Citation Needed - Titan and Titanic

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

Titan, previously called Cyclops 2, was a submersible that imploded on 18 June 2023 while transporting tourists to visit the wreckage of Titanic. The submersible was created and operated by OceanGate. It was the first privately-owned submersible with a claimed maximum depth of 4,000 m (13,000 ft),[2] and the first completed crewed submersible with a hull constructed of titanium and carbon fiber composite materials. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

And so I think the other miles is gonna be a good guy. No, I know you're not on the show see so why do you think I'm calling? Okay, I'm at the door. I'll see you in a few weeks. Delicious. Seriously. So good. I'm just so glad you guys like it. I'm really glad you like it.

Hey guys, what are you doing? No, you gotta try this soup that Eli made. Eli, I'm getting this recipe. I've got a tip. Wait, so Eli. Eli, I'm getting this recipe. I've got to keep it. Wait, so Eli, you're before show shenanigans are like making a soup this week? Ah, pretty much, yeah. What do you mean pretty much?

I'm gonna get another ball. This is so good. Get me up or so. So you know how this week's episode is about the Titanic and also that sub with the billionaires that got squished Yeah, sure right so I call my guy and I'm like hey, can I raise the Titanic put it in a podcast studio for shenanigans? No can do so I'm like okay, well, you know sometimes we do a group game at the beginning Can I trap us all in a submarine and then we like go down there, but he's all booked up

But he was down there earlier this week, and he found a crushed up can of tomato soup. So I figured, hey, actual soup from the Titanic, that's cool, right? Eli, what brand was the soup? Well, let me see. Titan. Maybe it was like a... I mean, I've never heard of it.

You know what? This is good. It's good. I was worried some folks might think that this episode wasn't going to be tasteful. That's pretty tasteful over here. I am loving this. This is so good. Oh, God.

Jesus Christ. Chunky. Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts, because this is the internet, and that's how it works now. I'm no one, I'm gonna be capped into this vessel, but I can't exactly sink to these depths alone,

so joining me tonight are three men. I will not be drawing like one of my French girls, Tom, Eli, and he. Okay, come on, no, it's not hard, just, you know, paint some googly eyes on a croissant, you're right there for it. Or in my case, a Danish team Danish. Like one of your French boys.

And of course, before we get going, I want to remind everybody that Cecil is in here this week because he's been captured by Norwegian terrorists and is currently being held for ransom. So if you want to help us see him again, be sure to stick around to the end of the show and find out how you can contribute. So with that, by the way, tell us Heath, what person plays, think, cuss up phenomenon or event? We'll be talking about today. We're gonna be talking about the Titanic. And maybe also, I don't know, like Titanic adjacent mishaps, like if we have time.

Okay. If we have time. So are you actually gonna start with the Titanic then? Yes, I'm gonna start with the Titanic then? Yes, I'm going to start with the Titanic. So pretty much everyone already knows the general story of the Titanic, mostly from the mediocre movie with the amazing fucking soundtracks. So good. Weird take. Weird. What? Yeah, mediocre overstates that case quite a bit.

Okay. Come on. Celine Dion is fire. That is so good. Get out of here. You guys don't like that? No. Not the beginning or. Celine Dion is fire. That is so good. Get out of here. You guys don't like that? No. What?

Beginning or the middle or the end? But I'll do that. It's fine. Come on. Whatever. We're going to circle back to that. I'm not going to retell the entire story of the Titanic, but I'll give you some of my favorite fun facts.

And I'll start with a problem on day one. The RMS Titanic started her maiden voyage on April 10th of 1912, leaving from Southampton, England, heading for New York City, and things were going great until about two minutes after they started. Okay, but that's really a compliment for the Titanic, if you think I should compliment. Okay. For the time two minutes, move on. So they're pulling out of the docks and they went past two other ships at their morings. Titanic was the largest ship in the world at the time and also the largest moving object ever built.

So they drastically underestimated the huge displacement of water that would happen. When Titanic went past, the SS city of New York got lifted up on the wake and then dropped into a big trough and the morning cables snapped. The New York got swung around and thrown towards the Titanic. A nearby tugboat called Vulcan came to the rescue just in time though and got the New York to stop four feet away from a collision two minutes into the maiden voyage. Also, everyone on that boat an old lady fortune teller. That's the only time in this story where the Titanic comes up short of the city of New York, though.

