‘We all can relate to that feeling of being trapped’: Here's why the world is so obsessed with Titan sub tragedy

The search for the missing Titan submersible ended tragically after a catastrophic explosion killed all the five passengers aboard the vessel. The deceased passengers were OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, French diver Paul Henry Nargeolet, and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman.

The world has been obsessed with the tragedy ever since it came to light. The incident has been making headlines, and people and experts across the globe have been talking about nothing but the submersible and how the passengers may have met their fate. The words “Titan,” “Titan sub,” and “OceanGate” have been trending on Twitter.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, Dr Justin D’Arienzo, a clinical psychologist in Jacksonville, has weighed in on why we are so keen on knowing about the details of this particular incident. “We all can relate to that feeling of being trapped somewhere or being in the water or experiencing that level of uncertainty,” the former US Navy psychologist told The Independent. “What makes it so relatable is that we all could imagine being helpless with other humans and not know what to do.”

“People paying $250,000 to go into a tube that’s going to go underwater, there is some obsession with rich and famous people. We’re sensitized to voyeurism in that regard,” said D’Arienzo. “We quickly follow people who we see are powerful; we give them more leeway. There’s a reason that we follow the lifestyles of the rich and famous.”

Speaking of the richer community spending so much money to take such huge risks, Ellen Langer, a Harvard psychologist who specialises in social cognition and decision-making, told Insider that these people want to break free from the monotony of life. Some also believe the adventure is too massive to actually fail. “We would not be on the moon, we would have not explored the ocean, we’d probably still be in Africa if there was no element of overconfidence and courage. I think that’s part of our nature to push,” he said. “But then we hear stories of people that have an extreme element of that trait, where they are very courageous, overly confident.”

“I think what happened here was a fallacy of overconfidence, or the confidence bias, where humans feel like things that are complex and run by rich and smart people are too big to fail,” he added.

An underwater robot is now combing the floor for debris from the catastrophic implosion of the submersible that resulted in the deaths of the five passengers. Following the tragedy, investigators from the US Coast Guard, the US National Transportation Safety Board, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, the French marine casualties investigation board and the United Kingdom Marine Accident Investigation Branch have been working closely on the probe.

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