[HN Gopher] Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship afte...
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Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years
Author : alphachloride
Score : 428 points
Date : 2021-04-22 19:08 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| tracedddd wrote:
| So could anyone have saved this guy by delivering enough fuel to
| get to port? I wonder what the costs would have been.
| stingrae wrote:
| you would probably have to pay the port fees until it is moved
| as well.
| jandrese wrote:
| The original problem wasn't lack of fuel, it was inspection
| issues. They only ran out of fuel after being trapped and
| running the generators for electricity. In fact the ship
| probably still has a usable supply of bunker fuel on board so
| it wouldn't be that hard to get it to port, except that it is
| still trapped in the original legal limbo.
|
| After 4 years of deferred maintenance the engines are going to
| need some TLC before they can be fired up again. The longer the
| ship sits idle the worse the situation becomes. Left long
| enough and some fitting somewhere will corrode through or be
| damaged in a storm and without power to run the pumps the ship
| will start slowly sinking.
| mrb wrote:
| His ship has been sitting still for so long that you can see it
| on Google Maps:
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/%D8%B3%D9%81%D9%8A%D9%86%D...
|
| Edit: a few more story details here:
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/19/ever-giv...
| When he rows to shore to get supplies he can only stay for two
| hours at most as the area is a restricted military zone. Other
| crew members were repatriated in September 2019, so Mohammad was
| not alone for 2 years but only for 7 months (which is no less
| unacceptable). The only reason Mohammad was allowed to leave was
| thanks to a local union representative who agreed to take his
| place as the ship's guardian.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| And Google Maps lists it as a "Shopping Mall"
| booi wrote:
| it's where i go to buy despair.
| bagacrap wrote:
| this is 2021 is it not? He was alone for 19 months.
| fnord77 wrote:
| appears to be a capsized boat in the same area
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/@29.9322048,32.5328029,607m/data...
| pivo wrote:
| If you click on the ship, you can see a picture of him starting
| his swim back to the ship with provisions. Or at least I assume
| it's him.
| jonathanberger wrote:
| I hope he is able to profit from his story with book and/or movie
| rights. It's a fascinating story and I bet would make a great
| movie a la Captain Phillips or 127 Hours.
| francoisp wrote:
| maybe someone could have sent him a copy of this film?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Island_(film)
|
| A bit of hacking, some solar panels, a few stereos, tents, some
| poker chips, a rock band's visit... how long before the
| authorities would force him off? How many bitcoins would have he
| raked? (OK this is thinking different in a slightly
| hollywoodesque way... still)
|
| cheers!
| [deleted]
| cigaser wrote:
| For me bigger problem is that Egypt left dead ship near Suez
| Canal in Red Sea for 4 years. If it would crash into tanker...
| biot wrote:
| > "And I can't find a single person on this planet - and I've
| tried - to replace him."
|
| I'll do it for $10M/year, paid in advance of course due to the
| company's financial situation. Oh, he probably means for whatever
| meager wages they were paying this guy. Yeah, no wonder.
| quasarj wrote:
| You think he's getting paid?!
| NullPrefix wrote:
| The usual "We want to hire people but we can't find anyone
| ... willing to work for such wage"
| DanTheManPR wrote:
| Per the article, he was unpaid. Literally just a prisoner.
| selimnairb wrote:
| If only he could have managed to get the ship wedged sideways in
| the Suez Canal. They would've helped him our real quick.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| No, they wouldn't; heck, his case has gotten attention recently
| _because_ the crew of the _Ever Given_ has become similarly
| trapped, and his case has been held up as an example of what
| might happen to that crew if the dispute between the SCA, and
| the owners and operators of the _Ever Given_ continues.
| Sargos wrote:
| I don't understand why he couldn't just get on another ship and
| leave forever. Worst case you just never go back to that shitty
| country right?
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| He would be a fugitive. Not everyone wants to do that. People
| in the US sometimes get jailed for years without conviction
| pending a trail. Why don't they break out and leave the
| country? Because that would be a worse situation.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| So... never be able to captain a ship that goes through the
| SuezCanal?
| Sargos wrote:
| How many times does he need to captain a ship to make up for
| 4 years of lost wages? That's not even accounting for the
| psychological toll.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| without a doubt, there's at least one person in egypt, who is
| permanently barred from sailing so much as a rubber
| dinghy....
| abcc8 wrote:
| If your livelihood depends on shipping, being unable to return
| to Egypt likely represents a significant barrier to obtaining
| future employment. Also, he may just have been extradited back
| to Egypt by another government.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| He should have scuttled the ship once the maintenance crew
| left.
| speeder wrote:
| As he said in the article, it is because he has no intention of
| abandoning his profession and will resume working, meaning if
| he had left the ship his career would been ruined.
| nicklecompte wrote:
| Apparently his passport was confiscated[1] so he wouldn't have
| been able to do so legally, nor return home even if he did
| manage to get on a ship.
|
| And if you work in international shipping it's not very good
| for your career to be blacklisted from Egypt.
|
| [1] https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/chief-mate-
| strand...
| akudha wrote:
| He was on a ship, alone, with no power/sanitation etc.
|
| How is this not inhumane and cruel? I can understand
| confiscating someone's passport if that person is a criminal,
| but this? This is like Saudi Arabia taking the passports of
| its laborers.
|
| It is insane that things like this happen, in 2021
| crazygringo wrote:
| I'm curious, if he _did_ manage to get on a ship surely he 'd
| be able to return home to Syria on a ship bound there?
|
| I mean, if you're an American citizen heading home and you
| lose your passport on the walkway to board your plane in
| France... it's not like America's going to prevent you from
| entering, right?
|
| Surely it's gonna take some time to verify who you are and
| fix the situation. But it's not like you're forever banned
| from your own country.
|
| Leaving Egypt might have been too difficult logistically to
| pull off, but once he had I don't see any legal difficulty
| returning home.
| nicklecompte wrote:
| According to US law (and I am assuming Syrian law) that is
| true...assuming the government is stable and the country
| doesn't have a devastating stalemated civil war. Getting
| into Syria _with_ a legal passport is difficult enough, and
| Syrian border officials would have good reason to suspect
| that he was a foreigner. He would likely be thrown on a
| plane to Cairo and told to figure it out at the Syrian
| embassy. Although now that I write it out maybe this wouldn
| 't have been a terrible option (albeit Kafkaesque and prone
| to several bureaucratic failures - and it doesn't solve the
| problem of him "abandoning his post" and breaking Egyptian
| law).
|
| Even so, US authorities do not just take "sorry fellow
| USicans, I lost my passport" at face value and will likely
| detain you until you are able to prove you are a citizen,
| and put you through quite a bit of extra screening and
| interrogation. Realistically it would be less of an issue
| for a white person with a bland American accent, since
| Border Patrol would probably let you call a lawyer or
| family member to bring a birth certificate. But I am quite
| sure an El Salvadoran-American who forgot his passport
| would not be able to enter the US from Mexico without
| incredible legal difficulty - again to the point where it
| would be faster and considerably less traumatizing to just
| go to a consulate and wait a few weeks.
