10 ms·
Second Boeing Whistleblower Dies in Less Than Two Months
- itsthecourier 2y agoBoeing kills you in so many ways
- dylan604 2y agoAt least they aren't falling out of windows
- ansanabria 2y agoYet
- anilakar 2y agoAmericans tend to prefer detached houses. A broken ankle is not going to silence a person.
- gnabgib 2y agoOngoing discussion [0] (367 points, 22 hours ago, 442 comments) [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40230790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40230790
- gigatexal 2y ago1 whistleblower death is an outlier. Two is an eye raiser. Three will be a pattern and point to Boeing no?
- sarimkx 2y agoI hope there is isn't a third! Pretty insane already...
- pcloadletter_ 2y agoTwo out of how many though? Yeeeesh
- pfdietz 2y agoYeah, this may just indicate there are lots of whistleblowers.
- digitalsushi 2y ago2 out of 30 maybe
- dyauspitr 2y agoThough this guy seemed really sick so him taking his own life doesn’t seem insane. Does boeing have the ability to infect people with MRSA?
- codersfocus 2y ago>Does boeing have the ability to infect people with MRSA? Reminds the old soviet ricin umbrella injector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_umbrella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_umbrella
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wavefunction 2y agoMRSA has some benefits to consider alongside its detriments. It is capable of surviving on surfaces so you could apply it to a surface that your target interacts with and be relatively confident that it will be viable when the target contacts it. It's common, so it's not some sort of exotic bio-weapon that screams cloak-and-daggers: you can get MRSA in a hospital even. I think it's pretty resilient too so once your target has contacted the MRSA simple hygienic practices wouldn't neutralize it like taking a shower or bath. But as far as I know it is very treatable by knowledgeable medical professionals if caught early so in that sense it's not a guaranteed attack-vector and a poor choice for an assassination. Depending on a target who doesn't visit the doctor until too late, maybe less of an issue.
- moralestapia 2y ago>and a poor choice for an assassination And yet, it worked.
- Rebelgecko 2y agoIs there any evidence he was assassinated or are people just trying to meme it into being the truth?
- ndr 2y ago"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action" ― Ian Fleming, Goldfinger
- groby_b 2y agoIt's... just barely probable with two people. Assuming 30 whistleblowers, and an actuarial likelihood of 1.2% death[1] in a given year at their ages, we can use binomial probability[2] to determine the chance of two dying in a given year. The math works out to a 4.4% chance. That's a bit of an eye raiser, but still just believable. (Look, we all believe it can happen we roll a critical in D&D ;) 3 or more dying in a year, we're at 0.5% - I'd really assume that's deliberate. [1] Actuarial tables: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html [2] Calculator if you want to play with probabilities: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=binomial+probability+calculator&assumption=%7B%22F%22%2C+%22BinomialProbabilities%22%2C+%22x%22%7D+-%3E%2227%22&assumption=%7B%22F%22%2C+%22BinomialProbabilities%22%2C+%22n%22%7D+-%3E%2230%22&assumption=%7B%22F%22%2C+%22BinomialProbabilities%22%2C+%22p%22%7D+-%3E%220.988%22 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=binomial+probability+ca...
- htss2013 2y agoCan we not make a reasonable assumption that whistleblowers against a powerful company have a much higher than average risk of dying? Knowing nothing about them personally we can reasonably conclude: - They get regular death threats. - The opposing law firms probably have PIs digging into their lives for dirt to discredit them. - Their careers in their line of work are over and as far as I know, there's no whistle-blower retirement fund. - Everyone they knew and worked with for many years and who still works there probably cut them off for fear of being associated with them. - Because of all this their sleep is probably horrible, they're much more likely to have unhealthy alcohol habits, and to have financial problems.
- groby_b 2y agoMaybe. But these are all random assumptions, and we have no way of taking them into account without a lot of work on the modeling. But the point I was trying to make (badly, based on where the discussion is going :) was that "two whistleblowers dying is still somewhat probable". Increased likelihood of death just makes it more probable.
- afavour 2y agoHow many whistleblowers have there been and what’s the demographic? Not to be too much of a downer but if there are a good number of whistleblowers and they’re over-represented by retirement age men that have worked in production plants all their lives then there is some level of morbidity to be expected. But also: yeah, when you look at it face on it’s absolutely wild that there have been two whistleblower deaths.
- bfdm 2y agoThis one was 45 years old.
- sarimkx 2y agoAnd what do they even mean by "sudden illness"??
- micromacrofoot 2y agoInfluenza and MRSA — allegedly the MRSA was contracted before hospitalization, which is odd. Though MRSA would also be an odd way to try to intentionally kill someone.
- dyauspitr 2y agoMRSA, the article mentions it.
- afavour 2y agoThe point still stands. There ought to be some level of statistical analysis to tell you how likely an event this is rather than immediately reaching for the conspiracy theory lever.
- sarimkx 2y agoI was not alluding to any conspiracies. In that "statistical analysis" the company and more importantly the time must be factored in. Yes, I am sure out of all whistleblowers, all over the world, for all types of stories (war crimes, finance (insider trading), etc) there must many that do just die. But... 1. The same 'set' of whistleblowers (exposing manufacturing faults in Boing aircrafts) 2. In less than two months..! Not to mention not just at any time but during multiple ongoing investigations...?
- plasticeagle 2y agoYou'd think they'd just put him on a plane, they're much better at killing people using planes.
