This story of the MS Estonia comes up every once in a while and I think it’s the best writing I’ve ever read online. I’m just curious what others think is the best they’ve read<p>https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-story/302940/
The stories of the shipwrecks have been coming up a lot lately because of the OceanGate expedition incident. The sad thing about the majority of these stories is that, although the ships may not have been prevented from their own doom, the lives aboard these ships were very capable of being saved.<p>If only there were enough lifeboats, if only the crew was more properly trained, if only the passengers took it more seriously and realized that even though these ships were built to float on water and take them across oceans, that these machines are still made of iron and steel and can be destroyed, especially by mother nature. It took thousands of lives being lost to get the proper regulations in place to ensure that minimal lives are lost. Then you look at one of the most modern shipwrecks of today.. the ones beyond the year 2000 and you see... disaster can still happen and it is often due to some type of neglect or arrogance. In other words, the ships were built to do their jobs, but the people who are operating them can still make mistakes that cost lives.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maritime_disasters_in_the_21st_century" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maritime_disasters_in_...</a>
Every time climate change manifests itself in yet another hottest year in a row, or "once in a thousand year" floods, I think about this article. Note we are at 1 degree now, not 0.8.<p><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/new-abolitionism/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/new-abolitionism/</a>
The one I remember which has previously been shared on HN was this:<p><a href="https://www.damninteresting.com/the-zero-armed-bandit/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.damninteresting.com/the-zero-armed-bandit/</a>
A Hardcore Elegy for Ion Storm<p><a href="https://www.salon.com/2002/01/02/ion_storm/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.salon.com/2002/01/02/ion_storm/</a>