Oh, just a minute. So the Titanic finally makes it out of her zero with port and heads out 45 minutes late. After picking up the rest of its passengers at a few more stops in the UK, they have about 2240 people on board. They spend a few days cruising through open water, but then on April 14th, every ship in the area sends warnings over the radio about icebergs all over the place in the North Atlantic. And standard safety practice at the time was keep going full speed and look out guys I'll say something if we need to turn. So they did that. And they smashed

into an iceberg. See James Cameron it's called getting to the fucking point your movie did not have to be three hours boom. Thank you. To a fucking ice cream. Right there. TLDR. Right, but the real tragedy here was that this was before people could live meme their deaths, so nobody knew about it. It was just a man who did so good. Oh, spoiler.

So they hit the iceberg at 11.40pm on April 14th, and pretty quickly, it's clear that they'll need to abandon ship. They had enough lifeboats for about half the people on the ship. But also, not really, because four of the lifeboats were collapsible futon-style lifeboats that were packed away in dumb spots and weighed several tons each. So it would have been a pin, yes, to get them. Titanic's listing heavily and some guys trying to fetch a 4,000 pound lifeboat from a top the overhead bin.

Yeah. Yeah. That is kind of what happened. They had one above the like captains quarters and it's just like way out of the way. By the way, and even more, like not really that they had that much lifeboat support because everyone's an idiot, they didn't

fill the lifeboats all the way that they did use. Apparently Captain Edward Smith told two of his officers to start loading women and children into the lifeboats at one point. One officer took that to mean women and children first, but the other officer took that to mean women and children only. So that second guy sent off lifeboats with a whole bunch of open spots if there weren't any women and children ready to go on his side of the ship when he dropped each boat. Yeah, and you know those lifeboats took like 8 million times more P breaks on their way to safety. Am I right, gentlemen, am I right?

What? Even on a goddamn lifeboat, women get stuck with all the childcare. Right. You let us fucking a stool. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Another more general problem at this moment was that lots of passengers were just completely refusing

to use lifeboats at all. That includes millionaire passenger, John Jacob Astor, who said, we're safer here than in that little boat. He dies like two hours later. And we all know the basic story of those two hours for the most part. Water starts pouring in, some guy paints a negative lady or something. The band lies about finishing their whole set, obvious lie, and the ship goes under. But help was on the way from the RMS Carpathia, who showed up around 4am and ended up saving

about 700 people. But not without a really dark moment of humor, I'd say. The lights from Carpathia were spotted on the horizon around 3.30am, and everybody cheered that's in the water, and there was a really awkward 30 minutes of like nervous laughing and a little bit more death. It took a while to get everyone out of the water, and you know, from the lifeboats into the Carpathia, one guy survived that whole night, but then he died right when his lifeboat was getting saved. Oh, I like to think that he did that

despite the guy who just said it's not gonna kill you to wait your turn, right? Yeah, in that guy's face, I agree, absolutely. So they finally got all the survivors onto the Carpathia around 9am. And then at 9.15, another pretty awkward moment happened. Two other ships arrived to be like, oh, whoa, we got the check.

Oh, you got it, you got it, it's cool. You guys got it over there? Great. One of those ships was the SS Californian and they are liars. They were the closest ship when Titanic started sinking. And one of their crew saw the distress flares go up from the Titanic. He woke up, Captain Stanley Lord, on the

Californian, but Lord refused to help. A later investigation by the US Senate found that Captain Lord could have saved a bunch more lives, and they called his inaction reprehensible. And then Captain Lord spent the rest of his life arguing bars trying to clear his name. Yeah, bad Lord excuses have a long and storied tradition there. I mean, helping would have been really dangerous though. There were icebergs everywhere. Right? Yeah. There were, though, that's why it happened. Yeah. And just a couple of other details

that were not in the movie. First of all, there was a magical profit who totally called it about the Titanic. In 1898, author Morgan Robertson wrote a novella about an ocean liner that hits an iceberg and tragically sinks with all the same problems about the lifeboats. The title of that novella, the wreck of the Titan.

Oh, yeah. No. No. Well, the Simpsons of their day. Yeah, clearly. Oh, she also wrote thousands and thousands of scripts and occasionally got something. Right. Bye.

I think it was just a one novel. It's not the point. Whatever. Now it is time for power. Can I fool? For some Titanic adjacent stuff, but it's not what you're thinking. Five months after the Titanic sank, a Japanese steamship named the SS Kichai Maru got hit by a typhoon and went under. Between passengers and crew, there were about a thousand people on board and they all died.

