When reports of the story first came in, I was uninterested. I thought, “Why the fuck would I bother with this when there’s an actual, bona fide boatload of people who were on a vessel that capsized with hundreds confirmed to be missing or dead?” But I, for whatever reason, had allowed it to slip my mind that stories of “nobodies” never really play that well in the news. Or at least, such stories don’t last in the “cycle” for more than a day or two. Three, tops. And since a full seven days had already gone by when I was still working on a big feature (ultimately kiboshed) about the debacle for The End Is Nigh Times, I was too engrossed to realize that the story of another “seacraft” would take far greater precedence due to the passengers on it. A quartet of billionaires, plus one millionaire. Namely, Stockton Rush, the CEO of the company insane enough to sanction and promote this type of “mission” (i.e., “touring” the ruins of the Titanic). A polite euphemism for having a death wish, in this instance.

And yet, each of these billionaires, in a show of pure rich man’s hubris, gleefully paid $250,000 for the “thrill” of seeking out the wreckage of the Titanic, located in the depths of the Atlantic off the coast of Newfoundland. They all signed their death warrants in spite of—though more like because of—the cautionary language in the waiver they each read, specifying how the vessel (if one can call a contraption with the appearance of a giant vibrator that) “has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death.” Indeed, as us reporters would soon learn, the word “death” is mentioned three times on the first page of the waiver alone. How was anyone really surprised that the spit-and-glue “vessel” (a generous word, to be sure), operated by a wannabe PlayStation controller, disappeared into the underwater abyss a mere one hour and forty-five minutes after departing? It was supposed to take them two hours to reach the site of the wreckage, foolishly believing they themselves wouldn’t become a part of it. Except maybe one of the billionaires, Paul-Henri “Mr. Titanic” Nargeolet. He, of all people, knew the risks, but maybe, at seventy-seven, he figured, “Fuck it.” Or maybe, having already survived thirty-five-plus deep dives to the Titanic site, he believed he was immune to the reaper’s advances within this context.

The more I—and everyone else in the world—kept reading about the story, the more absolutely bonkers it seemed. The more unbelievable. But as it is said, the truth is stranger than fiction. Or, to be more precise, “‘Tis strange—but true; for truth is always strange;/Stranger than fiction; if it could be told,/How much would novels gain by the exchange!” To that end, I was certain someone was already writing the screenplay for this shit with the predicted ending of all parties perishing. Complete with subplots about those “waiting” above for the recovery of the billionaire passengers… a.k.a. composing Facebook posts announcing their decision to attend a Blink-182 concert for “comfort” and how Cardi B weighed in on such an appalling reaction to the potential loss of one’s father figure with her own take on the benefits of poverty versus wealth. In other words, “So one of the billionaires that’s missing under the, on the water, from that submarine shit, one of the billionaires, they stepson is at a concert, right? At a Blink-182 concert and people is like, ‘Um, well what is he supposed to do? Be sad at the house? Is he supposed to go look for him himself?’ Yes! You supposed to be at the house sad. You supposed to be cryin’ for me, you supposed to be right next to a phone waiting to hear any updates about me… Isn’t it sad that you a whole fuckin’ billionaire and nobody gives a fuck about you? That’s crazy. I’d rather be broke. I’d rather be broke and, like, and poor, but knowing that I’m loved.”

But no, there seems to be little love for Hamish Harding, or his “kind.” After all, he’s of the ilk that would join Jeff Bezos on Blue Origin’s “dick rocket.” Another rich white man’s journey done solely for the “erotic” (read: masturbatory) thrill of being able to flex about all that you can do with your billions. Which extends to just about everything except curing world hunger. Because why would you choose to give billions to those in need when you can prove you’re somehow “on par” with the Wright Brothers in innovation? Which is why Jeff’s Tweedle-Dum brother, Mark, was sure to tout at the time of the “mission,” “We were able to fly with a piece of canvas from the Wright Flyer, so the plane that the Wright Brothers flew, we brought a piece of that canvas with us which was really powerful, as well as a bronze medallion that was made from the first hot air balloon flight in 1783, which was the first time man ever, you know, left the Earth in controlled flight so we were very thrilled to bring both of those along with us.”