- coolbreezetft24 2y agoHow many people have died on boeing plane in the past year?
- jtriangle 2y agoLast I checked they haven't killed any passengers in awhile. Really not since: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_302#Final_report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_302#... Which was due to MCAS malfunction and pilots responding poorly to it. I'm all for holding Boeing's feet to the fire, but, lets not devolve into hyperbole here.
- rezonant 2y agoGood point, the statute of limitations for killing your customers should probably only be two years. That's, like, ancient history in tech years! GPT 4 wasn't even released at that point! We can't keep holding them accountable for such negligence, after all they've been really really good in the two years since- they only let a door fall off of a plane once! And no one died from that! We don't need to mention that if the seat next to the door was filled and they were not wearing their seatbelt, it is highly likely they would have died. EDIT: My bad, it was 5 years ago, not 2 years ago. I skimmed the Wikipedia page too fast, much like Boeing's engineers did while trying to bypass FAA regulations. I should be punished, but Boeing did nothing wrong.
- pokatrina 2y ago[flagged]
- pdx_flyer 2y agoNo longer a coincidence.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Lammy 2y agoFact: Everybody who drinks water will die.
- vinaypai 2y agoThe assumption here is that Boeing is responsible for these. What exactly does Boeing gain from murdering whistleblowers after the fact? At this point Boeing's reputation is already tarnished and they're already going to be under a microscope, so what does murdering whistleblowers even achieve?
- SV_BubbleTime 2y agoI mean… isn’t the obvious answer a “chilling effect”? If you were to subscribe to the idea Boeing murders whistleblowers, how is the most obvious reason for why not to prevent more people from speaking out?
- ssalka 2y agoI think if Boeing care's about their reputation so badly, they'd get out of the defense contractor business. But there's too much money to be made there. Silencing whistleblowers could be very beneficial to their bottom line: * Protects their existing IP, as well as any classified information the whistleblower may have had access to. * Prevents further leaks from the whistleblower, which could impact existing/future contracts, or the company's ability to win them. * Sends a chilling message to future would-be whistleblowers. * Sends a reassuring message to the defense industry: "we have a zero-tolerance policy for leaking information and your business is safe with us."
- remarkEon 2y ago>I think if Boeing care's about their reputation so badly, they'd get out of the defense contractor business. Huh? Boeing's defense products are a separate division from commercial aviation. And those products are the best out there. Maybe expensive, I guess, and the usual criticism of scope creep and project management applies.
- ssalka 2y agoThat may be the case, but I think many people will hear "Boeing" and immediately classify them along with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grunman, Raytheon etc.
- vandyswa 2y agoIf the intention is to convince whistleblowers #3 through #30 that they should find a healthier hobby? Then yeah, they don't really care if it's obvious to the peanut gallery, so long as it's obvious to any other witnesses.
- mulmen 2y agoDo you have any evidence whatsoever to suggest foul play here?
- mikrotikker 2y agoThe question is would U need evidence to shut your mouth if you were a Boeing whistleblower?
- mulmen 2y agoThat seems to presume the murder conspiracy theory. But if the conspiracy theory is effective in silencing whistleblowers then the murder is unnecessary. But if the murder didn’t happen the conspiracy theory is false then there was no reason for whistleblowers to be silent for fear of being killed. So this speculation in the absence of evidence serves the interest of corrupt corporations by undermining the confidence of whistleblowers.
- bb88 2y agoI'm asking a question here that I don't know the answer to. Has anyone weaponized MRSA? Not just weaponized it for mass casualties, but able to also only target a single individual with it?
- jxramos 2y agoI'm not sure, but I think in suspicious deaths like this folks should DNA sequence all viruses and other stuff found on the body of the poor individual. I've been curious about autopsies from a proactive angle. Can the family of the deceased, or even the person in their own will expressed before they died, can they force a municipality or county or whatever agency the coroner operates under to release the body for a private autopsy?
- hyperific 2y agoI don't think we have the technical ability to make a real life FOXDIE yet.
- xboxnolifes 2y agoI'd be very surprised if organizations such as the CIA or similar haven't at least put some resources toward researching the viability of weaponizing MRSA or similar.
- seoulmetro 2y agoEverything can be weaponised. Most things have been weaponised.
- smashah 2y agoIn America they allow oligarchs to just whack people left right and centre?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- throwaway290232 2y ago[dead]
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoInformative article from The Economist about disinformation being on the rise...flagged (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40238314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40238314) Conspiratorial nonsense...#1 spot. Is anybody else concerned about the health of this forum?
- lamontcg 2y agoYeah that thread and these Boeing threads are fucking nuts.
- jxramos 2y agoIs there any kind of Bayesian modeling to calculate the probability of deaths in a subpopulation like employees of a company over a given period of time? I guess none of this would be public knowledge to know the background death rate of that population, but assuming it was all public where we knew how many deaths per employee was typical could something be calculated to show this pattern is a mathematical outlier of somekind?
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago[dupe] Discussion over last 24 hrs or so: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40230790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40230790
- keernan 2y agoI keep seeing headlines similar to the above ("Second Boeing Whistleblower"). The headline is simply a lie and misrepresentation. Josh Dean was not a Boeing Whistleblower. He is a Whistleblower against his employer, Spirit AeroSystems, not Boeing.
- sakshatshinde 2y agoThey got a hit on everyone these days