Mihail Pojarsky/about the rich and the bathyscaphe

Hayek had a good explanation in his "Constitution of Liberty" why there shouldn't be any "luxury taxes". The fact is that by buying "luxury" the super-rich work for us. Almost any mass product is yesterday's luxury. Once upon a time, only a few could afford cars, only the rich flew planes, computers cost a lot of money. In order for something to go into mass production, you first need to work out the technology properly. Everyone has heard about how the state invests in the development of technologies, but it is much less common to hear that similar investments are made in a decentralized manner. The rich buy today's luxury at their own expense, making it a mass product tomorrow.

And sometimes the rich do it at the risk of their lives. An illustration of what is now sunken bathyscaphe "Titan" . Good people died there. Pakistani Shazada Dawood was a trustee of an NGO that opened a bunch of educational institutions in Pakistan, donated to help those affected by covid. British aviator Hamish Harding participated a couple of years ago in a project to return red-listed cheetahs to India. Paul-Henry Narjolet was the head of the maritime center at the University of Michigan, and was involved in the creation of a bunch of documentary educational projects. But when you read the description of this bathyscaphe, your hair stands on end. Some remote "Logitek" for thirty bucks, glass with the expectation of 1300 m with a dive of 3800. In general, they sailed to watch "Titanic" on a bathyscaphe made of shit and sticks. Why, what did they go there for?

Deception, scam? Well no. In the same place, Stockton Rush, one of the founders of OceanGate and the creator of the bathyscaphe, disappeared with them. The dude had skin in the game, he honestly went down with his brainchild. So at least he believed in it. Did they understand that the bathyscaphe was, so to speak, "experimental"? Well, of course we understood. This is the first thing written on the Wikipedia page. But they still got in. Why? Yes, because they climb somewhere all their lives. Harding was in the Mariana Trench, Narjolais covered half the ocean. Pakistani Dawood, too, apparently, was not a timid dozen. And it is because of this that they became who they were.

Here I am reminded of all the studies that say that rich and successful people are usually overconfident, they tend to underestimate the risks and overestimate their chances of success. Often this fails them, but often this is what drives progress. If we all assessed the risks correctly, we would probably still make fire by friction. So we need such people. Including so that someday excursions to the Titanic become commonplace. Therefore, regarding the current calls to ban and regulate something there, I can say one thing: regulate your ass.

Mihail Pojarsky 2023-06-23