Just as “thrilled” as Harding was to shell out a quarter of a million dollars to sink over twelve thousand feet into the depths of the ocean in a tin can so as to catch a glimpse of the ghosts of rich people past whose own money couldn’t buy them out of their fate. As my research continued, I was unsurprised to find that the “mission” was rounded out by the presences of a billionaire Pakistani businessman and his son—Shahzada Dawood and Suleman Dawood, respectively. Though I can’t say I “respect” much of anything about these people. Not their “passion for exploring” (a.k.a. feeling the rush that comes with staring Death in the face and being able to say that even he wouldn’t inflict this lot with any real consequences) or the fact that they would rather spend their excessive amounts of money on this than something far more worthwhile to humanity. But I suppose it’s all “relative” when you’ve reached that kind of status in life. One filled with such things as “the best” (*cough cough* most expensive) education money can buy, and yet not a lick of common sense to go with it. Most people—you know, the ones at the bottom of the financial food chain (but at least not at the bottom of the ocean)—well, you would have to pay them before they would ever actually pay any amount of money to do something so fucking stupid under the premise of being “adventurous.” And yeah, adventurers think they’re hot shit, hence the existence of the “Explorers Club, a little-known, century-old exploration group whose members have included Sir Edmund Hillary and Amelia Earhart.” Not to mention other freak-a-leeks like L. Ron Hubbard.

Those who get their jollies from such “endeavors” are not without their value. A great many things might not have come about without such personalities and their adrenaline rush needs. And yet, more and more, in this era of “it’s all been done,” those personality types have proven to be less about “innovation-seeking” and more about ego-serving. Among my other findings for the article I would hand in to The End Is Night Times, I saw that Harding once said, “My view is that these are all calculated risks and are well understood before we start.” But they’re not. Because no matter what the rich man says, there is always some part of him that believes he will be bailed out in some way because of his “status” (because that’s the Pavlovian response he’s been conditioned repeatedly to believe in our capitalist society that values only money). As though the mercilessness of Mother Nature gives one single fuck about “net worth.” So no, like many out there, I can’t say that I would be “sad” about their inevitable demise. More accurately, I would be disappointed if they survived. For it would just further prove the reality that, when you have the means, you can evade anything you want.

When you have the means, you don’t need to be shuffled onto a boat with a three-hundred-and-fifty-person capacity among roughly five to seven hundred other migrants in order to escape a country that grossly violates your human rights. Knowing full well your chance of death is highly likely in exchange for “daring” to attempt averting such violations. Just as the billionaires on the Titan submersible were aware of such risks. But, in their case, they were only trying to briefly escape the misery of knowing, deep down (as deep as twelve thousand feet), that they are the most hated, mocked kind of people in the world. The world who says, all the time, “Eat the rich.” And it would seem, increasingly, the ocean is taking that message to heart. Even as the rich manage to secure all the best resources to pull them out of a fate that those migrants on the boat—the boat that didn’t even warrant being given a name (that’s how “insignificant” the people on it were)—would never have been able to.

Where was their French robot, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy, the Canadian Coast Guard, the Canadian military—all wielded in service of recovering them? Where was their nonstop international coverage? Why is the sickening discrepancy between how the rich and the poor are treated so fucking blatant? Part of me wishes there was at least a little more tact about it in the media. But then, why bother trying to mask the truth? And that is: if you’re not rich, you don’t matter. You will not be written about. You will not be remembered. Just as none of the third-class passengers of the Titanic are…for anything other than being still another prime example of how poverty will fuck you over in just about every scenario. Especially a water-based one.

But maybe the billionaires aboard the Titan will prove the contrary, as they, too, get fucked over (albeit for far more needless reasons). And maybe they can pretend to “commiserate” with the ghosts of the third-class passengers who, as the Titanic sank, were locked inside the grilled gates that were installed solely to separate their “breed” from the so-called superior passengers known as the rich, another batch of which will be joining the third-class passengers at the bottom of the ocean soon enough. For, once again, everything surrounding the story of the Titanic reminds us that, theoretically, Death is the great equalizer (except when it comes to coffin price points). Of course, I can’t mention any of this irony in my story for The End Is Nigh Times. That would go against the unspoken code of licking billionaire asshole no matter how much they’ve blatantly fucked up.