And nobody fucking cares. The entire world ignored it and kept ignoring it ever since, like the fucking Ben Johnson of Maritime Disasters. So I think it's important right now to give a solemn nod of recognition to the SS Kiche Maru. I mean, he, the Kiche Maru did set sail with the motto, it's totally sinkable. So like there was a lot less irony in that. Sure, yes. So according to Wikipedia,

the final death toll for the Titanic was 1,496 people. But then, 111 years later, they managed to officially break into the elusive 1,500 gold. Jesus, not sure if anybody heard about this. Right, right here. But five more people got killed by the RMS Titanic very recently. And when I say buy, I mean 500 meters away from that wreckage of the Titanic. That's where a submersible named Titan suffered an implosion,

killing all five people in their tiny little death tube for rich people. So, okay, quick thing at this moment. If you feel like it's too soon, or you feel like it's just insensitive in general to make jokes about death, A, it's weird that you're still listening to this show. Yeah, that's what.

You have a chance to stop right now. Stop now. Or don't, and be mad. I really don't care. I really don't care. This is happening. I feel like if people made it through the Challenger episode, they're here for the Titan jokes.

Thank you. And you can't even use the two soon because we just did Pat Robertson last week, guys. You can't even. Pat Robertson! There you go. We did, we did a lot more. We did Bo-Pol. Whatever.

Power Glove. So what? Power Glove. Power Glove. Thank you. We did New Power Glove. We did the Power Glove. glove. You did thank you. We did new power gloves. We've done tragedy after tragedy.

Truly tragic. So the Titan's Immersible was operated by the Ocean Gate company, kind of by Stockton. No, not a great name. So now it's like Ocean Gate gate and it's like double stupid because it's dumb to even call anything gate like that. Anyway, founded by a guy named Stockton Rush, he's one of the five people who died.

Their core philosophy at Ocean Gate is libertarian, experimental, submarine lits. That's what they do. Submarine lits. Despite a bunch of experts raising concerns about the safety of the Titan, Stockton Rush and the company management refused to get the vessel certified. According to Rush, safety protocols would hinder his amazing innovation. And, uh, yeah, they fucking would have indeed. That would have been hindered.

He described the US passenger vessel safety act Act as quote, needlessly prioritizing passenger safety over commercial innovation. Ooh, ooh, I don't know if they've carved his epitaph yet, but if they haven't can I nominate that phrase? Also, I'm sorry, but I at least want to live in a simulation where the people writing it are putting in an enough effort for this guy Not to be named stocked and rush writing it are putting in enough effort for this guy not to be named stocked in rush. I'm gonna fucking play careless dirt band. Such an obvious sign of a glitch in the matrix. Idiots we caught you.

No, I caught you. So, during an interview from last year with rush, he said, quote, at some point, safety is just pure waste. If you just want to be safe, don't get out of bed. Don't get in your car. Don't do anything. Check, check, and check. My dude. Yeah, he's not.

He's not. He's not stuck now. During another interview, he also said, quote, I've broken some rules to make Titan. I think I've broken them with logic and good engineering behind me. The carbon fiber and titanium, there's a rule you don't do that. Well, I did.

And exact quote. If ever there was a guy who deserved the beetle juicy and after life where you look how you did when you died, it is this one. Mommy, why is that guy a shape like a two-dimensional inside of a submarine? Because he's a terrible asshole. He's a terrible asshole. He seesun. He used logic and good engineering. He's terrible.

He's terrible. He's terrible. So, the Oceangate Company business model is providing extremely expensive underwater excursions for extremely rich people. All five implosion victims were either millionaires, billionaires, or the 19 year old son of a 350 millionaire. Hexenay on the 19 year old nail. He's been fun.

What the fuck? Adult millionaire, you're fine. The poorest guy on the trip was actually stocked in rush with an embarrassingly low net worth of only about $25 million. Now, I'm not saying that means I was rooting for them to die. I'm not saying the opposite either. I'm saying nothing about how much I wanted them each to die based on their money or anything else I will say this though the price of a ticket for the implosion outing was

$250,000 a person and that's how you become a mission Specialist by the way you bake quarter million dollars and they call you a mission special. Oh, there you go All right, well, I feel like a lot of people are looking for a good time to turn off this episode, so we're going to take you going to a group of apropos of something. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for coming. I'll keep this brief. My name is Shrimp. King O'Mire, I am the president and overseer of the Comedy Timing Committee, and these are the July 3rd releases.

