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sigh. > Republicans on the committee did not endorse the investigative report. [..] criticized Democrats for an investigation that "began by concluding that ou

by tremon 6y ago

sigh. > Republicans on the committee did not endorse the investigative report. [..] criticized Democrats for an investigation that "began by concluding that our system was broken and worked backwards from there." So, do many republicans hold the view that killing 346 people in the first year of service is acceptable business practice?

dboreham 6y ago
Because money.
deugtniet 6y ago
Even if the republicans are right in how the process was performed, it doesn't make the democrats wrong. Sounds a lot like whataboutism to me
- DaniloDias 6y ago
  https://youtu.be/YjVdq5tJSto https://youtu.be/YjVdq5tJSto
- pc86 6y ago
  That's not remotely an example of "whataboutism."
jonplackett 6y ago
It doesn't really matter if you work backwards or forwards if you can prove your conclusion.
- rjtavares 6y ago
  It also seems reasonable to assume that such an extreme situation is the result of a broken system. The tricky think is to identify what exactly is broken.
- koolba 6y ago
  Yes it does. Working backwards from a desired claim to generate only supporting facts would reinforce only that claim. It’d be like the police only investigating the one usual suspect and refusing to look for evidence that did not pertain to that suspect. Working forwards from gathering facts to a conclusion may lead to the same place or somewhere entirely different.
  - sarakayakomzin 6y ago
    >if you can prove your conclusion. please don't get a job as a compiler if you miss obvious if statements like this.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    > Working backwards from a desired claim to generate only supporting facts would reinforce only that claim. It’s called parallel construction. When police use it, it’s grounds to get your whole case thrown out (for very valid reasons... if you can prove it).
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      No, that's when you find new, plausible evidence to support the thing that you weren't allowed to do in the first place so you can pretend you didn't break the law while gathering evidence. This has nothing to do with the case at hand. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
  - cmiles74 6y ago
    The use of the term "desired claim" strikes me as unreasonable and unfair in this instance. No one is happy with two airliner crashes, it was no ones "desired claim". Unfortunately these crashes are what initiated the inquiry into the certification of this model airliner. In my opinion, the crashes are not facts with which anyone could reasonably argue. I don't think there's room to argue that maybe the crashes were unrelated, for instance. Given that we can all agree that the crashes occurred and were caused by a similar fault (in this case MCAS), I think it's entirely reasonable to "work back from there" and figure out _why_ this airliner was certified as safe and through that exercise discover what changes can be made to that certification process to prevent other dangerous airliners from being certified.
- mratsim 6y ago
  yes it does, it's called confirmation bias. Not that I endorse their claim as well.
- superice 6y ago
  'Beyond a reasonable doubt' works because the system should generate doubts as well. There might be two theories that are equally likely, but if you only have facts to support theory one without even having thought of the other theory that might still lead to a wrongful indictment.
trabant00 6y ago
> do many republicans hold the view that killing 346 people in the first year of service is acceptable business practice? First you very carefully selected what to quote. You cut out this part: > A statement from ranking member Sam Graves of Missouri says, "if aviation and safety experts determine that areas in the FAA's processes for certifying aircraft and equipment can be improved, then Congress will act." Which makes it clear they mostly disagree about what the investigation results say about FAA, not Boeing business. Then you suggest the republicans not being ok with the investigation findings means they are ok with killing people. They do not agree with WHY and HOW these people got killed, obviously not disagree that this should have not happened. How you can misrepresent the other side so badly and still be so self righteous is beyond me.
- JshWright 6y ago
  I don't think the parent comment misrepresented anything at all. Even without reading the article yet, I assumed "our system" referred to the government's system (i.e. the FAA's process). It takes some pretty significant mental gymnastics to convince yourself that the FAA's approval process wasn't critically flawed in the case of the MAX.
  - cmurf 6y ago
    The FAA's approval process was the outcome of ideology that government should not work the way it had been working. That there were too many regulations and too much oversight, and now it was time for businesses (Boeing in this case) to have a stronger role in certification and FAA a reduced role. Whether this ideology is about protecting corporate masters, supporting a sort of neo-feudalism where big companies are the new aristocrats, or whether it's sincere belief that free markets always produce better results - almost doesn't matter. The consistent theme is that public servants should not really have the final say on airplane certification. Say they have the final say but ensure they don't have the funding, political, or legal capital to consistently actualize it. The reality is one party long believes in giving business a lot of slack, and then only speaks in grumpy platitudes about the limits of business free-for-all when people die. They don't want a bullshit idea to be seen as bullshit. They just want to profit as much as possible with a number of deaths that the public finds acceptable enough to not call b.s. on the system itself. If any event involving hundreds of deaths at the same time could be pinned on a person, they'd go to prison. This system is expressly designed to spread the blame and obfuscate just enough that fines will be paid, and life goes on. Except for those who died.
