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Corporate irresponsibility and getting away with it is something I have mostly gotten used to at this point. But this particular incident is still really gettin

by tmd83 8y ago

Corporate irresponsibility and getting away with it is something I have mostly gotten used to at this point. But this particular incident is still really getting to me specially after the press release. I was just trying to read up a little about sings of sociopath. It seems to me that a big chunk of major corporate big brash could be considered extreme versions of sociopath.

iliketosleep 8y ago
It's related to the incentive structures of big corporations. Profit for investors is the primary goal, and the only real constraint is the legal system (where loopholes are often found or bought). People are viewed through the lense of KPIs. It's clear why this type of system selects for leaders who do not value ethics, respect the law, or value the individual. I'm not sure what to call these leaders, but sociopath doesn't seem too far off.
cal5k 8y ago
What exactly does “getting away with it” mean in this context? Boeing will get sued from many different directions, their share price will suffer, and likely they’ll have lost orders for their aircraft. Let’s say we wanted to get really punitive... who do we blame? The engineers that worked on it? The Boeing CEO for not personally verifying every piece of software on all of their aircraft? Do we throw someone in jail? How does that help improve safety culture exactly? Boeing & Airbus are largely responsible for the massive improvements in flight safety over the last 40 years. It’s incredible that flying is as safe as it. Yes the deaths are a tragedy, but every time I get in a plane I accept the fact that the physics of flying could ultimately kill me, and I trade that off against the convenience of getting somewhere quickly.
- tmd83 8y ago
  Assuming what's revealed so far is reasonably accurate and the decisions were not taken for some yet to be revealed completely unexpected reason (unlikely) here's who to blame. This was a business decision to remove re-certification/re-training for some 60B sales. So yes the CEO is responsible. If you can float on money for the success you can spend the lifetime in jail for the deaths too. But that might be a little extreme. So here's a better one for after Lion Air crash there is no reason to believe that Boeing including the CEO didn't go over this, didn't realize they made a risky plan and even then they didn't go through with their temporary mitigation with a fine tooth comb. So yes it seems the CEO and some big shots and maybe some down the line should go to jail. No one is sent to jail for complicated to reason or never before seen problem that they didn't know about or didn't think about and it happened. This wasn't an accident, they implemented absolutely critical safety feature by design without triple redundancy as well understood to be required then they lied about it (if I understood the max change from earlier to later version), tried to downplay it and when a crash happened due to this didn't own up to it. So for sure this helps safely culture. If you hide safety problem knowingly for greed/money, because your boss asked and you didn't care you shouldn't be working in safety critical system. > Boeing & Airbus are largely responsible for the massive improvements in flight safety over the last 40 years. It’s incredible that flying is as safe as it. Yes the deaths are a tragedy, but every time I get in a plane I accept the fact that the physics of flying could ultimately kill me, and I trade that off against the convenience of getting somewhere quickly. I don't even know what to say to this. So I drove safely for 40 years and today I decided to see if I can safely drunk drive if I play the music really loud and killed a family of four. This was not physics, this was not a complicated software bug (at the core) but it was cutting corners for profit.

by tmd83 8y ago

iliketosleep 8y ago

It's related to the incentive structures of big corporations. Profit for investors is the primary goal, and the only real constraint is the legal system (where loopholes are often found or bought). People are viewed through the lense of KPIs. It's clear why this type of system selects for leaders who do not value ethics, respect the law, or value the individual. I'm not sure what to call these leaders, but sociopath doesn't seem too far off.

cal5k 8y ago

What exactly does “getting away with it” mean in this context? Boeing will get sued from many different directions, their share price will suffer, and likely they’ll have lost orders for their aircraft. Let’s say we wanted to get really punitive... who do we blame? The engineers that worked on it? The Boeing CEO for not personally verifying every piece of software on all of their aircraft? Do we throw someone in jail? How does that help improve safety culture exactly? Boeing & Airbus are largely responsible for the massive improvements in flight safety over the last 40 years. It’s incredible that flying is as safe as it. Yes the deaths are a tragedy, but every time I get in a plane I accept the fact that the physics of flying could ultimately kill me, and I trade that off against the convenience of getting somewhere quickly.

tmd83 8y ago
Assuming what's revealed so far is reasonably accurate and the decisions were not taken for some yet to be revealed completely unexpected reason (unlikely) here's who to blame. This was a business decision to remove re-certification/re-training for some 60B sales. So yes the CEO is responsible. If you can float on money for the success you can spend the lifetime in jail for the deaths too. But that might be a little extreme. So here's a better one for after Lion Air crash there is no reason to believe that Boeing including the CEO didn't go over this, didn't realize they made a risky plan and even then they didn't go through with their temporary mitigation with a fine tooth comb. So yes it seems the CEO and some big shots and maybe some down the line should go to jail. No one is sent to jail for complicated to reason or never before seen problem that they didn't know about or didn't think about and it happened. This wasn't an accident, they implemented absolutely critical safety feature by design without triple redundancy as well understood to be required then they lied about it (if I understood the max change from earlier to later version), tried to downplay it and when a crash happened due to this didn't own up to it. So for sure this helps safely culture. If you hide safety problem knowingly for greed/money, because your boss asked and you didn't care you shouldn't be working in safety critical system. > Boeing & Airbus are largely responsible for the massive improvements in flight safety over the last 40 years. It’s incredible that flying is as safe as it. Yes the deaths are a tragedy, but every time I get in a plane I accept the fact that the physics of flying could ultimately kill me, and I trade that off against the convenience of getting somewhere quickly. I don't even know what to say to this. So I drove safely for 40 years and today I decided to see if I can safely drunk drive if I play the music really loud and killed a family of four. This was not physics, this was not a complicated software bug (at the core) but it was cutting corners for profit.