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As far as I can tell, the whole Boeing situation is a minor and interesting case of a moral panic / groupthink episode. A flight on one of these grossly unsafe

by roenxi 3y ago

As far as I can tell, the whole Boeing situation is a minor and interesting case of a moral panic / groupthink episode. A flight on one of these grossly unsafe Boeing planes still seems to be safer than a daily bus commute to work (and may the heavens help those death-seeking lunatics who travel by car!). As for why products are getting worse, the west appears to be in a multi-decade energy crisis interlinked deeply with our manufacturing processes being uncompetitive. The actions of management in manufacturing companies are being driven by the regulatory environment around energy and production.

bryanrasmussen 3y ago
>A flight on one of these grossly unsafe Boeing planes still seems to be safer than a daily bus commute to work Not where I live https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/transport/trafikulykker/faerdselsuheld https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/transport/trafikulykke...
- noughtme 3y ago
  ? That’s nearly one 737 Max worth of fatalities per year in your small country, granted buses are probably safer than cars.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    In fairness, what matters is the rate. Although those stats don't include rates so they seem to be not-comparable. Denmark seems to have a Boeing-737 Max accident every year, except using cars. Boeing is at 2x 737 accidents globally in the last 6 years. I'm not sure what conclusions we were expected to take from this.
    - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
      obviously I was being slightly facetious - especially as I am unable to find stats on bus death but I'm going to assume that rate of death in bus accidents are much less than those in car accidents because not especially serious - but if that were the case and given that there were two serious crashes of the Boeing Max and there are 1160 I guess the rate there is somewhere around .1 whereas there are 3 million cars in Denmark and 154 fatalities is .009 (again, facetiously assuming that every car was driven) But since the statement was it was safer than taking the bus to work and given the very minimal stats shown I think it is a reasonable supposition that probably the bus is safer in Denmark although obviously it would require a significant longer and more in depth amount of analysis than one generally expends on a comment on an HN text box. >I'm not sure what conclusions we were expected to take from this. given very minimal stats on car accidents and assuming bus accidents much less than car accidents then it would reasonable to think hmm, probably taking the bus is somewhat safer. But not with the absolute certainty that a year long study and gathering of all relevant stats might establish.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - roenxi 3y ago
        Could you maybe distill the serious parts? I'm not exactly sure what you think is joke and argument here. I'm also sceptical of whether that is a comparable approach. If I'm reading you right, you need to account for the fact that cars have lifespans and all the deaths over a lifespan get summed. Assuming a 15 year lifespan for a typical car that bumps the car figure up an order of magnitude and then the rates are basically the same (0.09 vs 0.10). So the figures you're quoting suggest that a catastrophe in the aerospace industry is business as usual on Denmark roads. Putting aside rather important questions of methodology (eg, 737 MAXs would do a lot more trips than a typical Denmark car). Not only that, but the 737 Max rate has likely dropped because they got a lot of attention and problems were likely remediated. It is easier to raise the engineering standards over 1,000 planes than 3,000,000 cars. You can see in the Denmark case that back in the dark eras past (like 2002) the situation was much worse but they improved quickly. Boeing will be undergoing the same process right now.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
passwordoops 3y ago
>The actions of management in manufacturing companies are being driven by the regulatory environment around energy and production. Care to elaborate? Because from where I'm sitting the actions of management are driven around quarterly stock-based incentives and a culture of short-term equity price rise by the boards and big investors
- roenxi 3y ago
  People have been claiming short term incentives for decades. If short term incentives were having long term negative impacts the corporate feedback mechanisms would have picked up on it by now. What I'm focusing on is that there are people who determine what the incentives of the managers are. Those people don't see an issue with short term incentives. They're identifying - correctly in my view - that there are limited opportunities for competitors to come in with higher quality products. Such a competitor would get crushed by a combination of regulation and costs.
  - passwordoops 3y ago
    That's a different issue than the "regulatory environment around energy and production". And "If short term incentives were having long term negative impacts the corporate feedback mechanisms would have picked up on it by now" Tells me you either don't live in the real world or are being purposefully disengenious. Most real decision makers plan to remain in their role for at most 5 years before moving up. That definitely encourages short term success. And much more importantly, if the compensation structure of the CxO is such that 99% of monetary compensation comes from vesting on a quarterly basis only if the stocks price or earnings hit specific targets over that short term, how does this translate to long-term success? Real-world, concrete, linkable examples only, please
    - roenxi 3y ago
      > That's a different issue than the "regulatory environment around energy and production". The incentives are being set to take best advantage of the realities on the ground. Apart from Apple, no-one is taking over markets by fighting the general quality decline. You're arguing that there is a lot of shortermism going on. Fair enough. But shortermism is proving to be a good long term strategy, because the alternatives failed. Not for lack of interest, but because the regulatory state and harsh realities of energy constraints crushed them. > Most real decision makers plan to remain in their role for at most 5 years before moving up. I'm glad we've managed negotiate up from quarterly stock prices to 5 years. But note that China is run on 5 year plans - executing complex long term strategies is possible in 5 year steps with a reorientation every so often. 5 year time horizons can be compatible with long term planning. Note that this is in line with what the investors are comfortable with - they don't think there is an advantage to be gained from keeping CEOs long term. And they're right I expect, getting involved int he money printing exercise that the central banks have been pushing is generally much more important than focusing on technical outcomes and you don't need long-term incumbent CEOs for that. > ...how does this translate to long-term success? Unless you're 108, Boeing is older than you are. This has been their routine operating procedure since ... the 1980s? Sometime around that era. They're doing pretty well.
happymellon 3y ago
Completely disagree with essentially everything here. If you look at distance, then planes win. Because if a plane makes it then it gets a big boost from lived distances. If you look at the quantity of journeys or per hour on a mode of transport then planes look a lot worse. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/rail-journeys/trains-are-better-than-planes/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/rail-journeys/trains-are-... And as for why things become worse, it's because of enshittification. Not because of magical "energy limits", not because of "manufacturing competition". Getting the next quarterly bonus by firing everyone works better than having a cut bonus this quarter to fix manufacturing and ensuring a bonus next quarter.
- jen20 3y ago
  Planes in general win - if you take out Boeing though, Airbus win by a much larger margin over the last 20 years.
  - happymellon 3y ago
    I'm not sure where you get that from, I gave you links so [citation please] Deaths per billion journeys: Bus: 4.3 Rail: 20 Car: 40 Plane: 117 Every time I get on a plane I have less chance of making it than on other modes of transport, even cars. Rail and bus are much safer per trip, amount of time spent, and are in the same ballpark as flight when using the per distance travelled metric.
    - jen20 3y ago
      Per billion journeys is an idiotic way of measuring. Per passenger mile is the correct way.
      - roenxi 3y ago
        That seems extreme, why aren't those measures reasonable? Although if we're using journeys; notice that a daily commute will clock in around 500 journeys a year. So while a Boeing 737 MAX plane flight could be called unsafe, unless someone is continuously flying around the risk is still at levels that people find acceptable. Even for the pilots, who are flying a 737 MAX as their day job, they're still at levels of risk consistent with someone who drives around on a motercycle. I can see why they wouldn't like that and want something to be done, but we're still not at crazy levels here. This is just lower than the standards the airline industry usually works to.

