8 ms·

While reading your text I was thinking about Volkswagen, diesel cars and their defeat devices. This article (sorry for German only writing) https://www.auto-mo

by lnsru 7y ago

While reading your text I was thinking about Volkswagen, diesel cars and their defeat devices. This article (sorry for German only writing) https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/verkehr/audi-abgasskandal-betrugssoftware-diesel-defeat-device/ https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/verkehr/audi-abgasskanda... states exactly opposite! The VW guys were writing poems for their clever defeat device! I am pretty sure, that some people at Boeing were also clapping hands about sales potential and cost savings of the new planes. There are more evil people in the corporate floors than you think. And top management plays with them!!! There is no way to build in defeat device in millions of cars without top management agreeing. I can guess, that Boeing’s management had enough clues, that their software wasn’t in the best shape.

keyme 7y ago
There is always at least one guy that really does understand the implications, is in the position to make changes, but proceeds anyway.
- nguoi 7y ago
  To be picky, that is unfalsifiable. I think you're probably correct but shaming the engineers in the hopes they'll stop it has repeatedly failed to work: that's why this isn't a thread about VW. IMHO it's because actions from a single individual carry too much risk for enough to accept. It needs collective bargaining.
akerl_ 7y ago
I don’t think anybody is arguing that Boeing execs hate money, or weren’t excited to make loads of money. And, as I wrote, the incentive structure the Boeing execs created has an incentive structure whose outcome was incredibly dangerous. Realizing those incentives required that the executives turn a blind eye to how the problems were being solved. But I think it’s pretty implausible to suggest that the “evil people” at Boeing we’re clapping their hands about savings with an understanding that they were trading human lives for those profits. It’s tempting to imagine that the executives of corporations are all comic villains, sitting in their offices plotting the demise of humanity, but to imagine them in that way is detrimental to the goal of actually avoiding these problems. If we treat corporations as if they’re comic villains, we ignore that they’re actually made up of normal people with a variety of social and economic incentives, and being aware of those incentives is crucial if we’d like to actually change corporate behavior.
- jeroen 7y ago
  > But I think it’s pretty implausible to suggest that the “evil people” at Boeing we’re clapping their hands about savings with an understanding that they were trading human lives for those profits. Yet it's entirely plausible that they were consciously making that trade off. I see a lot of similarities to cases like these: > Ford (..) Pinto became a subject of controversy after Mother Jones magazine exposed that it was prone to deadly fires in rear-end collisions; Ford’s internal documents showed the company knew of the potential problem but chose not to fix it, calculating that it would be cheaper to pay out possible injury claims. > The Japanese manufacturer of airbags has recalled airbags in some 19.2 million vehicles in the U.S. due to a tendency of the device to deploy with too much force, sending metal scraps flying into the passenger cabin. Eight deaths and about 100 injuries in the U.S. have been attributed to the defect. According to a New York Times report, Honda, one of the companies using the bags, and Takata knew about the dangerous airbags for years before disclosing it to the public and issuing recalls. -- https://fortune.com/2015/09/26/auto-industry-scandals/ https://fortune.com/2015/09/26/auto-industry-scandals/
- acqq 7y ago
  > being aware of those incentives is crucial if we’d like to actually change corporate behavior. We are aware how the hierarchies function: "I was just following the orders" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders#Nuremberg_Trials_after_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders#Nuremberg_Tria... I agree with you that it doesn't have sense trying to discuss about the abstract evilness, but I claim that the Boeing's top brass should be brought to the court! If those who make decisions aren't held accountable, the results are provably terrible. "I was ''just'' securing the profit for my shareholders" shouldn't be an excuse.
- rectang 7y ago
  Why should Boeing and Wells Fargo executives be afforded sympathy and mercy routinely denied to people far less fortunate and whose actions have far fewer consequences? Carrie Tolstedt of Wells Fargo is as close to a comic villain as you're going to get, designing a system which forced multitudes of employees into unethical actions. And even after clawbacks Tolstedt ended her career tens of millions of dollars ahead. Executives are already so coddled and protected from failure that terrible actions are rewarded and inevitable.
ahartmetz 7y ago
Haha, thanks for the poem link. It's fairly funny and indicates that a) they knew exactly what they were doing and b) that they knew it was somewhat likely that they'd get caught. Actually it says they already got a slap on the wrist from TÜV but could somehow carry on? I mean it was pretty clear that everybody who really wanted to know could discover the cheating, but somehow it was covered up for a long time. Everybody knew about gas mileage results drifting further and further away from reality, too... And finally we got WLTP, which is somewhat less bad but still pretty bad.
- sam_lowry_ 7y ago
  Those clever enough to discover the cheating were clever enough to understand that regulations are rather inadequate, and should not be followed à la lettre.
- Glawen 7y ago
  The competitors must have known as well. They all buy competitors cars and disassemble them to reverse engineer the car. They probably also spotted the cheating device, and thought: ok the leading company is cheating, so do I.
  - mrguyorama 7y ago
    The "cheating device" was just a feature flag that could be enabled on the engine computer made by Bosch, who also makes engine computers with similar software for most other car companies. Bosch told them about the feature, educated them about what it would do, what it would mean, how it's not really legal etc, and then Volkswagen decided to turn it on.
    - Glawen 7y ago
      You're totally off here. Bosch sells engine hardware (ECU, pump, injectors etc..), but the software is custom made. The automaker pays Bosch to implement the SW they want, as a lot of features differentiating automakers are SW features that they do not want their competitors to have. Hence it doesn't mean that every diesel engine with a bosch ECU had the cheating device from VW.
_pmf_ 7y ago
> The VW guys were writing poems for their clever defeat device! Didn't know that one; nice.

