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When CEOs make statements like this I assume they know they are lying for sake of the company. What makes this more interesting is that he clearly believed it

by playa1 3y ago

When CEOs make statements like this I assume they know they are lying for sake of the company. What makes this more interesting is that he clearly believed it was safe. So he wasn’t necessarily unethical. It is more that he was a bad engineer and a poor judge of risk.

mydogcanpurr 3y ago
I'd argue it's still unethical to put others at risk due to your own incompetence. I wouldn't offer to rewire someone's home because I'm not an electrician, and their house could burn down if I do it incorrectly.
- scotty79 3y ago
  > due to your own incompetence. Are you still unethical when you don't know about your incompetence? Can you be unethical if you had no ability to know that what you do is unethical?
  - rc5150 3y ago
    Can you still commit a crime if you don't know that what you're doing is against the law?
    - tiedieconderoga 3y ago
      Not usually, no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea You can definitely be convicted of one, though!
      - gtvwill 3y ago
        Lol thought experiment. Your driving in a new area and don't see a change in speed limit because a large truck blocked your view of the sign as you passed it. You get pulled over a short period later for going 20 above the speed limit. Do you think you can be fined or not? Should you be fined or not?
        BenjiWiebe 3y ago
        You can be fined, the fine might be reversible in court, you shouldn't be fined. The cop should just give you a warning.
  - mydogcanpurr 3y ago
    > Are you still unethical when you don't know about your incompetence? You're correct that reality can be more complicated, and it depends. I can imagine a scenario, e.g. the plot of "Manchester by the Sea" which doesn't seem completely unethical. I find it hard to believe in this case that he was that incompetent. I think he took what he believed to be a calculated risk, and I'm guessing he didn't go around broadcasting that information to the other people on the tour.
    - _Algernon_ 3y ago
      They signed a waiver that mentioned the risk of "death" 3 times on the first page. I'd call that broadcasting. Edit: I mean just read the waiver: https://nypost.com/2023/06/23/read-the-death-waiver-doomed-titanic-sub-tourists-signed/ https://nypost.com/2023/06/23/read-the-death-waiver-doomed-t... It speaks for itself.
      - bumby 3y ago
        I think this is only partially true. Generally, Risk = probability x severity. From that link, they characterized the severity (death) but not the probability. Saying "you may die" is different from saying "your have a 50% chance of dying." My guess is nobody had a good estimate for the probability so nobody could have accurately communicated the risk.
        _Algernon_ 3y ago
        "2. A portion of the operation will be conducted inside an experimental submersible vessel. The experimental submersible vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body and may be constructed of materials that have not been widely used in human occupied submersibles." I don't know. This implies a high probability to me.
        bumby 3y ago
        It's not quantified though. Also, it's pretty bad engineering practice to rely on implied risk; it's much more preferred to explicitly state your risk assumptions. E.g., one of the problems with the Shuttle disasters is that the implied risk was understood differently at various levels. (Making numbers up here but directionally accurate) After the fact, managers thought there was a 1/1000 risk of catastrophic failure while engineers put it a 1/172.
  - waitherd 3y ago
    [dead]
  - kayodelycaon 3y ago
    If someone else clearly warns you, yes.
    - astrodust 3y ago
      Similar story: > Authorities say a 28-year-old Texas man was attacked and killed by an alligator “almost immediately” after being warned by a bystander not to swim in the water, replying “fuck that alligator” before jumping in. https://www.gawker.com/fuck-that-alligator-man-killed-seconds-after-mocking-1715887134 https://www.gawker.com/fuck-that-alligator-man-killed-second...
  - n-exploit 3y ago
    This is called criminal negligence
    - SoftTalker 3y ago
      It's why the standard for negligence is "known or should have known" i.e. the person has enough experience or education to have known better. It's probably harder to prove than it sounds.
      - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        should have known IE the person is operating in a subject/domain where they're expected to know certain things, regardless of their own experience, like deep sea diving based on communique both to and from the CEO, the CEO did, in fact, know, that the vessel was not certified to do what it was doing, and that there were safety risks to it