| xwdv wrote:
| Nope, worst case you get blackmailed into being a sea slave
| until you're no longer useful and dumped in the ocean to die.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| The saddest part of this unfair ordeal is that his mother died
| while he was confined to this ship, and he couldn't go visit her
| or attend the funeral. This article notes, he contemplated
| suicide then.
|
| Shipping companies regularly do this to their crew, abandoning
| them when the costs of properly managing the situation aren't
| worth it to them. Note that ship abandonment is also what led to
| the devastating explosion in Beirut, Lebanon:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Rhosus
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| If you are at the point where your family is dying, and you are
| contemplating suicide, the only rational choice is burn down
| the ship to smithereens and leave it at the bottomn of the
| ocean. Or rip it to bit and sell the parts.
| wazoox wrote:
| A friend of mine who's working on installing multimedia systems
| on luxury yacht told me a recent story today: a woman came from
| Florida to work on a yacht that was called by his owner to some
| place. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to her she had COVID. all of
| the 12 crew members went sick; the boat stopped at Malta, and 2
| stewards died. As the ship was late and stranded, the owner
| simply fired all of the remaining people onboard, sick as they
| were, because he wanted his boat back. Then, the lady, stranded
| without resources in La Valette and probably under crushing guilt
| committed suicide.
|
| My friend knew several members of the crew.
| gowld wrote:
| Your friend shouldn't name and shame the boat owner.
| lovich wrote:
| Why?
| gowld wrote:
| The shipping companies are terrible, yes, but this is also a
| basic failure of Egyptian law, making the ship captain
| responsible for the ship.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| I saw this video from Chief MAKOi (who has an excellent youtube
| channel in general) about this situation a week ago. It seemed
| rather hopeless for him at the time considering that it was going
| on for four years already. I wonder if that video contributed to
| pressure to fix the situation, it does have almost a million
| views.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zD-KjuGuiM
| hknapp wrote:
| This channel is how I heard of it.
| eastbayjake wrote:
| The Egyptian legal system is not known for its fairness... the
| World Justice Project ranks it 125 of 128 surveyed countries, in
| last place out of 8 countries in the Middle East[1]
|
| Similarly (and tragically) the Syrian government is not known for
| its compassion towards its distressed citizens.
|
| [1] https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-
| index/country/Eg...
| user3939382 wrote:
| Most people may think I'm being pessimistic and jaded. But I
| think these rankings are hilarious (in a bad sense). Just like
| the corruption rankings that come out.
|
| The US gets a green square and a high rank, smaller countries
| are corrupt and unfair. I could fill up paragraphs about how
| corrupt and dysfunctional our (US) legal and political systems
| are. Meanwhile I spent a long time in Central Africa (a red
| square country) and know to compare.
|
| I don't get the purpose of these rankings.
| neither_color wrote:
| That's because, as a consequence of our own transparency, on
| every thread on a political topic, the resident anarchist
| trolls are free to give us a history lesson of everything
| wrong the US has ever done. There are many countries where
| such types of posters would get arrested on some real or
| made-up charge for being hyper critical of the state. Most
| Americans who feel that we're some hyper-corrupt, irreparable
| place(systemically dysfunctional, if you will) have no idea
| how far other governments go to cover up their dirty deeds.
| Our rule of law is still the envy of people who come from
| places that rule by law.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Seems like your rankings are mostly based on anecdotal
| experiences?
| FredPret wrote:
| You think Central Africa is less corrupt and more just than
| the USA? Jeez, that takes the cake hey.
|
| I'm from Africa, have left now, and this is pure nonsense.
|
| The USA doesn't have to be literally perfect for it to be a
| good place.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Same. I help put deals together with some experience in SE
| Asia. The ability to enforce contract and property rights
| in the US, with ready access to the courts and relatively
| clear rules, sets the US apart in terms of business
| efficiency and predictability. In my assessment, it's a
| large part of what's made the US so prosperous. In
| contrast, dealing with corrupt officials in smaller
| countries in SE Asia is just wild.
| selimnairb wrote:
| Right the US has rule of law for businesses. What about
| poor people? Not so much. See: civil asset forfeiture,
| being jailed for petty fines you can't afford to pay,
| insane fees used by low-tax jurisdictions to fund their
| courts.
| [deleted]
| FredPret wrote:
| It's certainly not perfect, I agree with your specific
| points. But it's not even at all comparable with the
| third world.
|
| It's vastly better to a degree that left me totally
| mindfucked for years after I moved to the first world.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| > But it's not even at all comparable with the third
| world.
|
| I trust your observations of where you came from but I
| believe this is over-generalizing to places you may not
| have personal experience with.
| coliveira wrote:
| It is much better if you're not the target of the system,
| which in the US means that you're white and/or middle
| class or better.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| Yes, the U.S. has gone to great length to ensure the
| smooth operation of business. In fact you might say this
| is essentially the primary purpose of U.S. legal system.
| As an example, one researcher looked at all the Supreme
| Court cases involving the 14th amendment between 1870 and
| 1940. The 14th amendment as you'll recall is an amendment
| focused on the individual equal protections people have
| under the law. I cannot recall the figures exactly, but
| of some 100+ cases ~70% pertained to business and around
| a dozen were focused on violations of individual's
| rights.
|
| Property rights are an especially important tool when it
| comes to the operation of a materially wealthy society.
| But their imposition does not somehow guarantee that a
| society is more just or fair and less corrupt than any
| other.
|
| Edit: I looked up the figures in my notes. The paper
| involved all Supreme Court cases involving the Equal
| Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The court struck
| down 232 state laws, 179 of the decisions were in favor
| of corporations, 55 were in favor of the growing
| railroads and 9 were in favor of individual black
| petitioners.
|
| The paper isn't online and I don't have access to it
| anymore to check but I believe it is this paper.
|
| "Protecting Corporations Instead of the Poor" by Alec
| Karakatsanis in Harvard Law Review 275.
| canadianfella wrote:
| Have you considered that cases involving individuals are
| easier for lesser courts to decide? Black and white cases
| don't make it to the supreme court.
| coliveira wrote:
| Correct, the US has an excellent legal system for the
| maintenance of property and commerce, but from the human
| point of view it is a disaster. After all, just
| considering the maintenance of racial disparities at the
| judicial level over several decades will tell that this
| is not a functioning system.
| FredPret wrote:
| You're right. The US has predictable rules and outcomes
| and very civilization-friendly laws. It also has the
| power to enforce law & order within its own borders.
|
| By contrast, especially in Central Africa, the borders on
| the map are largely aspirational on the part of the
| governments. Even the word "Democratic" in the Democratic
| Republic of the Congo is a bad joke. The dominant local
| power in most of that landmass is more likely to be a
| warlord/crime boss than the government.
| user3939382 wrote:
| > The dominant local power in most of that landmass is
| more likely to be a warlord/crime boss than the
| government.
|
| I would argue this is a false statement. There are
| pockets of instability there, especially near Goma and
| Virunga or very rural areas. The last few years
| especially have been unstable. But if you look at the
| country as a whole (which is the size of all Western
| Europe) over the last 15 years, the size of the territory
| not controlled by the internationally recognized
| legitimate government has been very small.
| FredPret wrote:
| We can argue about definiton of words like legitimate,
| control, and "very small".
|
| But a better test is this: would you go for a drive there
| with your family? Would you invest billions in a multi-
| decade mining project there - if you had to depend on the
| government's version of law & order only?
