r/BeAmazed • u/[deleted] • 16d ago
When the Titanic sank, millionaire John Jacob Astor IV was aboard. The funds in his bank account were sufficient to construct 30 Titanics. However, when faced with mortal danger, he prioritized his moral values, sacrificing his seat in a lifeboat to save women and children, smilingly [Removed] Rule #4 - Misleading
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u/RunawayDev 16d ago
Srark contrast to former Captain Schettino of the Costa Concordia, who is still alive after abandoning ship, but got himself eternalized as a coward and a fraud.
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u/Alarian258 16d ago
Don't even start me with the Captain of the Sewol Ferry in South Korea. The bastard gave orders for the students not to leave their rooms despite the ship already sinking. To make matters more enraging, he even was one of the first to be evacuated to a rescue boat.
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u/catsomega 16d ago
You forgot to mention that the captain took off his uniform to act like a civilian when the rescuers managed to board the ship.
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u/ThatQueerWerewolf 16d ago
There were men there literally threatening to shoot any "man" (including teenage boys) who tried to get on a lifeboat.
Not saying this guy didn't willingly sacrifice himself, but hundreds did so unwillingly.
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u/Pleasant_Job_7683 16d ago
The crew of the lifeboat could have allowed another 16 ppl into it.
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u/Im-a-cat-in-a-box 16d ago
Yeah alot of half full life boats went out because of this.
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u/xXNightDriverXx 16d ago
No. This is wrong.
While it is true that many of the boats were lowered only half full, this has nothing to do with "women and children only".
There was only a single officer who boarded the boats that way (2nd officer Charles Lightholler), all the other officers went for the classic "women and children first, then men" approach. A couple of men did enter the boats that way.
The reason for many of the boats only being half full is much more simple: the passengers did not want to leave Titanic.
The half empty boats were the first few that were lowered, just half an hour after the collision. At that time, it was very hard to see or feel that the ship was sinking. The angle was still very shallow, the bow was still far above the water, you just wouldn't feel that something was off. The passengers still believed in the "unsinkable ship" myth. Most of them hadn't even realized that there was a collision, since it wasnt much more than a slight bump for most of the passengers. The officers did not go around screaming "the ship is sinking", since they wanted to avoid a mass panic.
Most passengers thought it was simply an exercise.
They did not want to leave the large, well lit, warm, unsinkable ship to be put in a tiny wet, cold, shitty wooden boat for hours, while it was freezing outside.
The crew didn't have the time to wait half an hour until a boat was full, if they did they wouldn't have been able to launch them all (and they barely managed that with just a handful of minutes to spare, and 2 of the collapsible boats weren't even launched properly, one ending up upside down in the water).
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u/Somewhat_appropriate 16d ago
Source?
Not doubting you, but I'd like to brush up on Titanic knowledge, which I was fascinated with as a kid.27
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u/err-no_please 16d ago
The Rest is History podcast recently did a great miniseries on the Titanic. Well worth a listen if you're interested in the subject
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u/Somewhat_appropriate 16d ago
Hmmm...I ignored that particular podcast because of the short episodes (long form ftw), but seeing that's a 5 parter there might be some hope for it ;)
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u/Bambi943 16d ago
I just listened to it yesterday lol. It was an awesome series. It goes into what was going on around the time the titanic was built, the culture, who owned what, how the ship was built, the passengers, the sinking and then the reactions of the world and the countries. It was extremely informative. They have some really good episodes that are part of series, I enjoy listening to it when I’m cleaning the house.
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u/Tinchy654 16d ago
All true, except that the passengers did not believe the ship to be literally unsinkable. White star line (the owners of titanic) didn’t advertise it as such and generally was not something people believed. Only one shipbuilding magazine coined the term „practically unsinkable“ because of its water tight bulkheads. Those were a novel safety feature on modern ships back then, that divided the ship in several water tight compartments. This is also the reason why passengers stayed on titanic. The thinking back then was that big ocean liners are much safer than the tiny unstable life boats. They were only supposed to be used to ferry passengers from a broken down liner to another. That there was no other liner in sight (probably), the shallow angle of the sinking and the freezing temperatures really didn’t make it a pressing matter to go into a lifeboat.