Oh, this is a get ahead. Yes, he, thank you. Let's see. The death of Alan Arkin is immediately funny due to the fair game act of 1933 Which states that anyone over 70 who dies is immediately fair game unless Their murder to its COVID in which case the age moves up to 90 oh So 90 year olds who died of COVID are funny now I don't make the rules man. I just read them so Oh, we have some retractions. All the Britney

Spears jokes we made from 1990 to 2018 are not funny. Uh, as are most of the comedies from that time period as well, but we've decided we're just not going to talk about it. Okay. Good. Really treated her part. I liked happy Gilmore. And last but not least, a lot of people have asked about what about is some. So I will say once again for the record that your what aboutism permit can only be granted if the joke you got in trouble for is related to a different joke. Okay, can you go into a little more detail on that one? Right, yeah, okay, so if Aunt Edna has gained weight and you make a joke, you can't what about the Holocaust?

You need a pair of jokes by subject, right? Like the Holocaust, that's a historical event. It has nothing to do with Edna. Oh, all right, can you give an example of that? Yeah, so you might pair Aunt Edna's weight and Uncle Jerry's glass Eye, for example. Alright, got it. That makes sense to me.

Cause the categories. Alright, thanks everybody for coming. There will now be a brief reception. We've got some snacks and some cool aid. Just like Jones Town. Nice, see you. I'm fine with that. Totally good.

Fuck those people. already really cold in the North Atlantic. So where are we going next? Thank you. Heath. Exactly. Exactly. So, let's learn about the vehicle. Okay, well the core is sort of essay commentary, but I've tried to bring forward like character and relationship, some men and men. No, the vehicle called the Titan,

not the show in general as a vehicle. Got it. Sorry. Yikes. Okay, the Titan submersible was a small tube with a window on the front that could be steered around a rec site to provide some catastrophe tourism. It was 6.7 meters long and it could just barely fit the five guys sitting inside. Or ladies feminism. Cool. Minism. Cool. The structure of the tube was carbon fiber and titanium, which sounds super duper strong. Anyway, according to the late Mr. Rush, the carbon fiber was from Boeing, and he got a

sweep discount because the material was too old for using on airplanes. Oh my God. According to Boeing, however, they have no record of selling anything ever to the implosion guy. Okay, yeah, but the guy who sold him the carbon fiber, we're pretty sure he bought it when Boeing didn't want. So it's interesting. Normally I'm all about recycling, but I feel like we can make an exception when it comes to holes,

just holes in general. Well, nope. I feel like we can make an exception when it comes to holes, just holes in general. Nope. And in terms of the design, the Oceangate website said that Titan was, quote, designed and engineered in collaboration with experts from NASA, Boeing, and the University of Washington. And nobody ever disputed that until they killed five people. Yeah. That's when the University of Washington made a very official statement that said, we had no involvement in designing it, engineering it, testing it, or any other verbs involving them and all.

Boeing made almost the exact same statement. And NASA, they wanted to, but they had to admit, they had some kind of agreement with Oceangate, but they also backed away as far as they legally could. NASA's like, it's all right guys, we got this, we have a pretty extensive track record of killing our passengers, we'll take the issues. All right, it is a sad day, am I in front of the mics yet?

We almost killed that, bro. All right, so let's see, we've learned how not to make O rings and submarines. What's next on the list? What else do you got? And of course, the Titan had a multi-layered system for safety, because safety is very important. For example, it had a real-time system to monitor the strength of the hull. And, uh, feels like real-time was way too late. I'm not like, like, the numbers are very in some renexpert guy, but like, that feels late. Yeah, I feel like whether or not we're crushed is a real-time system from my old string. You always have that. Thank you.

In case of any problems, they had 96 hours of life support for five people. And even if the entire crew became unconscious, they had several backup systems to bring the vessel back to the surface. That includes a set of sandbags that were held in place by hooks

and those hooks were slowly dissolving in the ocean water. If the vessel sat there for too long, the sandbags would then fall off, and it would float back up. And if that didn't work, the people inside, assuming they weren't unconscious, could release the sandbags by jostling the ship back and forth for a while. What? Uh, manual says here we are supposed to either, let's see, floss or nane back and forth. This is not so nice.