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| You are making the assumption that "investing billions of
| dollars" is synonymous with all other forms of justice.
| During the Junta in Chile for example, you were very safe
| to invest. You were probably even safe to go for a drive.
| But the system was grotesque on the whole. I think the
| point people are trying to make is that
|
| 1) It varies far too much from country to country to
| generalize in this way.
|
| 2) Justice is patchy and even across many areas of law
| depending on where you are.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Well yes, this is the problem. The US legal system is
| great if you're dealing with massive amounts of money in
| the hopes of making more money.
|
| Other aspects are much worse.
|
| Also, most legal systems are generally good for this
| purpose, you just have to use your money judiciously in
| bribes instead of lawyer's fees.
| monocasa wrote:
| Not once, but multiple times I've had police simply steal
| cash from me in the states. Not civil forfeiture, but the
| cash in a wallet disappears on it's way to where it's
| held temporarily, no crimes involved. And from rich areas
| like Boulder, CO.
|
| I have not seen the lack of low level corruption in the
| states compared to other countries. Like in other
| countries they simply confine their corruption to those
| powerless to do anything about it.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| What are you doing in your life that you've had your
| wallet confiscated by the police multiple times?
|
| Not judging, just curious.
| monocasa wrote:
| One example, at a large party during college, my wife's
| coat was stolen. The thieves took her credit cards, left
| the rest of the wallet, and dumped the coat on an
| unrelated house's front lawn. Unbenownst to the thieves,
| this house was owned by a professor who she was close
| with. He had searched the coat and found the cash in
| another pocket. When he was unable to reach her via
| cellphone, he took the coat to the police, ultimately
| concerned about my wife's physical safety who then
| confiscated the coat, the cash, and the wallet. He then
| came directly to our house from the police (for the
| second time, he tried our house before we arrived back
| home and before he went to the police), and after being
| extremely relieved that she wasn't dead in a ditch or
| something, informed us of both the coat's location (with
| the police, and the specific station and officer he
| talked with) and the contents he had discovered including
| the cash that my wife had not stored in her wallet but
| instead an inner pocket. When we went to the police they
| informed us that both the intake form for the property
| detailing what had been dropped off had gone missing, and
| that no cash was present nor had been turned in.
| erdos4d wrote:
| This exactly. In the US it is common for police to steal
| from citizens if they feel they can get away with it, I
| know many people who have had it happen to them
| personally, both with cash and possessions.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Did this happen at a traffic stop? Did you give them your
| wallet when they asked for your license? I don't think
| I've ever given a cop my wallet. I take the ID out and
| hand that to them. If they asked me for the wallet, I
| would feel powerless to say no, I just have never been
| asked. I'm not defending the police here, this behavior
| is disgusting, just trying to understand the
| circumstances in which this occurred.
|
| Also, I'm low-key wondering if I should start handing the
| cop my wallet. They never give me a warning, maybe if
| they got some money out of the interaction they'd
| start...
| monocasa wrote:
| It hasn't happened at a traffic stop. Cameras like
| dashcams seem to have an effect on police behavior.
| omginternets wrote:
| It seems like you're equating "there is corruption in the US"
| with "the US has more corruption than most other countries".
|
| I share your concern for corruption in the US, but I submit
| that you have lost your sense of proportion. The US is not --
| by any stretch of the imagination -- anything less than
| "mostly not corrupt".
| frozenlettuce wrote:
| I believe that the goal is to put pressure on those countries
| and make investors afraid of placing money there. Of course
| that a single ranking can't make this, but having multiple
| indexes + media narrative in this sense can create great
| leverage for unfair trade deals.
|
| If for example you consider lobbying=corruption (in many
| countries it is), then the US should indeed be many rankings
| below.
| jessaustin wrote:
| Not to mention the fact that for any poor, poorly-ranked
| nation, it's likely that USA actions there include dropping
| bombs, assassinating socialist-leaning democratically-elected
| leadership, stationing troops and/or spooks, encouraging
| theft of natural resources, funding criminal terrorist anti-
| state groups, etc.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Choosing how to measure these parameters and what relative
| weight to give each of them is inherently very political.
|
| US has been given a surprisingly high score while France and
| Italy are way below China!
|
| There seems to be quite a lot of bias in this kind of
| scoring.
| akarma wrote:
| Looking at the WJP Rule of Law Index linked above, it's
| considering factors like constraints on government powers,
| absence of corruption, and fundamental rights.
|
| As someone involved in law in the US, the US is really good
| at these types of things. People, including Americans who
| have lived here their entire lives, are consistently amazed
| when they learn the power of the court and how functional it
| all has managed to be.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Of course, many third world nations have little regard for
| their multitude of poor citizens. But I think it's important to
| high light the way that in situations like this, these nations
| are forced to accept that the "laws of the sea" trump their own
| laws and then wind-up unable/unwilling to intervene when a
| ship, a load of goods or a person winds-up in _international_
| legal limbo - the true, horrific poster-child for this was the
| disastrous Beirut explosion. Enough explosives to level half
| the city sat in legal limbo for years ... until they did that,
| yeah. And as we see here, there are many terrible but more
| mundane examples.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| We detached this generic tangent from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26907026.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
| duxup wrote:
| >World Justice Project ranks it 125 of 128 surveyed countries
|
| Man considering the scale here that's horrific.
|
| But I guess that would explain a process here where they seem
| to punish someone... 'just because', and with no value coming
| from the process at all.
|
| It's just injustice for no reason at all.... I can understand
| corruption to some extent. They get something, but punish this
| guy for no value, I don't get it.
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| I can think of two incentives for punishing this guy for no
| value: First, it will appear that they have "done something
| about it", say, to their superiors. Second, some people also
| feel good if they can put someone down or enforce a loss on
| someone; It's a stunted heuristic for them "winning".
|
| So there is very clear value in it. If the harm is
| disregarded.
| politician wrote:
| Egypt is about to be dried out. Ethopia is building a dam on
| the Blue Nile and will have the ability to fully control how
| much water reaches Egypt.
|
| It seems that the lack of compassion that Egypt has for its
| neighbors will be repaid in kind.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Ethiopian_Renaissance_Da...
| Popcicley wrote:
| According to the International Labour Organization, there are
| more than 250 active cases around the world where crews are
| simply left to fend for themselves. It says 85 new cases were
| reported in 2020, which is twice as many as in the previous year.
|
| Now that's a sad piece of information I read today.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| How was he being supplied before the ship ran aground?