by roenxi 3y ago

bryanrasmussen 3y ago

>A flight on one of these grossly unsafe Boeing planes still seems to be safer than a daily bus commute to work Not where I live https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/transport/trafikulykker/faerdselsuheld https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/transport/trafikulykke...

noughtme 3y ago
? That’s nearly one 737 Max worth of fatalities per year in your small country, granted buses are probably safer than cars.
- roenxi 3y ago
  In fairness, what matters is the rate. Although those stats don't include rates so they seem to be not-comparable. Denmark seems to have a Boeing-737 Max accident every year, except using cars. Boeing is at 2x 737 accidents globally in the last 6 years. I'm not sure what conclusions we were expected to take from this.
  - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    obviously I was being slightly facetious - especially as I am unable to find stats on bus death but I'm going to assume that rate of death in bus accidents are much less than those in car accidents because not especially serious - but if that were the case and given that there were two serious crashes of the Boeing Max and there are 1160 I guess the rate there is somewhere around .1 whereas there are 3 million cars in Denmark and 154 fatalities is .009 (again, facetiously assuming that every car was driven) But since the statement was it was safer than taking the bus to work and given the very minimal stats shown I think it is a reasonable supposition that probably the bus is safer in Denmark although obviously it would require a significant longer and more in depth amount of analysis than one generally expends on a comment on an HN text box. >I'm not sure what conclusions we were expected to take from this. given very minimal stats on car accidents and assuming bus accidents much less than car accidents then it would reasonable to think hmm, probably taking the bus is somewhat safer. But not with the absolute certainty that a year long study and gathering of all relevant stats might establish.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - roenxi 3y ago
      Could you maybe distill the serious parts? I'm not exactly sure what you think is joke and argument here. I'm also sceptical of whether that is a comparable approach. If I'm reading you right, you need to account for the fact that cars have lifespans and all the deaths over a lifespan get summed. Assuming a 15 year lifespan for a typical car that bumps the car figure up an order of magnitude and then the rates are basically the same (0.09 vs 0.10). So the figures you're quoting suggest that a catastrophe in the aerospace industry is business as usual on Denmark roads. Putting aside rather important questions of methodology (eg, 737 MAXs would do a lot more trips than a typical Denmark car). Not only that, but the 737 Max rate has likely dropped because they got a lot of attention and problems were likely remediated. It is easier to raise the engineering standards over 1,000 planes than 3,000,000 cars. You can see in the Denmark case that back in the dark eras past (like 2002) the situation was much worse but they improved quickly. Boeing will be undergoing the same process right now.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