GuB-42 6y ago
The system is supposed to prevent people from dying, 346 people died, the system is broken, it is a fact. Of course we work backward from there. Even if the conclusion is that it is "acceptable business practice", it doesn't make the system less broken. Just as making a bug "won't fix" doesn't make the bug disappear. But this is all political bickering, I don't think republicans are proud when American planes crash and kill their passengers, some of them US citizens. But because the report is written by democrats, and I suspect it is a little about safety and a lot about attacking the republican government, somehow, republicans feel the need to fight back instead of trying to find solutions. I hope there are real engineers trying to actually solve the problem behind the scenes.
- heyflyguy 6y ago
  I agree with you and the report itself has some inflammatory and accusatory information that while seemingly a conviction of Boeing is also a validation that the FAA has created a system the rewards these behaviors. As a parallel I submit to you the FAA Medical process - a system by which it is better for a pilot to conceal or not report until terrible a condition that could invalidate their medical and remove them from flight duties. While both of these are bad for the consumer, I ask - who is at fault? The big company, the pilot, or the people making the rules that encourage such behaviors.
  - brennebeck 6y ago
    Shouldn’t all three bear some fault? The big company for not proactively supporting their staff to report (e.g. benefits), the pilot for doing something ethically wrong, and the regulatory body for encouraging the broken system?
    - kortilla 6y ago
      Benefits don’t help a pilot not wanting to lose the ability to fly.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    There is more than enough blame to go around, in these as in all cases.
x87678r 6y ago
> So, do many republicans hold the view that killing 346 people in the first year of service is acceptable business practice? Well yeah the US had 36k automobile deaths and globally its 1.3 million (that's 3500 per day). You need to accept some level of fatalities as normal.
- oneplane 6y ago
  Now do the same numbers for aerospace for the sweet 'oops' moment.
- adwww 6y ago
  The US has vastly worse automobile deaths than almost any other developed nation, however you divide the numbers. (population, KM travelled, number of vehicles owned...). Probably not the best example...!
  - x87678r 6y ago
    Nowhere near the worst. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
    - adwww 6y ago
      Thanks for the link to confirm what I said. Mexico is ranked 1 better than US for traffic fatalities per capita. America has such huge clout for setting design standards for vehicles, has very large, very well funded law enforcement departments, a reasonably young average age for registered cars. If it wanted, it could smash those fatality figures in not much time at all.
    - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
      They said among developed nations. And they're right. Just compare the population normalized figures between the US and Canada. We have very similar cultures and road conditions, and yet the US is nearly 2x worse.
    - 6y ago
dfxm12 6y ago
It follows, given their response to the Corona Virus. It's quite clear that they serve corporate interests, and not people.
whiddershins 6y ago
I feel like we as a culture are losing sight of the reality that there is always risk. 346 people in the first year is a horrible. It is also an outlier. In general, flying is extremely safe, and new planes are safe. If we freak out about everything that ever goes wrong and try to create a system with zero deaths ever no matter what, we risk not being able to do anything new because it is paralyzed by regulation.
- gary-kim 6y ago
  It is important to consider, though, that the reason flying is extremely safe is because we do freak out about everything that goes wrong in aviation. Commercial aviation is one industry in which there is a strong correlation between safety and profitability so the industry does freak out over every problem. Of course, it's a balance, and the balance that commercial aviation has found is heavily focused on safety.
- sixothree 6y ago
  It looks more like a trend than an outlier for the new vehicle.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  Comments like these are incredibly short sighted. I generally ask if anyone anymore believes in cause and effect. By and large aviation is safe because of the work of governments and corporations together to create safe aviation. It doesn't just "exist." As we see here with the 737. > we risk not being able to do anything new because it is paralyzed by regulation. This isn't frontier science or sending someone to the moon. Aviation can be extremely safe and innovative if based on sound principles and not just trying to make an extra buck.
- croon 6y ago
  By this logic it was fine when Samsung S7 phones started exploding, because it was a very low occurance in the smart phone market. The problem isn't that flying is unsafe, but that the MAX specifically was/is, and something very clearly failed both at Boeing and in regulation.
- 6y ago
dangus 6y ago
Yes, Republicans are actually okay with 195,000 deaths as well. They say this daily, that they’re doing a great job and that it could be worse, especially if you don’t vote for them.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dylan604 6y ago
The people the quoted comment was meant for are not readers of HN. It is for people looking for political fighting that are no longer looking at things like facts/evidence.

