Rich men's follies

Want to go on a ride?

It's really hard to figure out what is going on today.  The level of stupidity is matched only by the hubris that goes along with it.  Whether it is RFK Jr. wanting to "debate" vaccines or Elon Musk challenging Mark Zuckerberg to a cage match or some enterprising deep sea diver believing he could make a submersible from scratch that would go down to the depths of the Titanic.  Regulations be damned, much less common sense. This seems to be all about getting attention anyway you can.

The first is nothing new.  RFK Jr. has been peddling his anti-vax theories for quite sometime and has reached the point where he regards himself as an expert on the subject.  So much so that he is willing to take on all challengers, but of course the man he would like most to spar with is Dr. Anthony Fauci.  He's written a scathing book on Fauci that portrays him as one of the key conspirators in forcing unwarranted vaccines upon us.  

It would be easily dismissed if it weren't for podcast celebrities like Joe Rogan and tech billionaires like Elon Musk actively supporting Robbie's position.  This reached a head last week when Rogan challenged Dr. Peter Hotez to debate RFK Jr. on his show.  When Hotez politely refused, Rogan took offense and urged his followers to hound Hotez, which they gleefully did.

Dr. Hotez knows there's no winning debates like this as he would be subject to Rogan's audience, one already conditioned to believe these conspiracy theories.  It doesn't matter how many statistics you cite that prove the efficacy of COVID vaccines, Rogan's audience would still stick to their beliefs.  Also, Hotez doesn't want to give RFK Jr. legitimacy by facing him head to head.

Nevertheless, RFK Jr. has gained ascendency this past month thanks to numerous interviews as he mounts a challenge to Biden for the Democratic nomination.  Political pundits are flummoxed that Robbie has as much as 20 percent support this far out of the primaries, but then there is a general dissatisfaction with Biden and RFK Jr. is the most recognizable of his opponents.  Not much interest in Marianne Williamson so far.

Elon has been busy on twitter again.  When he's not attacking Biden for taxing the rich or Ireland for culling cows, he is striking out at his fellow tech barons.  When it was revealed that Zuckerberg, Bezos and other billionaire nerds were going through extreme fitness challenges, Elon decided to challenge Mark to a cage match.  I don't know how much training Elon has been doing lately, but last time we saw him in the buff he looked like a bleached whale.  Too bad an orca wasn't around.

This isn't the first time Elon has challenged a famous person to a fight in the ring.  He was ready to fight Putin over Ukraine last year, seemingly nonplussed by the Kremlin's big man knowledge of judo.  It makes me wonder what is going on here?  I thought these tech moguls were too busy for such fun and games.  Turns out they are just like us, wasting time on internet when they have better things to do.

The dominant story though was that of a submersible that went missing on its way to visiting the Titanic.   There's a lot of money to be made in "Titanic tourism."  After successfully guiding voyages the past two years, Stockton Rush began chartering out his homemade submersibles to rich adventurists despite warnings by his engineers that these submersibles wouldn't hold up over the long run.  Safety regulations are for sissies.

You can't blame Stockton for taking advantage of these rich folks' need for an adrenaline rush but I would think you would be more careful when your own life is at stake.  Yesterday, the massive search was called off when it was determined there was no way anyone could have survived the "catastrophic implosion" that took place 4000 meters underwater.

So far Elon has stayed out of this one, but I imagine it won't be long before he thinks of investing in submersibles himself.  A damn sight cheaper than Mars missions and there is a big market for this.  Stockton's dilemna was that he didn't have the money to make better submersibles, relying on his own poor judgement when it came to methods and materials of construction.  Elon has billions.

The problem with all these stories is that they serve no other purpose than a distraction.  Here I am wasting an hour of writing time providing links so as to waste your time.  There are far more pressing issues confronting us, but it is summer and the media generally tends to go with stories like this.  The tragic story of the refugee boat that sunk in Greek waters has garnered far less attention despite the fact the Greek Coast Guard may have been culpable in the sinking.  No one is talking about the Ukrainian dam disaster anymore either, much less the threat this poses to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.  Even the African peace mission got scuttled in the news.  Over the last four days, all we heard about was the rescue attempt of the Titan submersible.  Easier to digest when only a handful of lives are at stake.