  - babypuncher 3y ago
    He had actual experts telling him that this thing was unsafe. He fired people who said the thing was unsafe and that it wasn't ready for manned dives. I would argue it is always unethical to ignore the advice of experts when putting other people's safety on the line.
  - gtvwill 3y ago
    Lol yes. Ethics judgements aren't exactly made by one's self on one's self (unless you really do bad and you live your life in regret). But are generally made by your peers and those around you. Your ignorance plays no bearing on their judgement of your actions being ethical or not. You can be the dumbest deadshit in the world and they can still judge your actions as unethical. So yes you can certainly be unethical, even if your too dumb to understand why.
- paulcole 3y ago
  Is it unethical if you don't know you're incompetent?
  - ScoobleDoodle 3y ago
    Hence standards of safety to weed out the incompetent. As usual, written in blood.
  - benjaminwai 3y ago
    There has to be some amount of competency becoming a founder, CEO and a millionaire, with the various ventures he was involved.
  - plagiarist 3y ago
    It probably still is if you fired a competent person for saying it is too dangerous.
melling 3y ago
Yes, maybe he just suffered from some sort of human bias. What’s the one where people are very good at lying to themselves? Unfortunately, he killed those other people because no one could convince him that he was wrong.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Yeah I think some people with big egos get so wrapped up in their goals that they just dismiss anything or anyone that is trying to point out problems or concerns. They would deny they are lying and I'm sure genuinely believe they are right. After all he got into the contraption and it killed him. He would not have done that if he didn't believe it was safe.
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
Not really. He thought it was safer than it was. But I don't think he thought it was close to a 0% chance of death. It's clear that he knew it was somewhat risky. It failed after like 25 dives which means around a ~4% failure rate. I'd hope he thought it had less than a 1% failure rate. Who knows what the true failure rate is. Maybe they got really lucky, and it actually had a higher failure rate. Maybe they got extra unlucky. Who knows. I just can't fathom people would pay $250k for a miserable time and a decent shot at death.
- echelon 3y ago
  > I'd hope he thought it had less than a 1% failure rate. 1% is horrible. You'd hope for robust systems where individual failures are mitigated by support systems. And even then, five nines doesn't feel so great when the cost could be so severe. > I just can't fathom people would pay $250k for a miserable time and a decent shot at death. That poor kid didn't even want to go. He was terrified of the thing and was going to make his dad happy for father's day.
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  > I just can't fathom people would pay $250k for a miserable time and a decent shot at death. Rich folks pay upward of 70k for Everest expedition, where local personal Sherpas babysit them from basecamp/Kathmandu all the way to the top with oxygen, unless SHTF in some form. That's 2+ months of more or less suffering, living above 5000-6000m long term ain't fun for most. Metabolism goes to hell, wounds heal slower, body is clearly struggling and so is mind. I did experience empty mindness above 6k myself and you just focus on getting goals done asap and survival. Everest has some 2-3% fatality rate, consistently. I'd say it may not be the exactly same crowd but similar mindset that gets attracted to these things.
- babypuncher 3y ago
  I'm struggling to find real statistics to back this up, but my suspicion is that other deep-submergence vehicles used to travel to this depth (and further) have a failure rate of 0% for manned missions. My suspicion is based on the fact that I can't find any other stories of deep sea vehicles failing and killing their passengers in the last 40 years. DSV Alvin for example has completed 5,000 dives with 0 fatalities.
Johnny555 3y ago
Given that he was in the submersible himself, I don't think he was lying, I think he really believed he was taking reasonable risks with cutting edge engineering.
- joelegner 3y ago
  I have this vague idea that a person’s beliefs are not truly known until they use them as the basis to bet something of value. This guy bet his own life, so I agree with you. He believed what he was saying.