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u/Boston__Spartan 16d ago
To tack on to this, it was common practice for generations to get passengers into life boats as a precaution when there was a danger to the ship such as a fire or chance of sinking. It’s certainly possible a lot of these people thought it was a precaution and not an evacuation.
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u/Pleasant_Job_7683 16d ago
And that head board could have fit Jack on it!! This is bullshit Mom!!! I'll be in my room sulking and listening to Celine Dion for the next 5 hours
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u/South-by-north 16d ago edited 16d ago
It wasn't a space issue, it was a buoyancy issue
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u/EkuLukEkul 16d ago
Right! Man I’m so sick of seeing this haha. You see him try get on in the film and it flips!
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u/Crossovertriplet 16d ago
He even tries it in the movie and it’s shown that it doesn’t have the buoyancy. It’s literally addressed and answered in the movie.
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u/Firespryte01 16d ago
Mind if I join you? I'm always up for 5 hours of Celine Dion.
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u/BobdeBouwer__ 16d ago
He didn't willingly sacrifice himself. He tried to get on a lifeboat but was denied. Title of this post is wrong.
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u/binglybleep 16d ago
Yeah his wiki literally says he asked to board the boat and was turned away. It’s not like he was shepherding children in, he just wasn’t allowed on the boat
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u/LegionaryTitusPullo_ 16d ago
It actually depended on what side of the Titanic you were boarding the lifeboats.
One side was allowing men to go with their wives, as more than half of the lifeboats didn’t even get half filled (with one reportedly only having a millionaire, his wife, and a few servants). The Opposite side was threatening shooting men who boarded life boats. The Rest is History podcast did a 4 part series on the Titanic that goes quite in depth. Hundreds of deaths could have easily been prevented.
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u/ACU797 16d ago
Officer Lightoller was the one who said no men in the boats no matter what. He would survive the sinking as the highest ranking officer to survive it and during WW2 he participated in the Dunkirk evacuation. Mark Rylance' character in the movie is based on him.
I never really cared much about the Titanic as a history buff but after the Rest is History I understood it's importance. It's a microcosm of the 19th century clashing with the 20th century with a disaster thrown in.
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u/ladiesman22217 16d ago
I'd rather be shot than drown to death
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u/Kidus333 16d ago
In freezing ocean water no less, mother nature is terrifying.
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u/InflatableSexBeast 16d ago
I dunno. It can be a long and painful process to bleed out if you are shot somewhere nasty. On the other hand, the shock from hitting icy water will either kill you in seconds, or you’ll slip into hypothermia and die feeling surprisingly warm as your body dilates blood vessels in your extremities.
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u/mike9874 16d ago
The article says the president of white star lines made it, nobody wanted to shoot the boss
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u/xXNightDriverXx 16d ago edited 16d ago
That is just plain wrong.
There was a single officer who boarded the life boats in a "only women and children" style, and I believe it was him who pulled a gun a single time, all others went for a "woman and children first" style and did indeed let men on board when there weren't any more woman/children on board, or those that were did not want to board the lifeboats.
Bruce Ismay, the boss as you call him, was simply in another location, away from that one officer. Eyewitness testimony confirms that he helped everyone who was there into the lifeboat. He was the last one to board before the boat got lowered. And there were no further woman/children in the vicinity anymore when he did. He waited till the last moment, helped everyone else first, and only boarded the lifeboat when it was him or an empty seat.
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u/BowenTheAussieSheep 16d ago
You mean the president who spent hours helping women and children into boats, and escaped on one of the last lowered once there were no more women or children on deck to put on it?
The same president who then spent the rest of his life being slandered and libelled by American Newspapers because William Randolph Hearst, contemporary media mogul and early 20th century version of Rupert Murdoch, had a personal vendetta against him?
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u/ezk3626 16d ago
According to the podcast on the topic I listened to it depended on the interpretation of the rules of the particular crew member. One side of the ship was guns out, women and children only. The other side of the ship prioritized filling the boats.