So, we're just all about the time. You guys remember the parachute in gym class? It's like that, but everybody's terrified in our lives to pen down. It is just like that. Jesus. Yeah. So just like parachute in gym class. that, but everybody's terrified in our lives to pen down. It is. She's. Yeah. So just like parachute and gym class. No, I know.

So the implosion itself in real time on their real time monitor was not the first sign of trouble for the Titan. In 2018, the Oceangate director of marine operations, his name was David Lockridge, he wrote a big report explaining how the underwater death tube might actually be kind of dangerous, and he told them to get the vessel certified. When the company refused, claiming, you know, that sounds like a whole thing and we don't want to pay for it, Lockridge made some of this information public, and Oceangate sued him for violating the non-disclosure clause of his contract and for making fraudulent statements.

Lockridge then countersued, arguing that he was wrongfully terminated as a whistleblower. They ended up settling on a court a few months later, with part of the settlement for Lockridge being this moment right now when he's going to be in the middle of the road. Oh, hey, honey, I'm going to go ahead and click buy on those tickets after all turns out he's settled with the whistleblower. It's probably all figured out. So on top of that incident with their in house profit, Oceangate also got another warning back in 2018.

Deepsea exploration specialist Rob McCallum learned about the Oceangate Dives and their Uncertified Equipment, so he emailed Stockton Rush explaining that he should definitely get some independent testing. Rush emailed back saying, quote, I'm tired of industry players trying to use a safety argument to stop innovation. We've heard the baseless cries of, you're gonna kill someone way too often. I take this as a serious personal insult."

End quote. Not adding. Honestly, I find this kind of thing crushing. Can I just say this? Yeah, this email exchange has been widely described as sounding like flavor text from a computer terminal in a fallout game Which I agree with except that I feel like those guys would have known better than a name their bad guy Stockton

So much better maybe a new Vegas maybe new John every man So Oceangate got another big warning last year from a reporter named David Pogue. Pogue was doing a story about exploring the Titanic and he was on board the surface boat that brought the Titan submersible to the area of the wreckage. During that excursion, the Titan couldn't find the wreck

during its dive and it got lost. Eventually, they made it back up to the surface, but David Pogue got to see some janky details. During his report for CBS News, Pogue mentioned how the Titan was controlled by a Logitech F710 wireless game controller that normally retails for about $30. Now, this was a big deal in all the media coverage of the implosion that I saw, but that controller situation is actually pretty normal as I understand it. Like the US military uses not that expensive gaming controllers for stuff all the time. They use Xbox controllers for stuff. What? But yeah, like for drones,

the US military uses just pretty much standard Xbox stuff. Yeah, you're just off the shelf stuff because all you have to do is get inputs from one place to another Yeah, there is somebody out there getting a drone strike called on them from a fucking guy actually playing call of duty With that controller. Yes, absolutely. Why do you think the US government contributes to all the call of duty games Tom? She's a they can train a generation of soldiers what this is all enders Everything is the end of Ender's game, all of it. Like this game. It's like Ender's game if they didn't bother to hide it. It was like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, BOOM! Whatever! PONE! BLAM! Jesus fucking shit! It's a live stream of the uh... of the fight in the shower.

He's weak stream's killing the fucker! So, which? Hey everybody! Really going after the queen today? Going for this? It's been so exciting! Oh my god! Oh my god! Pepe's in the chat! Pepe's in the chat, guys! Hehehehe! Lalalalalalala! I killed that guy in a shower,

I'm gonna be like, no, no, no. It's a fucking guy from the fucking bottom, 15% of his graduating class with a fucking Xbox controller with the haptic thing on, actually shooting missiles, like real missiles at people. Probably higher than that in his class if that makes you feel bad. A little bit.

A little bit, no, I know. Yeah, no, but we live in the ender's bad a little bit. A little bit. No, I know. Yeah. No, but we live in Ender's not a game. That's really what's happening. Yeah. Cool. So I love learning. This is great.

Thank you. That guy, David Pogue, the reporter, actually had a few other concerns too. He told Stockton Rush, quote, it seems like your submersible has elements of Magi-Vary, Jerry-Rig-Dness. A lot of the things that might be referring to the computer monitor that was seemingly screwed into the inside wall of Titan's hull. Okay, but they did use a drywall anchor so safety first. Again, I don't know if that one was actually dangerous, that might be totally normal too, but it looked Did use a drywall anchor so safety first. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Again, I don't know if that one was actually dangerous. That might be totally normal too, but it looked scary to me. I feel like you don't screw anything into the hole. I feel like you don't screw shit into the hole. You can't get a fucking stand for that shit. Get a command hook, like something else. Yeah, like anything. Wow.

