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If the ship's captain was asleep in a drunken stupor while the 17 year old helmsman crashed the ship into an iceberg, should the captain go unpunished? I feel

If the ship's captain was asleep in a drunken stupor while the 17 year old helmsman crashed the ship into an iceberg, should the captain go unpunished? I feel that punishing sobriety and rewarding drunkenness is probably not a good idea, if we want to avoid our ships hitting icebergs.

constantcrying 2y ago
Bad analogies won't help anyone. Did the CEO believe his people were incompetent to develop and verify the software?
- consp 2y ago
  > Did the CEO believe his people were incompetent to develop and verify the software? Did the CEO create the culture in which they could not despite being able to?
  - vmladenov 2y ago
    IIUC the decisions that led to the 737 Max happened under the prior CEO Muilenburg. Calhoun is just the fall guy. He wasn’t even CEO when the crashes happened. He should bear responsibility for the door plugs, though.
- close04 2y ago
  Analogies don't have to be perfect unless you don't want see inconvenient arguments. Boeing CEO(s) shot hundreds of people in the head and then claimed they had no idea the gun was loaded and the safety was off. "My assistants said it's fine to point and shoot". It's not about the result or what the CEO "believes", it's about what they reasonably did to avoid bad outcomes. Did the CEO do anything to be certain his people are competent, or that an incompetent person cannot tank the quality of the product? Did they take any reasonable measures, implemented checks, ordered audits, spent more to prioritized safety and quality? The CEO has the highest executive authority and the highest pay. This means the highest level of accountability. Until the shit hits the fan, or the ground, and then the employees were incompetent, the processes were weak, the consultants that weren't picked by the CEO said it's all good. The reason they get away with this isn't that the law protects them, it's that they fill pockets and buy laws to protect them. Random "Empty Pockets" Joe won't get a pass for building something that kills people because they didn't bother to verify anything.
- pyrale 2y ago
  Your question is also far from the mark. Plenty of people have to respect a much higher standard of accountability: did the CEO take actions to ensure that proper adherence to industry standard was respected? Which processes were put in place to ascertain the continued respect of these standards? In many jobs, incompetence will get you in jail. Sure, sometimes your reports go out of their way to conceal issues, but aside from extreme cases, a CEO should have to show what they did to prevent issues, and merely "believing" should land them in jail.
robertlagrant 2y ago
> If the ship's captain was asleep in a drunken stupor while the 17 year old helmsman crashed the ship into an iceberg, should the captain go unpunished? No. But also, this is not the situation.
tialaramex 2y ago
A vessel's master will always leave standing orders to be followed while they're asleep. Typically these orders solve only some routine choices that were anticipated, and for anything extraordinary the master should be awoken at once and consulted. The junior watch officer should have summoned the master long before the ship hit an iceberg, if they are inattentive (e.g. they fall asleep in the warm dark of a bridge at night) the BNWAS will alarm to try to wake them, then eventually summon senior officers (typically the master, but maybe also a chief engineer and others) to the bridge. The master is responsible for ensuring the BNWAS is operable. It would be extremely unusual for a commercial vessel (not to mention military vessel) to allow officers to drink booze, especially enough booze to fall "asleep in a drunken stupor". Of course just because something is prohibited doesn't mean it won't happen, but now we're talking about culpability and of course you're culpable if as a foreseeable consequence of your prohibited actions bad things happen, that's negligence at best.
- ionwake 2y ago
  I can’t believe I’m reading comments from people who think leadership comes without responsibility I can only assume it’s someone being defensive
- ionwake 2y ago
  I can’t believe I’m reading comments from people who think leadership comes without responsibility I can only assume it’s someone being defensive. If it really is your philosophy then who is to blame?
bluGill 2y ago
There should be a second/third in command on duty when the captain is drinking or sleeping. (and the captain should be off duty long enough for whatever he was drinking to wear off - my understanding in ships often run 4 hour shifts so there may not be enough time but sometimes the second will take a longer shift to allow the captain time to celebrate.) Of course no good captain would leave the ship in control of a new second in command in hard conditions. However sometimes the second in command would be captain years ago if there was need for a captain but there isn't, and then there is flexibility.

