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Rich People In Submersibles Obsess Us For Many Reasons
Our attention span: A Titanic mystery explained
Roaring Rivers
Torrents, Currents, and Ripples by Christyl Rivers, PhD
We are interested when people perish
Human beings are interested when rich people implode in a submersible, (like the Titan). They are less engaged when an entire ship goes down near Greece.
It is not as simple as ‘we care more about rich people than poor people’. This fact is unfortunately true, but there is still more to it.
We are interested in the Titanic and have been for over 100 years. Our culture and Leo DiCaprio obsession shows this. We are more interested when one person has a story than when it’s a crowd of them. We care about technology — hoping somehow we will fix everything with it. We are more optimistic and have a psychological bias toward hoping that some news is more good than bad.
For some people, hearing about a handful of people drowning is less depressing than hearing another woeful tale about lost migrants.
The reverse is also true.
That is, I am sorry to say, that many people feel also that it’s good when hubristic (and/or privileged) people get…