Well, if we violate the structural integrity at all, we all die. Screw it in there. Just structural integrity at all, we all die. Screw it in there. Just screw it in there. It's fine. Or get a switch. You get a switch and you've got both of you got a controller. There you go.

The money. Well, that's been a switch money on this thing. We should be working for Oceangate. We shouldn't. That's weird to say. Also worth mentioning is one other incident from last year. During a dive, the Oceangate crew realized that one of the thrusters on Titan got installed backwards.

I don't like this already because they could just potentially install things backwards. So that happened. They noticed, instead of moving forward when they hit the cast button, it would spin in circles because of the backwards thruster. They got to disassemble all the cam locks and dowel rods. And everything. Yeah, I got it. So that takes some rubber bands off and deal with it.

No, they were able to get around the issue by steering while holding the game controller sideways. Like a fucking Mario Kart noob would think they were like steering in not steer mode. Not clear to me why that would fix the problem But that's what they said in a BBC documentary about this. Okay Guys bad news we have to spin this thing to the surface like a synchronized swimmer Good news is everyone gets a bonus tilt to world experience

is tilt a world experience. There we go. Huh? I would love it if they're engineering problems and the solutions to those problems didn't exactly match up with my stone dash trying to build shit and tears the kingdom at 3 a.m. Can we get a construct head on the front of our submarine? I think you know right.

We're stretching the guns. So here's the basic timeline of the now we know final excursion for Titan. Oceangate charted an old boat to carry the Titan and their clients. And they all departed from St. John's, Newfoundland on June 16th. They headed out to the dive site over the Titanic wreckage, which is in international waters. That's actually important because no more laws now. There's no laws there because it's international waters.

That's why every time any expert told Oceangate about a safety concern, the company was able to just completely ignore it. There's no rules. Of course, they had all their passengers sign a waiver. On the first page of that waiver, it mentioned death three times. And it included the phrase, you acknowledge that Titan is an experimental vessel that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body

and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma, or death. Yeah, nobody ever talks about the dive where the Titan just showed all the passenger's shindlers list and what they went through, but it was pretty tough, let me tell you. So they arrive at the wreckage site on June 18th, they get everyone to sign the death waiver, and they get ready to launch the Titan. That means they had the five guys crawl into the very small tube, and then the hatch got bolted shut, only capable of being opened again from the outside. That could happen with industrial bolt removing tools when you resurface, or as we learned,

with the crushing pressure of 13,000 feet of ocean. So everyone's all sealed up and they start diving and implosion, like immediately. Not right there by the surface, where everyone could see it, but pretty fucking soon after that. Within 90 minutes, the communications from the Titan stopped, and pretty soon after that, the US Navy acoustic detection system that we have picked up an acoustic signature of Libertarian death tube implosion. It's a telltale signature. They picked it up search and rescue teams Spent the next four days looking for the Titan and eventually found a debris field consistent with that implosion. Oh, what a delicate and gentlemanly way to put an ocean full of billionaire jute. Well done. Oh, he heath, I have fun facts. I have fun facts. Okay. All right. Nice. So the

implosion was so fast. It took place at about the same speed as light appearing when flipping a light switch. Just faster even than the time it takes for our nervous system to send a signal to our brain to react. So these guys all died before there was even a remote possibility for there to be an experience of their own demise or to reconsider their stance on regulations, roll an adventure tourism. And you bring them down the moon. And while there have been some viral claims going around that the implosion would have also caused temperatures in the sub to briefly exceed those found on the surface of the sun,

that turns out not to be true because the, you know, entire ocean of 39 degree water that rushed into fill that gap would fairly readily negate that possibility in the same libertarian millisecond. That is fun. Those are fun. Those are fun facts. I like that you used libertarian millisecond as a unit. That's it. The initial reporting did actually say on AP that they would have been both crushed and incinerated at the same time. And they've since retracted that with a.

Okay. Yeah. They've since you're're gonna say AP said libertarian militia The only reporting around that event that matters is the local news channel that found the boat captain And we're like can you tell us is there any chance they're alive and he was like And then she was like hard to hear and that was And then they just lied their asses off for four days pretending like they might still be. Yeah, no, no, they weren't. No, they weren't. They weren't. No, no.