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| according to news articles he SWAM to shore to pick up basic
| supplies. Not even a small rowing boat or something was made
| available to him.
| hn8788 wrote:
| That was only after it ran aground. The article says that
| before that, he was anchored, presumably far enough out that
| he had no way to get to shore.
| Magi604 wrote:
| In the article it states that he started swimming to shore
| only after the ship had run aground a few hundred meters from
| the shore. So the question remains, how did he sustain
| himself beforehand? Did the ship have years worth of supplies
| for him on board?
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| i'm sorry, my error.
| Magi604 wrote:
| All good my friend.
|
| I found the article to be really poor actually. It seems
| a lot of details were left out, possibly for maximum
| effect at editorializing the situation.
| abhijat wrote:
| I was wondering the same thing, since the ship had no power
| either perishables would go bad quickly, also where did he
| get money to buy food later on? Was it his savings?
| patentatt wrote:
| So, does that mean this guy's been eating Bahrainian MREs
| for the whole time?
| drak0n1c wrote:
| The article names 2019 as when he totally ran out of fuel.
| I assume there were previously enough rations on board (it
| was stocked for an entire crew before being abandoned), and
| perhaps he made a deal with the visiting guard to bring
| food.
| sizzzzlerz wrote:
| I'm not clear what Egypt's goal was by forcing this man to stay
| aboard the ship. Simply declaring him the guardian never made it
| so. He was never going to be able to resolve the issues himself
| and it appears the owners have simply abandoned it and written it
| off. If Egypt can't get money from the owners, then, as owners of
| the canal, deny other of their ships passage through it.
| gowld wrote:
| In a state without civil rights, a hair to the side of a
| dictatorship, people don't have civil rights.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's real hard to tell as a non-Egyptian trying to Google
| enough case law to understand it, but the best I can figure is
| that the precedent is based upon the assumption that the ship's
| owner has interest in how the ship fares while the ship is
| arrested. Ostensibly, the requirement of custodianship should
| be protecting the interests of the owner... But since the owner
| could sue Egypt if their ship is damaged while it is kept in
| the country's care, Egypt mandates someone the owner designates
| stand watch.
|
| ... but, of course, that whole arrangement is predicated on the
| assumption the owner cares, at all, about the fate of the ship
| or its crew. Which is, perhaps, a philosophical throwback to a
| time when ships were the entire livelihood of a town and not
| assets that multinational corporations own hundreds of.
| jandrese wrote:
| It is supremely unfair for the court to assign him full
| responsibility for the ship, but without any power over it. If
| the court were serious about the situation they should have
| handed the ship over to him entirely. He could then put the ship
| up on the market for whomever wanted to buy it or sell it to a
| scrapping company.
|
| If you think this would be unfair to the ships owners this is
| exactly the point. Force them to fix the situation or lose
| control of it entirely. Don't leave an actual human in some
| Kafkaesque nightmare of being jailed on a derelict vessel because
| you are terrible at running a shipping company. The article says
| there are hundreds of these cases around the world, and because
| only regular people are being harmed nobody is trying that hard
| to fix it. This is unconscionable.
|
| Edit: Fixed my faulty memory about the number of ships in this
| situation.
| Debug_Overload wrote:
| > The article says there are thousands of these cases
|
| It said 250, not thousands.
| aqme28 wrote:
| You're assuming that it's valuable to a scrapping company.
| Sometimes a grounded ship is more trouble than it's worth.
| wahern wrote:
| The ship looked quite large. I would imagine scrappers in
| Turkey or Pakistan would have paid well, considering the
| price of steel. But you'd need investors to pay for transport
| and any Egyptian fees. And to secure investors you'd need to
| resolve property rights, at least tentatively, to the point
| the ship could be released, likely requiring some experienced
| maritime lawyer able to work quickly to avoid getting bogged
| down in litigation.
|
| I bet there would be significant profit in it, at least from
| the perspective of a handful of individuals, and especially
| if things could be arranged to make the sailor judgment proof
| --e.g. have his share of any proceeds go to family members--
| so free loaders (i.e. lazy ship owners, clients, and
| insurers) couldn't swoop in at the end to claim any proceeds.
| But it's not just a matter of profit; it's a matter of
| opportunity costs. All the parties most capable of pulling
| this off clearly felt there was _more_ _profit_ to be had by
| walking away and pursuing other opportunities.
|
| Surely people on HN understand this phenomenon: there are an
| infinite number of profitable opportunities out there, but
| some are better than others, and there's only a finite amount
| of time and capital.
| duxup wrote:
| Yeah I don't understand what value there is here in assigning
| it to the crew member who apparently can't decline?
|
| Even if he could manage the ship, a random crew member is
| highly unlikely to have resources to care for a ship like
| that... what value is there in assigning him this
| responsibility? They just punishing someone for the sake of it?
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I suspect it is like assigning child support to fathers even
| if they were raped or it is not their kid.
|
| Somebody needs to do it and the crew members are the simplest
| people to task it to.
| duxup wrote:
| Do what?
|
| The ship had no fuel, it went adrift and ran aground...
| smnrchrds wrote:
| Do what exactly? Keep the ship company so it won't feel
| lonely? It doesn't seem like there was anything for him to
| do during those years.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| 'assigning ... to fathers even if.. it is not their kid."
|
| Say what?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| If the poster meant "people legally designated as
| fathers" and was referring to, e.g., the presumption
| (conclusive in some jurisdictions) of paternity based on
| marriage at time of birth, its not completely senseless.
| jandrese wrote:
| I think his job was basically security guard for the
| property. Also, if the ship were to come unmoored and collide
| with another vessel they would need someone to blame.
| laurent92 wrote:
| Preventing unmooring probably requires to repaint/reoil the
| moor every few months to prevent rust. I wonder whether 1
| person is enough to take care of the remaining maintenance
| of a wreck: electrical boards, meals, rats... Crews are
| also constantly repainting the hull while at sea, this is
| why it still takes 20 crew on top of a captain to man a
| ship.
| jandrese wrote:
| I'm sure he had no supplies for basic maintenence, but
| the law still requires someone to hold accountable so it
| would be him.
|
| It would be interesting if this did happen and the court
| found him guilty of dereliction of duty for not conjuring
| replacement parts out of thin air. Would he be sent to a
| land prison or back to the prison of the ship?
| devcpp wrote:
| But why can't he quit? If the owning company didn't assign
| another guard that's their fault, not the guard. Imagine if
| a chauffeur was forever assigned to a car because it broke
| on a disabled parking place. It would just get towed and
| the bill or court order sent to the actual owner and the
| chauffeur can quit.