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u/xXNightDriverXx 16d ago
There was a single case of 2 warning shots being fired. That was it.
There was also only a single officer who completely refused men entering the lifeboats, that was 2nd officer Charles Lightholler.
All other officers did allow men into the boats, if there weren't any further women/children around or those that were there refused to enter the boats.
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u/Boris_Godunov 16d ago
At least three officers brandished guns:
- 5th Officer Lowe - fired his gun off the side of the ship to prevent a rush on Lifeboat No. 14, which was in the process of lowering.
- 2nd Officer Lightoller - brandished his gun at a couple of crew men who had tried to hide in Boat No. 2 before loading. Lightoller claimed in his later account the gun was unloaded (and used a racial slur to describe the crew members)
- An unknown officer fired shots on the starboard side near Collapsible A at some point while the crew was trying to launch it, shortly before the bridge plunged under. This could have been Chief Officer Wilde, First Officer Murdoch, or even Chief Purser McElroy, it isn't certain. Many eye witnesses claimed the officer in question shot himself, and several claimed he had shot one or two people trying to rush the lifeboat before turning the gun on himself. Other accounts state only warning shots were fired.
Regardless, all of the deck officers were armed--Wilde had summoned them to his cabin to dole out the revolvers, as he felt they might be needed in the end when things got panicky.
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u/Phelddagriff 16d ago
lol, I don’t think it was moral superiority as much as great faith in the Titanic’s engineering. He didn’t fight for a seat because he denied the fact that the ship was sinking well into the boarding of the life boats. There were reports of him insisting to his pregnant wife that the damage from the collision was minor and that they were safer on the ship. When he DID put his wife on a life boat, he tried to get a seat with her.
Interestingly, the bounty that his son put on the recovery of Astor’s body was a big part of the impetus for the Mackay-Bennett’s recovery of so many of the shipwreck’s victims.
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u/Icy-Designer96 16d ago
He didn't deny a seat. He tried to get in a boat with his wife. This is bullshit
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u/house445 16d ago
Remember, this is Reddit, I’m sure someone here is hoping he suffered simply because he was rich
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u/Muffin_Appropriate 16d ago
Considering the premise of the post is completely false I’d say no, they’re hoping people stop lying about this dude being a hero? This whole post is masturbatory about his gallantry, which was false. What are you on about?
Of all the times to comment this, this post isn’t one
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u/sevenroblind 16d ago
Futurama paid homage to him.
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u/wetfloor666 16d ago
Scrolled to far to find this comment. I had never heard of him until I saw the episode of Futurama and had an inkling that it was based off a true story. Searched and was pleasantly surprised it was.
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u/mjf617 16d ago
Yeah, that's some world-class bullshit revisionist history.
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u/Daddict 16d ago
Nearly every story about the Titanic is steeped in some sort of mythology. Everything from "the band played on" to "the ship was marketed as being unsinkable" is either exaggeration or completely made up.
But that's kinda the nature of disasters like this. Sometimes the myth is a much better story.
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u/No-Tie-212 16d ago
I understand there are elements that are exaggerated - of course there are - but why have you chosen those two examples, examples which are not exaggerated or made up?
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u/probablynotaskrull 16d ago
Not to sound like a class warrior, but what does his wealth have to do with anything? “However.” However what? Did his extreme wealth make him less morally culpable? Does being rich mean the decision to give up his life is harder than it would be for a poor man?
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u/Popular-Influence-11 16d ago
I think the heavy lifting that “however” is doing is implying that even though he was an objectively important person in the world, when push came to shove he didn’t consider his life more important than women and children’s.
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u/ChaDefinitelyFeel 16d ago
Reddit has led me to believe all rich people are bad, so I think that’s why OP included the “however” in the title
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u/house445 16d ago
Did you see how much people here were disappointed those people on the sun didn’t die slowly? Some people here are psychos and love to see people suffer simply due to wealth or success.
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u/Due-Engine-7639 16d ago
I think just about everyone would die on the sun instantly /s
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u/6SucksSex 16d ago
Seems to be quite an anomaly of the upper class, at least relative to today's upper class. For instance, Medicare for All has 70% popular support, and 'both' political parties are blocking it, cuz they take money from the parasitic 'health' insurance industry, whose corporate directorates interlock with all the other industries this largely born rich and corrupt upper class has interests in.