passwordoops 3y ago

>The actions of management in manufacturing companies are being driven by the regulatory environment around energy and production. Care to elaborate? Because from where I'm sitting the actions of management are driven around quarterly stock-based incentives and a culture of short-term equity price rise by the boards and big investors

roenxi 3y ago
People have been claiming short term incentives for decades. If short term incentives were having long term negative impacts the corporate feedback mechanisms would have picked up on it by now. What I'm focusing on is that there are people who determine what the incentives of the managers are. Those people don't see an issue with short term incentives. They're identifying - correctly in my view - that there are limited opportunities for competitors to come in with higher quality products. Such a competitor would get crushed by a combination of regulation and costs.
- passwordoops 3y ago
  That's a different issue than the "regulatory environment around energy and production". And "If short term incentives were having long term negative impacts the corporate feedback mechanisms would have picked up on it by now" Tells me you either don't live in the real world or are being purposefully disengenious. Most real decision makers plan to remain in their role for at most 5 years before moving up. That definitely encourages short term success. And much more importantly, if the compensation structure of the CxO is such that 99% of monetary compensation comes from vesting on a quarterly basis only if the stocks price or earnings hit specific targets over that short term, how does this translate to long-term success? Real-world, concrete, linkable examples only, please
  - roenxi 3y ago
    > That's a different issue than the "regulatory environment around energy and production". The incentives are being set to take best advantage of the realities on the ground. Apart from Apple, no-one is taking over markets by fighting the general quality decline. You're arguing that there is a lot of shortermism going on. Fair enough. But shortermism is proving to be a good long term strategy, because the alternatives failed. Not for lack of interest, but because the regulatory state and harsh realities of energy constraints crushed them. > Most real decision makers plan to remain in their role for at most 5 years before moving up. I'm glad we've managed negotiate up from quarterly stock prices to 5 years. But note that China is run on 5 year plans - executing complex long term strategies is possible in 5 year steps with a reorientation every so often. 5 year time horizons can be compatible with long term planning. Note that this is in line with what the investors are comfortable with - they don't think there is an advantage to be gained from keeping CEOs long term. And they're right I expect, getting involved int he money printing exercise that the central banks have been pushing is generally much more important than focusing on technical outcomes and you don't need long-term incumbent CEOs for that. > ...how does this translate to long-term success? Unless you're 108, Boeing is older than you are. This has been their routine operating procedure since ... the 1980s? Sometime around that era. They're doing pretty well.

happymellon 3y ago

Completely disagree with essentially everything here. If you look at distance, then planes win. Because if a plane makes it then it gets a big boost from lived distances. If you look at the quantity of journeys or per hour on a mode of transport then planes look a lot worse. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/rail-journeys/trains-are-better-than-planes/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/rail-journeys/trains-are-... And as for why things become worse, it's because of enshittification. Not because of magical "energy limits", not because of "manufacturing competition". Getting the next quarterly bonus by firing everyone works better than having a cut bonus this quarter to fix manufacturing and ensuring a bonus next quarter.

jen20 3y ago
Planes in general win - if you take out Boeing though, Airbus win by a much larger margin over the last 20 years.
- happymellon 3y ago
  I'm not sure where you get that from, I gave you links so [citation please] Deaths per billion journeys: Bus: 4.3 Rail: 20 Car: 40 Plane: 117 Every time I get on a plane I have less chance of making it than on other modes of transport, even cars. Rail and bus are much safer per trip, amount of time spent, and are in the same ballpark as flight when using the per distance travelled metric.
  - jen20 3y ago
    Per billion journeys is an idiotic way of measuring. Per passenger mile is the correct way.
    - roenxi 3y ago
      That seems extreme, why aren't those measures reasonable? Although if we're using journeys; notice that a daily commute will clock in around 500 journeys a year. So while a Boeing 737 MAX plane flight could be called unsafe, unless someone is continuously flying around the risk is still at levels that people find acceptable. Even for the pilots, who are flying a 737 MAX as their day job, they're still at levels of risk consistent with someone who drives around on a motercycle. I can see why they wouldn't like that and want something to be done, but we're still not at crazy levels here. This is just lower than the standards the airline industry usually works to.