by playa1 3y ago

mydogcanpurr 3y ago

I'd argue it's still unethical to put others at risk due to your own incompetence. I wouldn't offer to rewire someone's home because I'm not an electrician, and their house could burn down if I do it incorrectly.

scotty79 3y ago
> due to your own incompetence. Are you still unethical when you don't know about your incompetence? Can you be unethical if you had no ability to know that what you do is unethical?
- rc5150 3y ago
  Can you still commit a crime if you don't know that what you're doing is against the law?
  - tiedieconderoga 3y ago
    Not usually, no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea You can definitely be convicted of one, though!
    - gtvwill 3y ago
      Lol thought experiment. Your driving in a new area and don't see a change in speed limit because a large truck blocked your view of the sign as you passed it. You get pulled over a short period later for going 20 above the speed limit. Do you think you can be fined or not? Should you be fined or not?
      - BenjiWiebe 3y ago
        You can be fined, the fine might be reversible in court, you shouldn't be fined. The cop should just give you a warning.
- mydogcanpurr 3y ago
  > Are you still unethical when you don't know about your incompetence? You're correct that reality can be more complicated, and it depends. I can imagine a scenario, e.g. the plot of "Manchester by the Sea" which doesn't seem completely unethical. I find it hard to believe in this case that he was that incompetent. I think he took what he believed to be a calculated risk, and I'm guessing he didn't go around broadcasting that information to the other people on the tour.
  - _Algernon_ 3y ago
    They signed a waiver that mentioned the risk of "death" 3 times on the first page. I'd call that broadcasting. Edit: I mean just read the waiver: https://nypost.com/2023/06/23/read-the-death-waiver-doomed-titanic-sub-tourists-signed/ https://nypost.com/2023/06/23/read-the-death-waiver-doomed-t... It speaks for itself.
    - bumby 3y ago
      I think this is only partially true. Generally, Risk = probability x severity. From that link, they characterized the severity (death) but not the probability. Saying "you may die" is different from saying "your have a 50% chance of dying." My guess is nobody had a good estimate for the probability so nobody could have accurately communicated the risk.
      - _Algernon_ 3y ago
        "2. A portion of the operation will be conducted inside an experimental submersible vessel. The experimental submersible vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body and may be constructed of materials that have not been widely used in human occupied submersibles." I don't know. This implies a high probability to me.
        bumby 3y ago
        It's not quantified though. Also, it's pretty bad engineering practice to rely on implied risk; it's much more preferred to explicitly state your risk assumptions. E.g., one of the problems with the Shuttle disasters is that the implied risk was understood differently at various levels. (Making numbers up here but directionally accurate) After the fact, managers thought there was a 1/1000 risk of catastrophic failure while engineers put it a 1/172.
- waitherd 3y ago
  [dead]
- kayodelycaon 3y ago
  If someone else clearly warns you, yes.
  - astrodust 3y ago
    Similar story: > Authorities say a 28-year-old Texas man was attacked and killed by an alligator “almost immediately” after being warned by a bystander not to swim in the water, replying “fuck that alligator” before jumping in. https://www.gawker.com/fuck-that-alligator-man-killed-seconds-after-mocking-1715887134 https://www.gawker.com/fuck-that-alligator-man-killed-second...
- n-exploit 3y ago
  This is called criminal negligence
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    It's why the standard for negligence is "known or should have known" i.e. the person has enough experience or education to have known better. It's probably harder to prove than it sounds.
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      should have known IE the person is operating in a subject/domain where they're expected to know certain things, regardless of their own experience, like deep sea diving based on communique both to and from the CEO, the CEO did, in fact, know, that the vessel was not certified to do what it was doing, and that there were safety risks to it
- babypuncher 3y ago
  He had actual experts telling him that this thing was unsafe. He fired people who said the thing was unsafe and that it wasn't ready for manned dives. I would argue it is always unethical to ignore the advice of experts when putting other people's safety on the line.
- gtvwill 3y ago
  Lol yes. Ethics judgements aren't exactly made by one's self on one's self (unless you really do bad and you live your life in regret). But are generally made by your peers and those around you. Your ignorance plays no bearing on their judgement of your actions being ethical or not. You can be the dumbest deadshit in the world and they can still judge your actions as unethical. So yes you can certainly be unethical, even if your too dumb to understand why.
paulcole 3y ago
Is it unethical if you don't know you're incompetent?
- ScoobleDoodle 3y ago
  Hence standards of safety to weed out the incompetent. As usual, written in blood.
- benjaminwai 3y ago
  There has to be some amount of competency becoming a founder, CEO and a millionaire, with the various ventures he was involved.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  It probably still is if you fired a competent person for saying it is too dangerous.

melling 3y ago

Yes, maybe he just suffered from some sort of human bias. What’s the one where people are very good at lying to themselves? Unfortunately, he killed those other people because no one could convince him that he was wrong.

SoftTalker 3y ago
Yeah I think some people with big egos get so wrapped up in their goals that they just dismiss anything or anyone that is trying to point out problems or concerns. They would deny they are lying and I'm sure genuinely believe they are right. After all he got into the contraption and it killed him. He would not have done that if he didn't believe it was safe.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago

Not really. He thought it was safer than it was. But I don't think he thought it was close to a 0% chance of death. It's clear that he knew it was somewhat risky. It failed after like 25 dives which means around a ~4% failure rate. I'd hope he thought it had less than a 1% failure rate. Who knows what the true failure rate is. Maybe they got really lucky, and it actually had a higher failure rate. Maybe they got extra unlucky. Who knows. I just can't fathom people would pay $250k for a miserable time and a decent shot at death.

echelon 3y ago
> I'd hope he thought it had less than a 1% failure rate. 1% is horrible. You'd hope for robust systems where individual failures are mitigated by support systems. And even then, five nines doesn't feel so great when the cost could be so severe. > I just can't fathom people would pay $250k for a miserable time and a decent shot at death. That poor kid didn't even want to go. He was terrified of the thing and was going to make his dad happy for father's day.
saiya-jin 3y ago
> I just can't fathom people would pay $250k for a miserable time and a decent shot at death. Rich folks pay upward of 70k for Everest expedition, where local personal Sherpas babysit them from basecamp/Kathmandu all the way to the top with oxygen, unless SHTF in some form. That's 2+ months of more or less suffering, living above 5000-6000m long term ain't fun for most. Metabolism goes to hell, wounds heal slower, body is clearly struggling and so is mind. I did experience empty mindness above 6k myself and you just focus on getting goals done asap and survival. Everest has some 2-3% fatality rate, consistently. I'd say it may not be the exactly same crowd but similar mindset that gets attracted to these things.
babypuncher 3y ago
I'm struggling to find real statistics to back this up, but my suspicion is that other deep-submergence vehicles used to travel to this depth (and further) have a failure rate of 0% for manned missions. My suspicion is based on the fact that I can't find any other stories of deep sea vehicles failing and killing their passengers in the last 40 years. DSV Alvin for example has completed 5,000 dives with 0 fatalities.

Johnny555 3y ago

Given that he was in the submersible himself, I don't think he was lying, I think he really believed he was taking reasonable risks with cutting edge engineering.

joelegner 3y ago
I have this vague idea that a person’s beliefs are not truly known until they use them as the basis to bet something of value. This guy bet his own life, so I agree with you. He believed what he was saying.