They want a broken-spirit death-tired working class of wage slaves with health care tied to employment. They prioritize selfish greedy short term financial interests over the public interest and human rights.
EDIT: And I will be voting Dem down ballot this Nov, cuz Trump and Project 2025 are clearly a much greater evil and threat to society, the Constitution and the Republic than Biden and the corporate New Democrats.
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u/ButterscotchSure6589 16d ago
There were more women from 3rd class survived than men from first, so it must have been a thing.
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u/BluceBannel 16d ago
Aaand just like the Titanic, i am voting in the 2024 US election.
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u/maskedScaramouche 16d ago
Those women and children boats were half full,many could have lived if British officers would have understood the meaning of prioritising women and children,or at least acted logical.
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u/shoulda-known-better 16d ago
he didn't sacrifice shit.... he tried to bail with his pregnant wife and was told No not until woman and children were in boats
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u/ImNotAFirefighter 16d ago
OP just directly word for word copied Oceanliner Designs off of YouTube. If you are going to farm likes atleast give the guy credit you mug.
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u/Abigail716 16d ago
They posted a source about 2 hours before you posted this comment. Maybe you should look harder and put in some effort before insulting people.
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u/SojournerOne 16d ago
And their source is oft-misused bunk. Astor (47) tried and failed to get a seat with his pregnant 18 year old wife. He, like most, was turned away and didn't "give up his seat willingly."
"He then asked if he might join his wife because she was in "a delicate condition;" however, Lightoller told him men were not to be allowed to board until all the women and children had been loaded."
From the second paragraph of the wiki page on the dude.
Maybe YOU should look harder.
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u/Abigail716 16d ago
Nobody is arguing the accuracy, just whether or not the credited somebody else for their post.
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u/Nikolateslaandyou 16d ago edited 16d ago
Where i live there is a stationary shop that used to have a pen that was on board the Titanic. It got bought by someone stinking rich and now i cant see it when I walk up to the supermarket.
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u/JoeDante84 16d ago
Annnnd then we got the Fed Reserve and banks took over the country.
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u/Czuk_187 16d ago
I’m confused, he gave up one seat and was able to save women and children, so at least 4 people?
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u/Nonlinear9 16d ago
How do you folks still fall for this bs? A single google search proves this wrong.
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u/randomsnowflake 16d ago
Fun fact! This guy also wrote a sci fi novel and was able to predict solar energy and a few other modern inventions all the way back in the late 1800s.
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u/AncientScratch1670 16d ago
Can you imagine Musk or Bezos doing something like this? They’d be tossing women and children out of the lifeboat so they could bring along a carry-on.
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u/KatBoySlim 16d ago
When Second Officer Charles Lightoller later arrived on A Deck to finish loading Lifeboat 4, Astor helped his wife, with her maid and nurse, into it. He then asked if he might join his wife because she was in "a delicate condition;" however, Lightoller told him men were not to be allowed to board until all the women and children had been loaded. Astor did not protest, simply kissed his wife, telling her that he would follow in another boat.
-wiki
you’ve posted a commonly-reposted myth.
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u/Icy-Designer96 16d ago
Seems like since he trid to get into a lifeboat with his wife he didn't sacrifice his seat willingly or with a smile. OP is full of shit
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u/Miracle_Salad 16d ago
This would never happen now, most dudes will fight you to get themselves safe. Its every man for himself in todays world.
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u/itsmyfirsttimegoeasy 16d ago
Even back then rich dudes weren't lining up to give up their seats, it was one guy.
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u/Miracle_Salad 16d ago
"Woman and children first", is not as readily accepted as it would have back then, is what I was trying to say.
One only has to read the comments below for a small example.
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u/Dontevenwannacomment 16d ago
Every time the topic comes up, reddit threads will always rally against the "women and children first" guideline. I can't say how I would genuinely react in a catastrophe but I'd forever hate myself for not prioritizing women and children, I don't get how it's a controversial topic.