|
| 100% blame on Egypt here for a stupid rule ignoring
| consequences.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| Mentally imagining the situation you described with a
| chauffeur is hilarious - which only underlines the
| absurdity of this poor guy's situation.
| munk-a wrote:
| > Yeah I don't understand what value there is here in
| assigning it to the crew member who apparently can't decline?
|
| The article doesn't state it really explicitly but I believe
| he was able to decline but maybe not aware of when that
| decision would need to be made - specifically this passage
| here:
|
| > "I can't force a judge to remove the legal guardianship," a
| representative [of the shipping company] told us. "And I
| can't find a single person on this planet - and I've tried -
| to replace him."
|
| > Mohammed, they said, should never have signed the order in
| the first place.
|
| It sounds like he signed a thing without fully understanding
| the ramifications of it - some eygptian official might have
| pulled a sneaky to trick him into signing it without full
| knowledge of the consequences or he may have simply acted
| unwisely but, either way, I'd hold the shipping company
| completely at fault for letting this situation develop - they
| had options to replace him (for instance, one of the actual
| owners could've stepped up and owned their error), or
| provided clear guidance and legal advice to the crew members.
|
| The fact that the captain GTFO'd before any of this really
| started to go down really reinforces that this guy was left
| holding the short end of the stick and the company itself is
| pretty insanely slimy for not, at least, attempting to
| continue to support him.
|
| Swimming to shore to get fresh water is a seriously messed up
| scenario.
| Aerroon wrote:
| > _I 'd hold the shipping company completely at fault for
| letting this situation develop - they had options to
| replace him_
|
| Why? Then there would be someone else stuck in that
| situation. The problem is almost entirely with the Egyptian
| authorities. Such a situation shouldn't even be possible to
| develop. The first mate in the article might not have
| understood the ramifications of what he signed, but the
| Egyptian court certainly did.
|
| There are all kinds of reasons for why a shipping company
| would be unable to help. That doesn't mean it should leave
| a person in a legal limbo. That's on the country rather
| than the company.
|
| I'm surprised the guy didn't just leave. A country whose
| laws don't respect you doesn't deserve respect in return.
| gowld wrote:
| The shipping company is clearly lying. Plenty of people
| would take a job living on a boat for a while.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| > It is supremely unfair for the court to assign him full
| responsibility for the ship, but without any power over it. If
| the court were serious about the situation they should have
| handed the ship over to him entirely. He could then put the
| ship up on the market for whomever wanted to buy it or sell it
| to a scrapping company.
|
| This doesn't really solve the problem, it just moves the
| problem around to the free market. What if no one wanted to buy
| it for scrap? Would he be responsible for cleaning up the
| situation himself? The court should have impounded the ship
| using Egypt's own coast guard and billed the company for the
| coast guard's time.
| newsclues wrote:
| If you dig into the class of people who own ships, you'll
| realize that the government doesn't want to offend the wealthy
| class.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| A lot of shipping issues are complicated because we have no
| global government and we have a lot of international waters
| and shipping, by its very nature, tends to involve ships
| passing from one legal jurisdiction to another repeatedly.
|
| It's not about not wanting to offend wealthy people. It's in
| part a matter of "Who has authority here?"
|
| There's a lot I don't understand about it, but this seems
| like it's probably a fairly modern development and it's high
| time we created meaningful solutions so this cannot happen
| again.
|
| Glad to see he got free and a reporter was talking to him and
| he was broadcasting via internet. But that should not be how
| something like this gets resolved, on some kind of ad hoc
| basis after so long.
|
| And someone here said someone volunteered to take his place,
| so it's apparently not really resolved, though he got relief.
| warmwaffles wrote:
| I don't know how collateral on a mortgage on a ship this size
| works. But I am pretty sure even if they handed it to him, he
| couldn't do anything with it because it would have a Lein on
| it.
|
| Your point still remains valid though.
| [deleted]
| bdowling wrote:
| > he couldn't do anything with it because it would have a
| Lein on it.
|
| If he had title, then he could sell it. The lienholder,
| however, would have a claim on the proceeds of the sale.
| Retric wrote:
| Lein's don't normally work that way after a boat was seized.
| Handing it to the remaining sailor isn't identical, but don't
| assume loans have much weight here.
|
| The mess of US civil forfeiture laws originally showed up in
| maritime law such that the owners and outstanding loans
| became irrelevant. In effect the physical object is what's
| confiscated breaking any ties to anyone that had a prior
| ownership stake.
| pulse7 wrote:
| The problem was that this man >>signed<< a document where he
| agreed to be "legally bound to this ship"... So be careful
| before you are signing something...
| kennywinker wrote:
| You are putting way to much stock in "signing a document".
| Anybody can document an injustice, and make it feel
| "justified" - but that doesn't make it justified. If I were
| to convince someone to sign a document saying they have to
| work for me for free, I'm still a slaveholder. Pick which one
| - morality or legality - there is no way that document should
| have been held as valid for longer than a few months, nor was
| there any way that document was morally ok
| munk-a wrote:
| Alternatively - if you're not in the Eygptian legal system -
| be careful of trying to make someone sign something they
| don't comprehend - in the US at best the contract will be
| invalidated and at worst you might be held responsible for
| any damages if it was your job to clearly communicate the
| rights the parties had w.r.t. the contract before signing.
|
| That all said - that's a hard battle and one you're probably
| not going to win unless you a) don't be speak english or b)
| don't have full control of your mental faculties - "I
| couldn't be arsed to read the contract" is generally not a
| defense unless the contract goes out of its way to be
| intentionally misleading.
| mgolawala wrote:
| Yeah that is the part I do not understand.
|
| Isn't there a law at sea where if you find an abandoned ship,
| it is basically yours? Perhaps this law doesn't apply in
| Egyptian national waters?
|
| If he is the legal guardian of the ship, why wouldn't he be
| able to just sell it for profit and move on? Was it just that
| there would be no buyer for it, even to scrap it? Or could
| there have been fines/liens on that ship such that no one would
| want to buy it? If that is the case it seems odd that he
| couldn't himself abandon the ship to the lien holders.
| jandrese wrote:
| It's not abandoned. The government assigned this guy as the
| caretaker of the property.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Find a 500 year d ship full of gold and everyone owns it.
| Even the original insurance company.
| modeless wrote:
| Why would you write an article like this without a word
| describing the legal consequences of leaving the ship? What
| consequence would be worth four years of your life?
|
| Edit: a more useful video linked below explains that the
| authorities confiscated his passport. That would make it
| difficult to leave. Though I'd probably try anyway after a year
| of that.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| I saw this video[1] on Youtube that goes a bit more in depth
| into the situation. Apparently after he became the legal
| guardian of the ship, the Egyptian govt took his passport to
| prevent him from leaving.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zD-KjuGuiM
| patentatt wrote:
| But that alone doesn't prohibit him from going to live on land
| somewhere, right?
