8 ms·
Narrator: A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped in
by purple-leafy 2y ago
Narrator:
A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Business woman on plane:
Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?
Narrator:
You wouldn't believe.
Business woman on plane:
Which car company do you work for?
Narrator:
A major one.
- ebri 2y ago[flagged]
- whoknowsidont 2y agoThere's a button for that.
- lukan 2y ago(The reference is "Fight Club" for the uninitiated btw.)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Liquix 2y agothe third rule of fight club is that it's okay to explain references to fight club on pseudonymous discussion boards, provided the explanation is furnished in parentheses
- dralley 2y agoDon't turn this into Reddit
- mcepl 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Fuel_system_fires,_recalls,_and_litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Fuel_system_fires,_...
- pif 2y ago> A new car built by my company ... While I think I get your point, I also believe that the background is very important. If your company applied standard engineering procedures, that's critically different from building a new product and actively hiding the differences with respect to the last one.
- wizzwizz4 2y agoLike Toyota's car with a “simulated stick shift”? https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a45754176/toyota-manual-ev-prototype-drive/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a45754176/toyota-manual-ev... > The prototype was convincing even when we tried to fool it. De-clutching leaves the car coasting, and selecting lower gears increases the regenerative braking, simulating the feeling of engine braking. When downshifting, it's possible to rev match by blipping the accelerator in the brief moment when the clutch is fully depressed. The penalty for letting the clutch up too abruptly when selecting a low gear is a bump of shift shock—momentarily over-revving the electric motors—and a similar lack of finesse when trying to pull away without sufficient revs results in a virtual stall. Sure, simulating the stall characteristics of an aeroplane is several orders of magnitude worse than simulating the stall characteristics of a car, but… still.
- maxerickson 2y agoIt doesn't sound like Toyota is trying to hide anything, they are preparing to sell something they think people want. (The feature sounds stupid to me)
- tstrimple 2y agoI've been eyeing the Ioniq 5 N which has the paddle shifting rev-limiting simulation stuff as well. Most of the reviewers really enjoy those features on a track. When coming up to a turn, the simulated RPM gives you much more contextual information than a pure electric experience does. The main point that kept coming up is the RPM levels when approaching a corner. They could tell if their speed was right in the approach based on the sound the engine was faking which is how they would drive a manual ICE car through the same track. Of course you can turn all that off and soften the suspension right back up in order to get the comfortable daily driving most folks are after. I don't think it belongs on most EV, but it certainly seems to enhance some. At least while we're still more familiar with the trappings of ICE performance vehicles.
- bmitc 2y agoIs this referencing a real event or interview?
- ThrowawayTestr 2y agoIt's referencing Fight Club
- bmitc 2y agoThank you.
- someonehere 2y agoIt’s comical nobody gets this reference, sir.
- gruez 2y agoThis might seem calculating and cold, but that's basically how government agencies work. It doesn't make sense to spend unlimited amounts of money to save a life, so government agencies have some sort of a dollar value on a life[1], above which where they won't bother doing interventions. For instance if it takes $15M to save a life, and that's above the DoT's estimate of $12.5M, then they won't bother. That's not to say that Boeing is in the right here, but if they were in the wrong it's not because "If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one", it's because they grossly undervalued a life in their calculations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States
- jollyllama 2y agoWe were taught as part of our CS curriculum that "often, the refusal to assign a dollar value to a human life results in it being terribly undervalued."
- skywal_l 2y agoPut some CEOs in jail and you won't need to do all those multiplications.
- mountainb 2y agoThere is no such reluctance to do this in law. I think in philosophy classes, professors feel shy about acknowledging the humdrum reality of insurance, the tax code, and our regulatory bodies continuously assigning dollar values to human lives. It feels good and makes you look like a better person to say things like "the value of a single human life cannot be expressed in money terms." Perhaps this is the case, and what the companies and the governmental bodies are really valuing is the economically meaningful activity associated with a person and not the totality of their person. Babies are worth a lot of money even at a low imputed earning potential just because they have so much life to live.
- HPsquared 2y agoIn practice, there's a difference between a hypothetical probabilistic death rate, and real people / news stories.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- asah 2y agoJust C is set to a high enough value, including personal penalties and imprisonment for any executives who failed to stop this decision (including the failure to setup reporting to hear about such decisions).
- brian_herman 2y agoThis is from the book Fight Club https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/691547-wherever-i-m-going-i-ll-be-there-to-apply-the-formula https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/691547-wherever-i-m-going-i...
- bottom999mottob 2y agoHonestly this quote is one of Chuck Palahniuk's best dialogues. Recommend checking out his other work like 'Rant.'
- hengistbury 2y agoMore accurately, this is a quote from the Fight Club movie
- tanseydavid 2y agoIt is in the book. The book came first.
- gosub100 2y agoWhat's the alternative? Never ship unless the risk is 0.00? (And yes I get the book reference)
- MisterBastahrd 2y agoReminds me of a business consultant who recently got roasted on TikTok recently because he described his $500k job as deciding whether or not companies should recall products or just weather the class action and liability suits.
- tangjurine 2y agoSource?
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y agoThis 5ypical MBA formula ignores the most important variable. Z = brand trust
- tflol 2y agooh so this is what google facebook elon musk microsoft does to collect/share user data then get slammed with affordable fines later. I surprised this quote hasnt come to mind at reading those article
- bongoman42 2y agoFor airlines and many other things you also have to consider the case that people might switch to even worse alternatives if the cost is too high. If airlines have to raise the prices too high for added safety features, people will switch to cars which are several orders of magnitude worse in safety. So airplanes might become safer but society may be overall worse off.
- rawgabbit 2y agoThis formula is for the statistically stupid. There is no such thing as average out-of-court settlement. One jury may find your company’s behavior as egregious and decide to drive you out of business by awarding a trillion dollar judgment. Next your business insurance drops you for being uninsurable.