THE LIFESTYLES OF the ultrarich can be deadly. Private planes are 32 times more likely to crash than commercial airliners, and crash they do, killing 23 people on U.S.-registered jets alone last year. In an especially chilling incident, from 1999, a luxury jet flew across the U.S. off-course and unmanned for 1,500 miles before slamming into a field in South Dakota.
Everyone inside was already dead or unconscious: The cabin had depressurized, and the two pilots and handful of sports professionals onboard had likely died of hypoxia. Helicopters are no more safe a form of elite travel; more than 500 crash each year on average. Last year, seven yachts unexpectedly burst into flames.
The adventuring members of the privileged class often seem to court disaster: Take the case of the Titan submersible, which imploded on its way down to visit the Titanic. Between 2010 and 2024, at least 124 climbers died attempting to summit Everest, a trip that costs an average of $59,000.
Of course, a position in the top income brackets can itself be perilous. Consider the fates of Russian oligarchs who regularly fall out windows, over the sides of boats, down staircases, and off balconies. In the past six years, at least ten crypto millionaires and billionaires have died under suspicious circumstances found shot, stabbed, dismembered in a suitcase, and, in one case, drowned on a beach in San Juan shortly after posting online that the CIA and Mossad were running a sex-trafficking ring in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.
Heavy is the crown that controls the means of production and the flow of commerce: After a South Korean shipping magnate was blamed for an accident in which a vessel sank with hundreds of high-school students onboard, he was discovered dead in an apricot orchard, lying beside a magnifying glass, two bottles of soju, and a bottle of "peasant wine."
この記事は New York magazine の July 15-28, 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は New York magazine の July 15-28, 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.
Can the Media Survive?
BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?
Status Update
Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.
A Matter of Perspective
A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.
Creator, Destroyer
A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.
In Praise of Bad Readers
In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.
The Funniest Vampires on TV
What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.
The Water-Tower Penthouse
Gigi Loizzo and Angel Molina's apartment on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx looks out on Yankee Stadium.
