Comment Of The Day: Showing Off Edition

Photo: den-belitsky (Getty Images)

Luxury submarines from Austrian company Migaloo are all the rage right now, except for the small detail where they don’t exist and likely never will. There are plenty of good reasons for this — structural concerns, legal considerations, the fact that these subs are being offered for sale by a 3D artist in landlocked Austria — but there’s one that ranks above them all: Rich guys won’t buy something that they can’t show off.

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Think about it: Subs live underwater, a location famous for its few prying eyes. Rich people love prying eyes, because attention from other people makes them feel important in a way their money never can. Saigon_Design figured it out:

To be honest, I’ve never really understood the flaunting part of yachts, either. Sure, you can roll up (float up?) to Monaco looking all important, but yachts are too big to pull into your average boat slip — they’re best enjoyed far offshore, where gawkers would need their own boats to go and see.

Is the idea just to leave the yacht docket conspicuously offshore forever? Are you ever allowed to actually use it? Do you have to call the news ahead so they have a helicopter at the ready? Yachts are ostentatious and showy when they’re built, when they’re launched, and when they’re parked, but unseen in operation. There’s a metaphor somewhere in there, probably.

Congrats on your COTS win, Saigon_Design, and good luck unraveling the rest of the ultrawealthy psyche. Can you figure out what the deal is with the wholy philanthropy thing, and how even the ones who promise to give all their money away just keep ending up with more money than when they started?

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