"Titanic" disaster, the "Californian"
I admit it, I've had an interest in disasters. I feel bad about it, but I feel also like I've learned something about how human beings break down under pressure
and I find myself thinking about "Titanic" right now, and the role played by a nearby ship, the "Californian"
"Titanic" should never have existed in the first place. it was a crime, that it even existed. human technology and society couldn't support it properly
"Titanic" disaster, the "Californian"
so of course it went to the bottom and because the society that built "Titanic" was awful and dysfunctional, the failure of the dream killed a thousand people or so
everything about "Titanic" was gross, in both senses of the word. both just BIG, and "gross" in the sense of disgusting. it was a vessel built to float not on water but on the stratification of humanity into a rarefied upper class and a solid dense mass of lower class humanity
"Titanic" disaster, the "Californian"
"Titanic" was merely the biggest artifact of human society's positive _addiction_ to easily burnable carbon. white civilization, "Western civilization", just MAINLINED that shit, and it's almost killed us all
well
that's to one side. I wanna talk a little about a side-effect of "Titanic" going down, and that's the "Californian"
"Titanic" disaster, the "Californian"
I don't remember all the details, but "Californian" was a few miles away and they saw the lights of a ship that was firing off skyrockets
and they did nothing
they convinced themselves it was just "company signals" or people having a party, and they did nothing
never even bothered to check. it wouldn't have taken long but it was just too much effort for them, for reasons unknown to us
"Titanic" disaster, the "Californian"
after "Titanic" went down and the full scale of the disaster became broadly known the captain of "Californian", Stanley Lord, tried hard to muddy the issue, spreading stories that maybe he'd really seen some *other* ship or whatever
none of the stories matter. what matters is what Lord did, which was 100% of nothing
I suppose that must have galled him, to the end of his days
the memory of the strange ship on the horizon, the skyrockets going up
"Titanic" disaster, the "Californian"
what was _really_ going on? Lord never bothered to find out, never bothered to check
*spits*
I'm kinda tired of people who just watch from a distance, and do nothing. aren't you?
"Titanic" disaster, the "Californian"
I bet a lot of "Titanic" nerds still talk endlessly about the design of the ship, as if this or that technical fix could have made the idea work
forgetting that the only reason "Titanic" floated at all was because of a huge number of human beings shackled to _coal_. digging coal out of the ground, turning coal into coke, shoveling the coke into a boiler, over and over and over