Okay, so what did we learn? Not much, not much. Well, I mean, not much in a good or useful way. Canada and the US are doing investigations. Maybe they'll come up with some useful knowledge about future safety, but that probably won't matter if international waters are still I'm on base for all laws. We also learned that when five rich people have a boat problem, they get a giant seahare rescue operation with squadrons from three different countries going all over the place, spending a ton of money.

But in the exact same week, when a boat with about 700 migrants from Libya goes under in the Ionian Sea off the coast of Greece, they get way less effort. Okay, Heath, but when you were the one that towed the migrants out to sea and left them stranded, it's like harder to clutch your pearls and pretend she's shocked. You know, no, I wasn't. I don't know what else to learn, Tom. Well, from a trading perspective, like in terms of commodities, we did get some useful information about the pricing of tragedy-based collectors items. Immediately following the incident, the Logitech f710 controller completely sold out on Amazon Jesus and now any retailers that still have those are charging well above the normal 30 dollar price tag Yeah, which I think we can all agree is the foremost tragedy as far as no illusions is concerned

I was gonna go with the return of that God awful Celine Dion song until Heath's opening made it sound like that was gonna start a fight So yeah, it's the controller You guys are dead inside Beautiful song. Oh, I like this. Come on. She's the queen of the power ballot so I feel like there was a lesson to learn about Sociology in here too for me anyway, I learned that way too many people were shocked to find dark humor on the internet right after this and I don't get it.

The internet has been porn and shodden for the whole time. That's what it is, that's why Al Gore invented it. But when somebody made Titan into a playable vehicle on Grand Theft Auto 5 and Roblox. For example, people lost their goddamn minds despite that being awesome and adorable. More generally, people would make like one little throwaway joke on their personal Facebook wall, like a stupid pun about crush, or whatever.

And then they'd get a barrage of moral panic in response because social media is for serious takes about serious ethical stances and nothing else. Yeah, if only the Titan had had one of those folks on board, they could have been located based on their virtue signal. Oh, yes. Oh, good. And look, look, if I'm in that sub, right?

And the panic alarm goes off whenever I I got two minutes before it implodes, the one thing that's gonna give me comfort in that moment is no one that I'm gonna go down in a flurry of great memes, right? Yes, thank you, exactly ridiculous. And speaking of social media, there was one person out there who was determined to make the most of this terrible situation. His name, that hero, he's not a hero, he's the fucking worst, but I'm going to call him

that hero for a second. His name is Brian Zaz, or something like that. He's the stepson. He's the stepson. Yes. The worst. He's the stepson of imploded billionaire Hamish Harding. Okay, stocked in rush. Hamish was this thing right and got them city? Thank you.

Fuck is this? Chase Meridian. So ever since the news broke, Brian Cezaz has been tweeting about it and trying to parlay the whole thing into some naked time with the lady and okay here's why i was going to like compliment him at first because that's exactly what i feel like his stepdad would have wanted like truly he missharding would have been like like no i said you know great memes get laid do what you got to do. I'm dying either way. This heroic campaign started during the search and rescue effort when there was still hope that

the passengers might be alive. Zaz posted a picture of himself attending a blink 182 concert with the caption, quote, it might be distasteful being here here but my family would want me to be at the Blink 182. As it's my favorite band and music helps me in difficult times. Okay the only people who are helped by Blink 182's music are the band Blink 182 came on man. Yeah, all the small things feels like a much darker song after this. Oh, I love that. What's my age again? I don't have anything for it.

I like Blinkwinn, I like those two songs from Blinkwinn A2. I don't know why I'm trying to defend them too. No, I like those two songs. So apparently that post, it got him a bunch of sympathetic attention and Brian Saz decided to ramp it up. He tweeted at the band hoping he would get, you know, maybe like backstage passes from them or something. And he also mentioned, I'm single ladies.

Also, of course, trying to get attention. And then also mentioned, I'm single ladies. Oh my god. Also, of course, trying a good decision. And then, yeah, it's all downhill from here. He just kept being a 37 year old white guy, which he is not good. He started trying to flirt with only fans' models, being all fucking creepy. The sympathy started going away real quick. At one point, he replied to a photo from only fans'ModelBrea, I guess she's kind of famous. Her caption said, can I sit on you?

