You couldn’t pay Insert Foot $250,000 to visit the Titanic wreck site.

This week we watched and tried deciphering the scenario of what happened to the rich people who got in an iron … kettle? Pot? Bathtub with a lid? Concrete genie shoe? … and tried to go two-and-a-half miles straight down to see the wreck of the Titanic.

Which, by the way, is a wreck for a reason.

“Submersible.” That’s it … it had a swishy blue logo painted nicely on the side, which should’ve made everyone feel perfectly safe. Except they weren’t.

We were glued to the fate of five people, while wars raged, politicians argued, rights eroded, and crime continued as the usual background noise. But there was just something about that story playing out in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Because despite all the ways we’ve found to kill time, we still need our imaginations tickled. And absolute horror still does the trick.

I’m the king of bad ideas, or at least I was until my body got mad and threatened to start shutting things off. But trekking to the exact spot in the North Atlantic where a giant violent ocean yawned and casually destroyed the most unsinkable ship in the world 111 years ago, then plunging more than 12,000 feet straight down, where pressure can just vaporize you if everything isn’t perfect …

No, totally beyond my comprehension. And I once wrote something nice about a Tommy Lee solo record (one thing about one song, just to be clear).

Of course it’s human nature to challenge the elements. It’s been necessary for our evolution. But even astronauts can theoretically eject if a space launch goes bad. Test pilots scorching the air thousands of feet up going hundreds of miles an hour have a way out. They sometimes have to wear spacesuits – which is pretty cool – but still.

The company thinking this was a good idea, OceanGate, has been doing this periodically for a few years now with lots of people – some former employees – saying it wasn’t safe.

They allegedly cut corners, didn’t have particular safety certifications, etc. They charged $250,000 per person that you couldn’t pay me to get in that thing. You couldn’t pay me 10 times that.

It took humans 73 years to find the Titanic, and not for lack of trying. Now people want to treat it like going to the zoo.

But as we were so fascinated by the days passing without a sign of the submersible, and the ghoulish countdown to the five passengers allegedly running out of air, of course the holier-than thous tried making us feel bad for paying attention.

Especially since, during the same week, a migrant boat sank off the coast of Greece, potentially killing hundreds. That’s a real tragedy at sea, they said, not the deaths of some arrogant billionaire who wants to tell everyone at the country club he saw the most famous graveyard on Earth.

They’re totally right. But …

We love these stories and are completely fascinated by what terrifies us most. And imagining sitting around with a few smelly people in an enclosed space, waiting to run out of air, is even more terrifying than a Tommy Lee solo record.

They likely died instantly when the submersible imploded, days before we all started paying attention, we discovered later, after we spent all week trying to dampen our imaginations.

Knowing you’re about to die and not being able to control things is our greatest fear. Not from a long illness that gives you time to square up debts. I mean the unexpected, suddenly expected reminder that nature is in control, something for which we’ve lost respect. We bargain with death. We cheat. We promise. We think we can get around it with money, power and good karma.

Humans are so arrogant. Millions of people died because they wouldn’t believe they had to be inconvenienced enough to take precautions during a pandemic. It actually became part of the fabric of a rebellion in this country.

But thinking about what it was like to be in a plane controlled by terrorists, picking up speed to slam into a landmark? Yes, absolutely we’ll get to the airport three hours early, take off our shoes and belts the next 20 years, and do everything the government asks in order not to face what those poor people faced on 9/11.

The ocean just gave us a clear message most will keep ignoring. Nature always wins.

Follow music critic Tony Hicks at Twitter.com/TonyBaloney1967.