5 ms·

I agree. But we should keep in mind that there's no such thing as a bad apple; we can't blame individual executives or regulators. It's a bad barrel: a company

I agree. But we should keep in mind that there's no such thing as a bad apple; we can't blame individual executives or regulators. It's a bad barrel: a company that has, on a cultural level, put its business motive above its responsibility to deliver a safe and high-quality product. We have seen documented evidence that employees knew there were dangers and problems, and discussed these issues, but nobody cared enough to slow things down and get the product right.

vikramkr 7y ago
Absolutely. That's why I said Boeing and the FAA failed their responsibility as opposed to a Boeing exec or a particular legislator - there are organizational, structural problems. Sure, some individuals made the decision to ignore reports or set a new culture, but the fact that they succeeded is concerning - why did everyone else enable them? Is there anything we could have done to encourage those engineers to whistleblow their concerns before the planes crashed? Would they have been taken seriously by the FAA or the media or investors who were pushing for growth at all costs? These are deep, structural problems.
- salawat 7y ago
  Interesting you're getting downvotes. Not sure if the general audience or not. Regardless, the primary motivation to get a worker in a highly consolidated industry to blow the whistle is for them not to feel like they only have one choice. I can see where Boeing having consolidated as much as it has can give the culture extra resilience against employee disruption simply from the fact there isn't anywhere else to go.
  - vikramkr 7y ago
    I think if you get one or two downvotes for whatever reason, as hn starts to grey out the text, a bit of bandwagon effect happens, not sure why. Good point about whistleblowing. Perhaps the faas reliance on self regulation alsobplayedbibto that consolidation, so even the one other place they might have gone was just something that looped right back to the monolith.
    - stallmanite 7y ago
      Perhaps the threshold for graying out text should be much higher as the current setting is very path-dependent in that the first few people to vote on a comment have a disproportional effect.

vikramkr 7y ago

Absolutely. That's why I said Boeing and the FAA failed their responsibility as opposed to a Boeing exec or a particular legislator - there are organizational, structural problems. Sure, some individuals made the decision to ignore reports or set a new culture, but the fact that they succeeded is concerning - why did everyone else enable them? Is there anything we could have done to encourage those engineers to whistleblow their concerns before the planes crashed? Would they have been taken seriously by the FAA or the media or investors who were pushing for growth at all costs? These are deep, structural problems.

salawat 7y ago
Interesting you're getting downvotes. Not sure if the general audience or not. Regardless, the primary motivation to get a worker in a highly consolidated industry to blow the whistle is for them not to feel like they only have one choice. I can see where Boeing having consolidated as much as it has can give the culture extra resilience against employee disruption simply from the fact there isn't anywhere else to go.
- vikramkr 7y ago
  I think if you get one or two downvotes for whatever reason, as hn starts to grey out the text, a bit of bandwagon effect happens, not sure why. Good point about whistleblowing. Perhaps the faas reliance on self regulation alsobplayedbibto that consolidation, so even the one other place they might have gone was just something that looped right back to the monolith.
  - stallmanite 7y ago
    Perhaps the threshold for graying out text should be much higher as the current setting is very path-dependent in that the first few people to vote on a comment have a disproportional effect.