| [deleted]
| ectopod wrote:
| If they've got his passport and he can't leave the only
| option is Egypt. I expect he thought of that and they
| refused.
|
| ETA: I've read a few of these articles over the last year.
| There have been many similar cases because of covid. It seems
| to be completely normal practice for countries to refuse
| visas to ships' crew.
| randyrand wrote:
| But you are not stranded on Egyptian land. You're at sea. Why
| not just take some boat home? Or to the nearest non-Egypt
| country.
| Kye wrote:
| The article says the ship had no fuel.
| pwillia7 wrote:
| I would have had my brother dinghy out to me one of the
| passes.... I guess though since this is in a major shipping
| lane you'd probably get taken out by a ship.
| [deleted]
| codezero wrote:
| I imagine that a legal system that forces a random guy to stay
| trapped on a ship for four years would do something worse to
| someone who defies their order.
| INTPenis wrote:
| I don't understand what use he was on that ship? And can't they
| find any out of work person from shore to take his place? I'm
| sure there are dozens lining up to get that job for a few pennies
| an hour. And they might just have family in the area that can
| help sustain them.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| You seem to assume that Aisha was paid for those 4 years. I
| assume otherwise too, but I did not saw any contradicting
| evidence.
| INTPenis wrote:
| The article says he wasn't paid, at least part of the time.
| But what I'm saying is that this whole practice makes no
| sense. There must be people on shore who would be willing to
| be custodians of abandoned ships.
|
| That's a business idea, start an office offering ship
| custodians for shipping companies. When they get in trouble
| they can hire your custodian instead of stranding one of
| their own employees far from home.
| hiimdurex wrote:
| hello
| dilippkumar wrote:
| If he had silently sneaked off the ship, would someone have
| noticed? How long would it take for anyone to notice that a ship
| without power and crewed by just 1 person was actually abandoned?
| [deleted]
| notJim wrote:
| I was wondering about this. My guess (just a guess) was that
| since he wants to still work in this industry, he was afraid
| that abandoning the ship would hurt his career? Either that, or
| he's just an incredibly responsible person.
| bluescrn wrote:
| If you've been unjustly imprisoned for several years, you
| probably don't worry too much about your career?
| javert wrote:
| Ever heard of graduate school?
| Gabriel_Martin wrote:
| I found the last line almost unbelievable
|
| "It's enough, you might imagine, to make him think twice
| about going back to sea.
|
| But he is determined. He says he is good at his job and
| wants nothing more than to pick up where he left off."
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| "Final question. give me an example of a situation
| where..."
| kevingadd wrote:
| The big problem would have likely been how to get home without
| drawing the attention of the local authorities.
|
| EDIT: Apparently his passport may have been confiscated.
| Alupis wrote:
| From the article, he did sneak off the ship routinely after it
| ran aground some years later. He would sneak off, buy food and
| recharge his phone, then return to the ship for some bizarre
| reason.
| vaidhy wrote:
| I believe he was allowed to go to shore. Unfortunately, the
| closest place is a restricted military area and he was only
| allowed to stay for 2 hours each visit. He cannot even sneak
| off as he is getting into a military base for food, water and
| power. If it has been a civilian area, he could have just
| stayed on the land.
|
| It is a sad state of affairs, whichever way you look at it.
| neaden wrote:
| They had his passport, so it would have been difficult for
| him to leave and risking arrest by either the Egyptian or
| Syrian police.
| codezero wrote:
| That region is experiencing a lot of chaos and I'd say that
| being alone on a ship is a lot safer than being alone with
| no passport and wanted by the law.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Seems like a good reason to get in touch with your home
| country's embassy/consulate...
| qz_ wrote:
| Not if you're from Syria.
| true_religion wrote:
| Why not? Syria does have an embassy in Cairo.
| siva7 wrote:
| You realize there is currently one of the bloodiest civil
| wars of this century happening in syria? an embassy isn't
| much worth in such a situation
| jollybean wrote:
| A random Syrian, or someone 'without passport' is not going
| to raise any scrutiny in Egypt. Just a few handfulls of
| cash could have expedited his way to at least Lebanon.
|
| There's something odd about this story because neither a
| passport nor money should have kept him there, unless there
| was literally some kind of watch for him, and/or the cash
| situation was really that extremely dire. That said, he was
| able to survive for 4 years so money had to be coming from
| somewhere.
|
| I suggest that he was maybe being paid a tiny amount, and
| that he felt it'd be better to 'stick it out' as a nearly
| worthless cog, than to take a risky path home to what might
| be nothing anyhow.
| londons_explore wrote:
| He was staying in the hope he'd get back pay. (Either
| from the shipping company, or from proceeds of selling
| the ship to pay fines)
| vaughnegut wrote:
| Anyone know how the issue was resolved? The article doesn't
| actually say what changed about his situation to allow him to
| leave.
| snthd wrote:
| https://www.itfseafarers.org/en/news/seafarer-mohammad-aisha...
| speeder wrote:
| I saw another article explaining a local leader of the
| seafarers guild/union offered to stay in his place.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Holy crap. So not even with a return to judicial sanity, or a
| sanction against the ship's owners, but with somebody else
| offering to be the scapegoat?
| throw_away wrote:
| get ready for another article in four years...
| dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
| _But he is determined. He says he is good at his job and wants
| nothing more than to pick up where he left off._
|
| Meanwhile HN commenters be moaning every time their scrollbar is
| hijacked by a link or they have to deal with spaghetti code at
| work like "I'm so burned out"
| tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote:
| If this guy was staring at the same code I stare at hours per
| day he would probably also be moaning at times.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Can someone send a Laptop to Aisha so he could look at
| spaghetti code?
| coding123 wrote:
| So true
| Ancapistani wrote:
| Is there something that could be done by people otherwise
| uninvolved - like myself, or my fellow HN readers - to help the
| other ~250 people who are currently stuck in similar situations?
|
| I don't even know how to go about enumerating who those people
| are, their ships, or where they are anchored. With that
| information a well-organized and/or funded group could at least
| get someone out to these people to check on them, provide basic
| supplies, and perhaps some form of reliable communications.
|
| A lot of problems seem insurmountable large and complex, and even
| this one seems so if your goal is to free these people of their
| legal liabilities - but if you set aside trying to solve the
| reason they're stuck onboard these ships in the first place,
| providing basic humanitarian aid to them seems doable.
|
| ETA: This looks like a good place to start -
| https://www.ilo.org/dyn/seafarers/seafarersbrowse.home
| BurningFrog wrote:
| From reading the article, they just for some legal reason need
| a person on board the ship.
|
| So maybe people could volunteer to replace them on a rolling
| schedule.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| In this particular instance, that seems to be the case. I
| imagine there are probably legal hurdles that needed to be
| overcome to even make that happen, but I'm glad it did.