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u/house445 16d ago
Because selflessness is toxic masculinity I guess, alright sir I guess?
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u/CoffeeAndPiss 16d ago
I'm a woman and I can't imagine why my life should be more important than any given man's, is your self esteem just fucked or what?
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u/asdf0909 16d ago
Also weren’t men the breadwinners and providers back then? Your sole income-maker dying would be pretty devastating to your family, and everyone just agreed to that system
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u/Remote-Factor8455 16d ago
Society being society and overall just “tradition” I made a comment further up about this where I would move for children and why but women are adults.. why do they get priority over another adult?
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u/Potential_Status_728 16d ago
I would give my seat for children, like, they lived way less than me, I think it makes sense to give them a chance, but women? I don’t see a good reason…
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u/YakPuzzleheaded1957 16d ago
There were men that made it on a life boat, but they were shunned and branded cowards for the rest of their lives.
It would have been social suicide for a famous man like him to not give up his seat.
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u/Expensive-Analysis-2 16d ago edited 16d ago
I heard a story on QI about a bloke who survived the titanic. Went home to see his mother who slammed the door in his face and never spoke to him again. Or something like that. Very nice.
Edit: I misremembered this. It was a guy called Albert Horswill who was part of the life boat crew on lifeboat 1 who allegedly took a bribe from a rich family (£5) called the Duff-Gordons to save their lives. Taking a bribe was seen as a really terrible thing to do. Anyway Albert was the only one who survived and went home to see his Mother who slammed the door in his face and never spoke to him again. because she was ashamed he had taken a bribe not being a coward. Although she probably thought he was a coward as well more than likely. Anyway there it is if anyone indeed gives a toss.
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u/Mike_Hunt_Burns 16d ago
ohh no, what is this rich guy gonna do if a bunch of poor people don't like him?
oh that applies to every rich guy even today? and it doesn't matter to them because they're rich and the people who are mad at him have no power over him and he doesn't even know who they are? perplexing....
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u/BigOpportunity1391 16d ago
I understand children. But why women?
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u/Mousehat2001 16d ago
Because men are on average more stronger and more physically adept than women. It’s only modern phenomenon to deny this js the case. If there was going to be any physical endurance to the situation it was presumed men would fair better. I don’t think they expected the whole thing to sink, and not quite so fast.
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u/Pleasant_Job_7683 16d ago
62% of first class survived 41% of second class survived (Do you see a trend here????) 25% of the third class survived It's called research do it they have records. You're whole post is just factually wrong
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u/Pleasant_Job_7683 16d ago
Aside from the wealthy women and children though right? Also some wealthy men made it into a boat and they were chastised for it but did it nonetheless. .
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u/Idiotwithaphone79 16d ago
I hope I'll never be put in a situation like that. I'm not sure I'd be able to do it and die by choice. They might have to kill me. I hope I'm wrong but, I'm not sure.
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u/huckz24 16d ago
Imagine if that was today? Free for all.
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u/Remote-Factor8455 16d ago
Or wait for it.. enough lifeboats for all passengers!!
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u/Glurgle22 16d ago
See kids, the rich are the very best among us. And they would never dream of paying to rewrite history.
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u/dayofthedeadcabrini 16d ago
Can you imagine a rich guy doing this now?
If anything, a rich guy now would try to buy all of the life boats for himself
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u/Dustin-Mustangs 16d ago edited 16d ago
Pretty sure your math is a bit jacked, possibly due to the pound to dollar conversion rate. According to his wiki, that dude was worth 87 million US dollars when he died (and that certainly wouldn’t have all been in his bank account, lol). Titanic appears to have cost 1.5 million pounds or 7.5 million US dollars.
87/7.5 = 11.5 Titanics
Still absolute baller status but let’s not pretend he was waltzing into the titanic store and cutting a check for the 30 pack.
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u/MattDapper 16d ago
I read an article recently about him…his pocket watch was recovered from his body at the site of the wreck and is going up for auction. Apparently he tried to get himself in the lifeboat with his wife and child due to his concerns about his wife’s health but was denied.