constantcrying 2y ago

Bad analogies won't help anyone. Did the CEO believe his people were incompetent to develop and verify the software?

consp 2y ago
> Did the CEO believe his people were incompetent to develop and verify the software? Did the CEO create the culture in which they could not despite being able to?
- vmladenov 2y ago
  IIUC the decisions that led to the 737 Max happened under the prior CEO Muilenburg. Calhoun is just the fall guy. He wasn’t even CEO when the crashes happened. He should bear responsibility for the door plugs, though.
close04 2y ago
Analogies don't have to be perfect unless you don't want see inconvenient arguments. Boeing CEO(s) shot hundreds of people in the head and then claimed they had no idea the gun was loaded and the safety was off. "My assistants said it's fine to point and shoot". It's not about the result or what the CEO "believes", it's about what they reasonably did to avoid bad outcomes. Did the CEO do anything to be certain his people are competent, or that an incompetent person cannot tank the quality of the product? Did they take any reasonable measures, implemented checks, ordered audits, spent more to prioritized safety and quality? The CEO has the highest executive authority and the highest pay. This means the highest level of accountability. Until the shit hits the fan, or the ground, and then the employees were incompetent, the processes were weak, the consultants that weren't picked by the CEO said it's all good. The reason they get away with this isn't that the law protects them, it's that they fill pockets and buy laws to protect them. Random "Empty Pockets" Joe won't get a pass for building something that kills people because they didn't bother to verify anything.
pyrale 2y ago
Your question is also far from the mark. Plenty of people have to respect a much higher standard of accountability: did the CEO take actions to ensure that proper adherence to industry standard was respected? Which processes were put in place to ascertain the continued respect of these standards? In many jobs, incompetence will get you in jail. Sure, sometimes your reports go out of their way to conceal issues, but aside from extreme cases, a CEO should have to show what they did to prevent issues, and merely "believing" should land them in jail.

robertlagrant 2y ago

> If the ship's captain was asleep in a drunken stupor while the 17 year old helmsman crashed the ship into an iceberg, should the captain go unpunished? No. But also, this is not the situation.

tialaramex 2y ago

A vessel's master will always leave standing orders to be followed while they're asleep. Typically these orders solve only some routine choices that were anticipated, and for anything extraordinary the master should be awoken at once and consulted. The junior watch officer should have summoned the master long before the ship hit an iceberg, if they are inattentive (e.g. they fall asleep in the warm dark of a bridge at night) the BNWAS will alarm to try to wake them, then eventually summon senior officers (typically the master, but maybe also a chief engineer and others) to the bridge. The master is responsible for ensuring the BNWAS is operable. It would be extremely unusual for a commercial vessel (not to mention military vessel) to allow officers to drink booze, especially enough booze to fall "asleep in a drunken stupor". Of course just because something is prohibited doesn't mean it won't happen, but now we're talking about culpability and of course you're culpable if as a foreseeable consequence of your prohibited actions bad things happen, that's negligence at best.

ionwake 2y ago
I can’t believe I’m reading comments from people who think leadership comes without responsibility I can only assume it’s someone being defensive
ionwake 2y ago
I can’t believe I’m reading comments from people who think leadership comes without responsibility I can only assume it’s someone being defensive. If it really is your philosophy then who is to blame?

bluGill 2y ago

There should be a second/third in command on duty when the captain is drinking or sleeping. (and the captain should be off duty long enough for whatever he was drinking to wear off - my understanding in ships often run 4 hour shifts so there may not be enough time but sometimes the second will take a longer shift to allow the captain time to celebrate.) Of course no good captain would leave the ship in control of a new second in command in hard conditions. However sometimes the second in command would be captain years ago if there was need for a captain but there isn't, and then there is flexibility.