|
| I just sent an email to the International Maritime
| Organization, who manages the database I linked in the GP, to
| ask if there are any extant organizations dedicated to
| providing relief to people in similar situations. I'll update
| here when and if I hear back from them, or as I make progress
| toward figuring out the scope of this issue in other ways.
| gowld wrote:
| The Egyptian law is ridiculous. The government should hire
| coast guard staff to supervise the boat.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| I don't necessarily disagree, but I don't have the ability
| to easily influence that. I _might_ have the ability to
| make people's lives easier in similar situations.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I wonder if there is any value in supervising the boat if
| it has no power... No power means no engines, no lights and
| no radios. That means even if the boat was robbed, there is
| nothing the supervisor could do about it.
| zaphirplane wrote:
| I assume the purpose of holding someone physically
| accountable is to make it harder to use countries as ship
| parking lots
| dawnerd wrote:
| Sounds like a joke but turning them into airbnb would
| probably end up being pretty popular. Who wouldn't want an
| entire ship to themself for a night?
| rxhernandez wrote:
| For me, it would depend on how stabby the ship is.
|
| (I don't want to get injured by a ship in disrepair)
| Ancapistani wrote:
| Ah, here's the IMO database entry on the MV Aman. It provides
| much additional context.
| https://www.ilo.org/dyn/seafarers/seafarersbrowse.details?p_...
|
| In particular, here's a recent update that sheds some light on
| why Mr. Aisha remained aboard - in short, he refused to leave
| unless and until he was paid the wages due to him:
| Govt. of Bahrain (7 March 2021) From Registration of
| Ships & Seamen Affairs I would like to highlight few
| facts as below: 1) Vessel is not abandoned, but under
| court arrest due to ongoing cases. 2) Seafarer by the
| name Mohamed Aisha had accepted a court appointment to act as
| court representative onboard. As such, when the owner
| repatriated all other crew members he was not allowed to be
| repatriated by the courts. 3) We had intervened with
| owner several time and also arranged for the courts to allow
| his repatriation by appointing another representative, but he
| decided not to disembark due to outstanding wages. 4) The
| owners have tried with all resources available to repatriate
| him but he was not willing to cooperate. If he is
| now ready to be repatriated, then the owners are willing to
| cover such costs of air passage and local charges as a show of
| our commitment towards him.
| gwright wrote:
| This seems like pretty important information if correct. A
| huge portion of the HN discussion is moot if the Mr. Aisha
| chose to remain. Seems like he could have continued his fight
| for the outstanding wages elsewhere.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| If I understood that correctly, "chose to remain" because
| if he didn't, he would lose his claim for wages for the
| time he was stuck on the ship. That's a fair amount of
| money.
| birktj wrote:
| I don't get it. I might be misunderstanding things, but my
| understanding is that here in Norway the owner of a vessel has
| the ultimate responsibility in cases like these. Why is the
| Egyptian law this way? It doesn't seem very practical to legally
| require this one guy to stay on board, what problem is that
| supposed to solve?
| aasasd wrote:
| Not to compare bad vs worse, but when I get bored for ten minutes
| I tend to remember that at least I'm not in Otokichi's crew:
|
| > _The ship, without a mast or a rudder, was carried across the
| northern Pacific Ocean by currents. It drifted for 14 months,
| during which the crew lived on desalinated seawater and on the
| rice of their cargo._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otokichi (from a recent-ish HN
| thread).
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Omnibus podcast episode: https://www.omnibusproject.com/324
| lolc wrote:
| Fascinating story. It led me into a short Wikipedia bout
| reading about Japan's period of isolation.
| jsmith45 wrote:
| > The Aman's owners, Tylos Shipping and Marine Services, told the
| BBC they had tried to help Mohammed but that their hands were
| tied.
|
| > "I can't force a judge to remove the legal guardianship," a
| representative told us. "And I can't find a single person on this
| planet - and I've tried - to replace him."
|
| Well, obviously nobody would volunteer unless things were going
| to change.
|
| But surely the ships operating company had violated their
| operating agreement, giving the owner grounds to "evict" them,
| find a new operator, get the updated safety equipment and
| classification certificates, and pay for the fuel. Once that was
| done surely the ship would be unseized, and with a new crew
| installed, Egypt ought to be happy to cancel the guardianship.
|
| This was all especially true back before it ran aground.
|
| It would also seem like this all would be very much in the
| owner's interest as letting the ship decay cannot be good for the
| ships value, and they probably were not getting paid rent by the
| current operator for this.
|
| But I'm guessing there is a lot more to this that the BBC article
| has left out.
| xwdv wrote:
| How exactly was he able to eat for that long? What are the
| logistics of being stranded on a ship?
| jopsen wrote:
| What does legal guardian mean? What if you flee?
|
| And if your employer owes you a salary can you sell the ship for
| scrap to recover salary? -- I'm guessing suck tricks would
| require a fancy lawyer.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| What would happen if the ship "accidentally" started sinking, or
| if an explosion or other event of some sort happened to damage
| the ship?
| bagacrap wrote:
| hard to imagine how he could intentionally sink the ship given
| its lack of fuel/power
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Holy fuck
| jollybean wrote:
| Folks - this is what we are outsourcing and externalizing.
|
| When foreign entities are able to bid for a lot less, and pay a
| lot less, a lot of it has to do with the fact that they will not
| bother with 'end of life' for ships, or getting insurance, or
| worrying about the lives of people who are 'expendable'.
|
| Those very nice buildings in Dubai come from some nasty labour
| practices.
|
| If every piece of this puzzle from end-to-end were to have
| happened in a 'rich country' there'd be legal issues, PR/media,
| litigation, and a separate kind of bureaucracy altogether,
| meaning the 'alternative' for a lot of corporations is just 'wash
| their hands' of it, pay 1/2 the price, and get all the ugly parts
| 'off the books'.
|
| We are to the point now where we have ample material surplus - we
| don't need any more 'plastic stuff from China' - it'd be
| worthwhile to start integrating a lot of 'off the books' stuff
| into trade deals. Ironically, it would be good for 'them' as
| well, because in chaotic, quasi-lawless systems it doesn't make
| sense for participants to invest in anything further ahead than
| what is in front of their noses (i.e. don't hate the Lebanese
| shippers for doing the only thing they can do to remain
| profitable, i.e. don't hate the player, hate the game) ...
| forcing some degree of transparency and accountability in these
| systems might raise prices a little bit, but the benefits would
| likely be immensely positive in the system overall.
|
| It's nice that the story is made personal, about a real
| individual (think: that Tom Hanks film about someone stuck in
| international airport limbo) but that's not really the story here
| is it.
| kevmo wrote:
| Nasty labour practices... It's just slavery. This poor
| gentleman was forced into slavery.
|
| You're right that this is what we're outsourcing. All of the
| corporate trade agreements - American manufacturing was shipped
| overseas, and American labor forced to compete with what is
| often a modern form of slave labor.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| American manufacturing was shipped overseas _because_ , i.e.
