Post #4487124

2026-08-10 07:00 UTC

@aj@gts.sadauskas.id.au @kauer@aus.social apart from the lexical dilemma whether "refusing to respond" is the same as "not responding", when talking with people who work in maritime businesses, there is an obligation to respond to distress calls. The link below has some information about, as I couldn't find the legal article about the topic. https://shiplawmatters.com/maritime-law-and-a-boat-adrift/?amp=1

Replies (1)

@kauer@aus.social 2026-08-10 07:23

@en3py@onlyarts.social @aj@gts.sadauskas.id.au It's not a lexical dilemma at all. "Not respond" is neutral; "refuse to respond" is not neutral and implies two extra pieces of information that as far as I can tell we do not have: That the request was received and that a decision was made to ignore it. Neither of those can be inferred from the information at hand. Journalists should be careful with such things, and so should we. If we are to be better than the liars and the trolls, then we have to be accurate and truthful. There is also a slight ambiguity here: "respond" could mean respond to the request, i.e., communicate with the Coast Guard, or it could mean "respond to the need", i.e., go help the other vessel. I don't think it makes any difference to this discussion though. Interesting article on maritime law; thanks!

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