by tremon 6y ago

dboreham 6y ago

Because money.

deugtniet 6y ago

Even if the republicans are right in how the process was performed, it doesn't make the democrats wrong. Sounds a lot like whataboutism to me

DaniloDias 6y ago
https://youtu.be/YjVdq5tJSto https://youtu.be/YjVdq5tJSto
pc86 6y ago
That's not remotely an example of "whataboutism."

jonplackett 6y ago

It doesn't really matter if you work backwards or forwards if you can prove your conclusion.

rjtavares 6y ago
It also seems reasonable to assume that such an extreme situation is the result of a broken system. The tricky think is to identify what exactly is broken.
koolba 6y ago
Yes it does. Working backwards from a desired claim to generate only supporting facts would reinforce only that claim. It’d be like the police only investigating the one usual suspect and refusing to look for evidence that did not pertain to that suspect. Working forwards from gathering facts to a conclusion may lead to the same place or somewhere entirely different.
- sarakayakomzin 6y ago
  >if you can prove your conclusion. please don't get a job as a compiler if you miss obvious if statements like this.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  > Working backwards from a desired claim to generate only supporting facts would reinforce only that claim. It’s called parallel construction. When police use it, it’s grounds to get your whole case thrown out (for very valid reasons... if you can prove it).
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    No, that's when you find new, plausible evidence to support the thing that you weren't allowed to do in the first place so you can pretend you didn't break the law while gathering evidence. This has nothing to do with the case at hand. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
- cmiles74 6y ago
  The use of the term "desired claim" strikes me as unreasonable and unfair in this instance. No one is happy with two airliner crashes, it was no ones "desired claim". Unfortunately these crashes are what initiated the inquiry into the certification of this model airliner. In my opinion, the crashes are not facts with which anyone could reasonably argue. I don't think there's room to argue that maybe the crashes were unrelated, for instance. Given that we can all agree that the crashes occurred and were caused by a similar fault (in this case MCAS), I think it's entirely reasonable to "work back from there" and figure out _why_ this airliner was certified as safe and through that exercise discover what changes can be made to that certification process to prevent other dangerous airliners from being certified.
mratsim 6y ago
yes it does, it's called confirmation bias. Not that I endorse their claim as well.
superice 6y ago
'Beyond a reasonable doubt' works because the system should generate doubts as well. There might be two theories that are equally likely, but if you only have facts to support theory one without even having thought of the other theory that might still lead to a wrongful indictment.

trabant00 6y ago

> do many republicans hold the view that killing 346 people in the first year of service is acceptable business practice? First you very carefully selected what to quote. You cut out this part: > A statement from ranking member Sam Graves of Missouri says, "if aviation and safety experts determine that areas in the FAA's processes for certifying aircraft and equipment can be improved, then Congress will act." Which makes it clear they mostly disagree about what the investigation results say about FAA, not Boeing business. Then you suggest the republicans not being ok with the investigation findings means they are ok with killing people. They do not agree with WHY and HOW these people got killed, obviously not disagree that this should have not happened. How you can misrepresent the other side so badly and still be so self righteous is beyond me.

JshWright 6y ago
I don't think the parent comment misrepresented anything at all. Even without reading the article yet, I assumed "our system" referred to the government's system (i.e. the FAA's process). It takes some pretty significant mental gymnastics to convince yourself that the FAA's approval process wasn't critically flawed in the case of the MAX.
- cmurf 6y ago
  The FAA's approval process was the outcome of ideology that government should not work the way it had been working. That there were too many regulations and too much oversight, and now it was time for businesses (Boeing in this case) to have a stronger role in certification and FAA a reduced role. Whether this ideology is about protecting corporate masters, supporting a sort of neo-feudalism where big companies are the new aristocrats, or whether it's sincere belief that free markets always produce better results - almost doesn't matter. The consistent theme is that public servants should not really have the final say on airplane certification. Say they have the final say but ensure they don't have the funding, political, or legal capital to consistently actualize it. The reality is one party long believes in giving business a lot of slack, and then only speaks in grumpy platitudes about the limits of business free-for-all when people die. They don't want a bullshit idea to be seen as bullshit. They just want to profit as much as possible with a number of deaths that the public finds acceptable enough to not call b.s. on the system itself. If any event involving hundreds of deaths at the same time could be pinned on a person, they'd go to prison. This system is expressly designed to spread the blame and obfuscate just enough that fines will be paid, and life goes on. Except for those who died.