by lnsru 7y ago

keyme 7y ago

There is always at least one guy that really does understand the implications, is in the position to make changes, but proceeds anyway.

nguoi 7y ago
To be picky, that is unfalsifiable. I think you're probably correct but shaming the engineers in the hopes they'll stop it has repeatedly failed to work: that's why this isn't a thread about VW. IMHO it's because actions from a single individual carry too much risk for enough to accept. It needs collective bargaining.

akerl_ 7y ago

I don’t think anybody is arguing that Boeing execs hate money, or weren’t excited to make loads of money. And, as I wrote, the incentive structure the Boeing execs created has an incentive structure whose outcome was incredibly dangerous. Realizing those incentives required that the executives turn a blind eye to how the problems were being solved. But I think it’s pretty implausible to suggest that the “evil people” at Boeing we’re clapping their hands about savings with an understanding that they were trading human lives for those profits. It’s tempting to imagine that the executives of corporations are all comic villains, sitting in their offices plotting the demise of humanity, but to imagine them in that way is detrimental to the goal of actually avoiding these problems. If we treat corporations as if they’re comic villains, we ignore that they’re actually made up of normal people with a variety of social and economic incentives, and being aware of those incentives is crucial if we’d like to actually change corporate behavior.

jeroen 7y ago
> But I think it’s pretty implausible to suggest that the “evil people” at Boeing we’re clapping their hands about savings with an understanding that they were trading human lives for those profits. Yet it's entirely plausible that they were consciously making that trade off. I see a lot of similarities to cases like these: > Ford (..) Pinto became a subject of controversy after Mother Jones magazine exposed that it was prone to deadly fires in rear-end collisions; Ford’s internal documents showed the company knew of the potential problem but chose not to fix it, calculating that it would be cheaper to pay out possible injury claims. > The Japanese manufacturer of airbags has recalled airbags in some 19.2 million vehicles in the U.S. due to a tendency of the device to deploy with too much force, sending metal scraps flying into the passenger cabin. Eight deaths and about 100 injuries in the U.S. have been attributed to the defect. According to a New York Times report, Honda, one of the companies using the bags, and Takata knew about the dangerous airbags for years before disclosing it to the public and issuing recalls. -- https://fortune.com/2015/09/26/auto-industry-scandals/ https://fortune.com/2015/09/26/auto-industry-scandals/
acqq 7y ago
> being aware of those incentives is crucial if we’d like to actually change corporate behavior. We are aware how the hierarchies function: "I was just following the orders" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders#Nuremberg_Trials_after_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders#Nuremberg_Tria... I agree with you that it doesn't have sense trying to discuss about the abstract evilness, but I claim that the Boeing's top brass should be brought to the court! If those who make decisions aren't held accountable, the results are provably terrible. "I was ''just'' securing the profit for my shareholders" shouldn't be an excuse.
rectang 7y ago
Why should Boeing and Wells Fargo executives be afforded sympathy and mercy routinely denied to people far less fortunate and whose actions have far fewer consequences? Carrie Tolstedt of Wells Fargo is as close to a comic villain as you're going to get, designing a system which forced multitudes of employees into unethical actions. And even after clawbacks Tolstedt ended her career tens of millions of dollars ahead. Executives are already so coddled and protected from failure that terrible actions are rewarded and inevitable.

ahartmetz 7y ago

Haha, thanks for the poem link. It's fairly funny and indicates that a) they knew exactly what they were doing and b) that they knew it was somewhat likely that they'd get caught. Actually it says they already got a slap on the wrist from TÜV but could somehow carry on? I mean it was pretty clear that everybody who really wanted to know could discover the cheating, but somehow it was covered up for a long time. Everybody knew about gas mileage results drifting further and further away from reality, too... And finally we got WLTP, which is somewhat less bad but still pretty bad.

sam_lowry_ 7y ago
Those clever enough to discover the cheating were clever enough to understand that regulations are rather inadequate, and should not be followed à la lettre.
Glawen 7y ago
The competitors must have known as well. They all buy competitors cars and disassemble them to reverse engineer the car. They probably also spotted the cheating device, and thought: ok the leading company is cheating, so do I.
- mrguyorama 7y ago
  The "cheating device" was just a feature flag that could be enabled on the engine computer made by Bosch, who also makes engine computers with similar software for most other car companies. Bosch told them about the feature, educated them about what it would do, what it would mean, how it's not really legal etc, and then Volkswagen decided to turn it on.
  - Glawen 7y ago
    You're totally off here. Bosch sells engine hardware (ECU, pump, injectors etc..), but the software is custom made. The automaker pays Bosch to implement the SW they want, as a lot of features differentiating automakers are SW features that they do not want their competitors to have. Hence it doesn't mean that every diesel engine with a bosch ECU had the cheating device from VW.

_pmf_ 7y ago

> The VW guys were writing poems for their clever defeat device! Didn't know that one; nice.