I think visiting a part of history really helps a person appreciate what happened. Seeing something in-person is sometimes just so much more of an experience than a video. I personally would be pretty scared to go in a submarine but I can see the appeal to have a unique historical experience.

I did some basic scuba diving and the coolest thing I saw was definitely a ship wreck. I have pictures of the dive, but they simply don’t do it justice.

This was only at 17m depth though, so risk was okay as long as you have the right training and are smart about it.

The Titanic is legendary and must be amazing to see. The fact that you’re one of the few people to witness it, definitely adds to the appeal.

Do I think it’s worth $250,000 and/or the risk? Definitely not.

For others, that amount if money is just not and issue (sadly), and the risks were not explained clearly to them.

Why do people want to see a concert in person, or a famous building, or a piece of art? You can see the Mona Lisa anywhere in the world on your computer screen, why would you want to go to see the actual picture itself? There are better videos of a Beyonce concert on YouTube than you’ll get from a seat in the audience. A football game on ESPN has better coverage than a stadium seat. Why do any of that?

Because the thing itself is special. Viewing it through the screen isn’t the same as being there, as having your breath taken away as the sheer enormity of the moment hits you.

I suspect many rich people are desensitised to fun. They spend more and more, on more and more adventurous bs, out of sheer boredom.

One of the coolest VR experiences out there is called “The Blu.” It’s 3 short scenes underwater, and based on a pair of oceanography professors I demoed it to it’s incredibly accurate. I can definitely understand the draw to see something so foreign from what you would otherwise see, though personally I’d prefer a VR version to watching from a port hole in a tiny sub, even if I did trust the safety record.

The Titanic was only found in 1985. Imagine if we found the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 today intact at the bottom of the ocean. Also it wasn’t just some common vehicle like a Boeing 777, the titanic was the biggest luxury ship ever built at the time. So change Malaysian Airlines flight 370 with Air Force One for cultural parity.

It would be incredibly interesting for someone of our generation to visit it. But a young person in 2060 would just ask why anyone would find an old airplane wreck of any interest.

I have a side-question: do they actually see the Titanic directly, when they go down there? It seemed from the pictures that there was only a computer screen in that submersible, and no window. Is it all about seeing it on the screen and feeling the moves of the submersible synchronized to it? That experience feels easily replicable from the surface…

I get it. If I had stupid amounts of money and someone was like, “hey wanna go see the Titanic?” I’d be like, “nah, I saw it in theaters and it was too long. Oh wait you mean the actual Titanic?! Fuck yeah!”