And it was like a sexy picture of her. And he replied, yes please. Okay, but I feel like for him a smushing fetish was hard earned. Oh, Jesus Christ. Okay, whatever. He did the creepy response to that. The point is though that was

Five minutes literally after he had tweeted please keep my family in your prayers and then Yeah, then in the span of that same hour All of the following happened he got in a fight with Cardi B He used the N word during an argument with one of Cardi B's fans who happens to be a black person. He got yelled at by the entire internet, deservingly. He doubled down about how it was fine for him to do that with the N word because he used an A at the end instead of an E R. And finally he had to delete his entire account

and go away from him. So good ending, I guess. Yeah, the only thing faster than the Titan's explosion is how fast a white guy on the internet goes from getting in trouble to using the N-word. So fast. Well, I guess he didn't want to step that hog in all the self-inflicted implosions, I guess.

So. Well, I guess he didn't want to step that hog in all the self-inflicted implosions, I guess. So, that's the end of the story, except for the Oceangate Company, which is still very much operational. They're still selling stuff. What? It gets on these things, I guess. I don't know. I don't know if they've sold one since then, but they're trying probably not and their existence Includes a help wanted posting on their website

They've since Put the internet is forever somebody Somebody caught him. The job posting said, quote, immediate opening for a sub-pilot. Immediate opening in the sub as it turns out. This is an excellent opportunity for a high energy professional who's interested in a long-term position with a growing company.

The successful candidate will be self-driven, flexible, positive, and willing to work in a small, close knit team environment. And we mean really flexible. Yeah, right, really, really, really small. Yeah, and high energy, by the way, we're measuring in jewels here. So.

Yeah, for this job, you have to check out the reviews at Porthole instead of Glass Door. But okay. So, wow. With the blink, one, eight, the small things and the two, two huge heath points. Nice to have done. All right, so Heath, if you had to summarize what you've learned

in one sentence, what would it be? Ah, I mean not much. Okay, you should have to have a fucking driver's license to be on social media. Okay. But like harder. It should be like a lot harder to get on social media than to be allowed to drive. All right, are you ready for the quiz? I'm ready. All right, so everybody keeps joking that this is going to give James

Cameron a chance to make that sequel to Titanic that you know he wants to make, right? Kind of the camera, too. But what other James Cameron film or franchise could this stocked and rushed story be a sequel for? A, the Abyss, B, the Terminator, C, Sure. True lies, or D, piranha to the spawning. That's really cool. That's really cool. Yeah. That's awesome.

All right. Wow, tough one. I'm gonna go with A the Abyss. I actually like that. Yeah, that's actually the Abyss. Nice. I actually like the Terminator. I like the original Terminator better than two.

Hot, that's weird. Nice. Also cool. That is weird. Is that weird? Arnold was scary as the bad guy. I like to miss the bad guy. Arnold was good in that one. All right, he's the billionaires and millionaires tragically crush beneath 6,000 pounds per square inch of relentless pressure seem hard to sympathize with.

And I think that's unfair since a They turned out to be real chums. Oh, Jesus You know puns, although be they were rather flat characters It's see all the small things there you go. All right. You got it All right, he it's obvious that the Titan was missing was a banging sequel from none other than Saline Dion herself the queen of the ballad power ballad. Yep. Exactly. What should the title track for this sequel be? Hey, my heart will go flon Hey, my heart will go flon.

What is that saying? You're done, cause flon is like, like it's crushed, like soup, it's mushy. Like soup. All right, well I guess. Okay, I don't know fucking be Eli. You win, right? And correct. Yeah, Eli wins, cause he got away with writing

the fewest potential answers. You're Cecil, we really miss you. So you can decide who the essay is next week, Eli. I want an essay from Tom. All right. All right. Well, for Tom, he's an Eli. I'm Noah.

Thank you for hanging out with us today. We're going to be back next week. And by then, Tom will be a nice friend on something else. Between now and then, you can check out Heath on God off of movies or Tom on D-Roll dads. Just a couple of examples. Sorry, there's too many shows to do the whole list every week anymore. be a nice product on something else. Between now and then you can check out Heath on God Offal Movies or Tom on D-Roll Dads. Just a couple of examples. Sorry, there's too many shows to do the whole list every week anymore.

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Be sure to check out citationpod.com. I'm trying so hard to get something with it's all coming back to me now. I can't do it. I'm so bad. My nose is bleeding. He is going to cause a midnight tonight and be like, I have a list.