GuB-42 6y ago

The system is supposed to prevent people from dying, 346 people died, the system is broken, it is a fact. Of course we work backward from there. Even if the conclusion is that it is "acceptable business practice", it doesn't make the system less broken. Just as making a bug "won't fix" doesn't make the bug disappear. But this is all political bickering, I don't think republicans are proud when American planes crash and kill their passengers, some of them US citizens. But because the report is written by democrats, and I suspect it is a little about safety and a lot about attacking the republican government, somehow, republicans feel the need to fight back instead of trying to find solutions. I hope there are real engineers trying to actually solve the problem behind the scenes.

heyflyguy 6y ago
I agree with you and the report itself has some inflammatory and accusatory information that while seemingly a conviction of Boeing is also a validation that the FAA has created a system the rewards these behaviors. As a parallel I submit to you the FAA Medical process - a system by which it is better for a pilot to conceal or not report until terrible a condition that could invalidate their medical and remove them from flight duties. While both of these are bad for the consumer, I ask - who is at fault? The big company, the pilot, or the people making the rules that encourage such behaviors.
- brennebeck 6y ago
  Shouldn’t all three bear some fault? The big company for not proactively supporting their staff to report (e.g. benefits), the pilot for doing something ethically wrong, and the regulatory body for encouraging the broken system?
  - kortilla 6y ago
    Benefits don’t help a pilot not wanting to lose the ability to fly.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  There is more than enough blame to go around, in these as in all cases.

x87678r 6y ago

> So, do many republicans hold the view that killing 346 people in the first year of service is acceptable business practice? Well yeah the US had 36k automobile deaths and globally its 1.3 million (that's 3500 per day). You need to accept some level of fatalities as normal.

oneplane 6y ago
Now do the same numbers for aerospace for the sweet 'oops' moment.
adwww 6y ago
The US has vastly worse automobile deaths than almost any other developed nation, however you divide the numbers. (population, KM travelled, number of vehicles owned...). Probably not the best example...!
- x87678r 6y ago
  Nowhere near the worst. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
  - adwww 6y ago
    Thanks for the link to confirm what I said. Mexico is ranked 1 better than US for traffic fatalities per capita. America has such huge clout for setting design standards for vehicles, has very large, very well funded law enforcement departments, a reasonably young average age for registered cars. If it wanted, it could smash those fatality figures in not much time at all.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
    They said among developed nations. And they're right. Just compare the population normalized figures between the US and Canada. We have very similar cultures and road conditions, and yet the US is nearly 2x worse.
  - 6y ago

dfxm12 6y ago

It follows, given their response to the Corona Virus. It's quite clear that they serve corporate interests, and not people.

whiddershins 6y ago

I feel like we as a culture are losing sight of the reality that there is always risk. 346 people in the first year is a horrible. It is also an outlier. In general, flying is extremely safe, and new planes are safe. If we freak out about everything that ever goes wrong and try to create a system with zero deaths ever no matter what, we risk not being able to do anything new because it is paralyzed by regulation.

gary-kim 6y ago
It is important to consider, though, that the reason flying is extremely safe is because we do freak out about everything that goes wrong in aviation. Commercial aviation is one industry in which there is a strong correlation between safety and profitability so the industry does freak out over every problem. Of course, it's a balance, and the balance that commercial aviation has found is heavily focused on safety.
sixothree 6y ago
It looks more like a trend than an outlier for the new vehicle.
ntsplnkv2 6y ago
Comments like these are incredibly short sighted. I generally ask if anyone anymore believes in cause and effect. By and large aviation is safe because of the work of governments and corporations together to create safe aviation. It doesn't just "exist." As we see here with the 737. > we risk not being able to do anything new because it is paralyzed by regulation. This isn't frontier science or sending someone to the moon. Aviation can be extremely safe and innovative if based on sound principles and not just trying to make an extra buck.
croon 6y ago
By this logic it was fine when Samsung S7 phones started exploding, because it was a very low occurance in the smart phone market. The problem isn't that flying is unsafe, but that the MAX specifically was/is, and something very clearly failed both at Boeing and in regulation.
6y ago

dangus 6y ago

Yes, Republicans are actually okay with 195,000 deaths as well. They say this daily, that they’re doing a great job and that it could be worse, especially if you don’t vote for them.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dylan604 6y ago

The people the quoted comment was meant for are not readers of HN. It is for people looking for political fighting that are no longer looking at things like facts/evidence.