| after, American labor was unable to compete. I'm not sure
| what "corporate trade agreements" means either; corporations
| don't make "trade agreements".
|
| I'm also not sure why everyone takes for granted that America
| not having as many manufacturing jobs is a bad thing...
| danielheath wrote:
| You mean paid labor couldn't compete on price with slaves?
| Color me shocked.
| water8 wrote:
| Manufacturing is like a ladder. When you outsource the
| bottom, it's no different than cutting the rungs of a
| ladder beneath you. Manufacturing is essential to the
| wealth and prosperity of any nation.
| [deleted]
| seneca wrote:
| Words have meaning, and the meaning of "slavery" is not "a
| bad situation". Slavery is alive and well in the world, but
| this story has nothing to do with it.
| dzolob wrote:
| And it was forced to slavery by the same people who took that
| job out of seas. Greed has no bottom.
| krapp wrote:
| Yeah but just think of the value being created for
| shareholders and consumers! /s
| corty wrote:
| And remember, the company only has a duty to its
| shareholders to be more greedy!
| andrepd wrote:
| Exactly. What you need are systems architected in such a
| way to stop greed and its nasty effects.
| protoman3000 wrote:
| Ultimately it's a tragedy of commons situation and in these
| instances the only solutions are rigorous regulation or
| internalization of the costs of externalities. Both won't
| happen, because the politics behind it are also a tragedy of
| commons.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| Err here in the United States you have people pissing in
| bottles and bags because they can't take a break without
| missing targets. The West is not immune to predatory hiring and
| employment practices.
| justinator wrote:
| You just described Capitalism.
| justinator wrote:
| Downvote me all you want it's not not true. Rich people don't
| exist without exploiting the poor; so too with countries. I'm
| not sorry if you're wealthy and this is hurting too close to
| home, better live with it if you also want to be so wealthy.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| We're downvoting you, not because it "hits too close to
| home", but because we think you're full of baloney. Don't
| take the downvotes as confirmation that you're right,
| because they're not.
| lame-robot-hoax wrote:
| Trade isn't zero sum.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| People with more resources have been exploiting people with
| less resources since probably the domestication of animals
| and plants created sedentary living and the idea of
| money/credit, perhaps before that even. Not just under
| capitalism, mind you, but every form of economic system.
|
| I believe resource inequality will exist until free or
| near-free energy sources are developed, and even then, you
| still need ever expanding amounts of land/space. I believe
| it's a consequence of scarcity and human nature.
| jollybean wrote:
| Countries mostly become rich by being highly socially
| organized, and having a high standard for individual
| contribution.
|
| For example, 'gold' imported by ill-gotten means from some
| far off land actually provides 0 value in terms of material
| value creation. Of course 'oil' does, but remember the
| 'House of Saud' is kept in power by the US not with the
| promise of US access to 'cheap oil', rather, with the
| promise it will be sold at full value, on the open market -
| just not in some kind of strategic/complicated/backwater
| setup with the then Soviet Union or China. The US didn't
| 'go in and take all the oil', which they definitely had the
| power to do.
|
| This exemplifies, in perhaps a crude, ham-fisted
| realpolitik manner the 'enforcement of trust' in systems I
| alluded to in my original comment: it's actually the US
| (and ultimately everyone's) interest to uphold fairly basic
| commercial and humanitarian standards in the long run.
|
| And to be fair, these problems are to some extent a
| function of capitalism, because only 'very large' systems
| have the opportunity to plan on the generational scale,
| ergo, there's effectively no commercial enterprise for
| which the implementation of such standards really matters,
| that's generally the purview of governments.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| The wealthy exploiting the poor predates capitalism by 10s
| of thousands of years.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| And nothing has changed.
| yerwhat01010 wrote:
| I'd also say that the relationship between the average
| 10th-centry peasant and his feudal lord strikes me as a
| lot less "exploitative" than the typical employee-
| employer relationship today.
| novok wrote:
| The fault here is ultimately with egypt. They were not letting
| him leave, they took his passport and not even letting him get
| 'deported' back to his home country.
|
| This is not from outsourcing, this is Kafkaesque bureaucracy
| created by Egypt itself.
| nickff wrote:
| It seems like the court basically enslaved him.
| lolinder wrote:
| Egypt definitely has fault here, but the company that owns
| the ship could have gotten the ship out of there if they
| cared about him at all. Yes, it might have been expensive,
| but I would expect a US based company to have rescued him
| within weeks of this situation starting, not years.
| nickff wrote:
| The article says the parent company is in financial
| difficulties, and the individual in question was basically
| being held for ransom (along with the ship). Depending on
| the ordering of debts (for the company), they may not have
| been able to compensate the Egyptians.
|
| All of that being said, I agree an American company likely
| would have had this sorted out faster, because the USA
| tends to deal with bankruptcies and the like very quickly.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| Seems to me that corporations owning ships having
| financial difficulties would be a natural consequence of
| outsourcing behaviour. You want to outsource risk and
| responsibilities. So the big companies get rid of their
| ships and hire small companies on the edge of
| profitability.
|
| I assume it's not always the most sound way to do
| business but some should get away with it.
| zaphirplane wrote:
| > Mohammed, they said, should never have signed the order in
| the first place.
|
| I wonder what would have happened if he refused to sign
| mkhalil wrote:
| I am not certain but from my expierence, it would most
| likely consist of detention, fear, and likely some torture;
| to say nothing of the torture it is to take someone's
| passport and trap them onboard a ship for 4 years.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| Read a story of a ship's captain, stuck on the ship at anchor
| in New Jersey.
|
| There is a mariner's charity in Greater New York that would
| help out. They would post a bond with ICE and drive the sailor
| to an airport or another ship.
|
| Well, whether 9/11 security or what, they weren't allowed to do
| this. So the captain had been on the ship for over a year.
|
| So, yes, it can happen here.
| busterarm wrote:
| Sounds interesting. Got a link?
| chiph wrote:
| It happens fairly frequently. The owner runs into financial
| difficulty and the creditors seize the ship. The crew can't
| leave because they aren't allowed to abandon it, as well as
| not having a visa to enter the US to get to the airport,
| nor the money for airfare home.
|
| The locals usually donate food & supplies to the crew.
|
| https://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/story/how-a-
| charleston-p...
| vermontdevil wrote:
| What is shocking is the number of active cases right now. 250 or
| so around the world. Wow.
| jakub_g wrote:
| Just a few months ago, Beirut port blew up after a series of
| events that started with an abandoned ship.
|
| The way the world's maritime shipping system works is really
| screwed up.
|
| https://www.stableseas.org/blue-economy/explosion-beirut-sea...
| markbnj wrote:
| If you're interested in shipping I highly recommend the YouTube
| channel of Chief Engineer Makoi
| https://www.youtube.com/c/ChiefMAKOi. He has been talking about
| Mr. Aisha's situation for some time now. Really awesome to see
| that he's been relieved.
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