamish Harding.

“A sub went missing full of people who paid 160k-200k to take a tour of the titanic wreckage,” one writer tweeted, receiving millions of views. “The ocean is just eating the rich for us these days.”

As Glenn wrote last week in his Substack column, “Most cutting edge technology starts out as a rich man’s toy.  Automobiles, passenger airplanes, VCRs, etc. all started out that way.  Letting rich people buy the tech drives the technology and pushes prices down over time so that ordinary people can afford it.  I don’t think ordinary people will ever be interested in doing miles-deep dives, but improved subsea technology is a very big deal.  We often hear about how unexplored the deep ocean depths are, and there’s a reason for that – we aren’t very good at it yet.  We get better at it by doing it.  We can do it more if people are willing and able to pay for it.”