
The Ethical Failures Behind the Boeing Disasters - whack
https://blog.apaonline.org/2019/04/08/the-ethical-failures-behind-the-boeing-disasters/
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joe_the_user
Putting events like this down to ethical failure has the problem that it
allows the investigation of the event to stop at a "single point of failure"
in the "human system".

The focus on Boeing and elsewhere has revealed that for a substantial period
of time the focus of management was essentially "gutting" the company;
replacing highly skilled and expensive engineers and workers with cheaper
workers elsewhere and generally removing any impediment to immediate profit -
this including stretching to 737 spec to the point that it essentially "broke"
rather than taking the cost hit of designing a new plane for a new era.

The thing is, when the paradigm the top puts out is "do whatever it take to
make those numbers", you already have an implicitly unethical outlook but one
with plausible deniability. The people who push that (whether management,
hedge funds or board of directors) are careful not to overtly advocate
anything illegal or immoral but it seems logical that when X underling who
does Y ethical act is caught and punished, that underling will be replaced by
another one who will face the same pressures and quite likely also engage in
similar overtly unethical behavior.

~~~
aidenn0
You see the same thing with wage-theft in large chain stores. Corporate HQ
always says that they don't support it, but then they setup sales and payroll
goals that can most easily be met with wage-theft.

~~~
pixl97
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_fraud](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_fraud)

~~~
aidenn0
I'm talking about something different from control fraud; particularly in the
case that it can arise unintentionally. The fact that it can arise
unintentionally makes it much harder to combat because there is built-in
plausible deniability.

Example of it occurring unintentionally:

1\. A corporation sets goals for store managers based upon performance metrics
that include payroll. These goals are currently realizable by a competent
manager without forcing workers to work without pay.

2\. Some fraction of managers realize rather than actually working hard to
meet the goals, they can get their numbers up by forcing workers to work
without pay. This skews the metrics a bit.

3\. The most incompetent managers that aren't committing wage-theft are
demoted or fired, being replaced with managers that are either more-competent
or willing to commit wage-theft.

4\. The payroll goal is now adjusted down because the previous accounting-
term's payroll average is lower than before.

5\. Competent managers manage to get jobs elsewhere, so the fraction of
managers willing to commit wage-theft increases.

6\. GOTO 2

Eventually the metrics are so skewed that the majority of managers must either
commit wage-theft or lose their jobs. These managers are the only people that
will get in trouble if the wage-theft is discovered.

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petilon
What stands out about Boeing's mistakes is how easy it is for laypersons to
understand the mistakes. Relying on only one sensor, no redundancy? Anyone who
has stood up a service on the cloud will be astounded that Boeing made this
mistake. We run 3 or more copies of everything to make sure we can tolerate
failures. Computers making an automated action while making it hard for humans
to override? Again, astounding mistake (MCAS). Fixing hardware defects using
software? Again, unfathomable how Boeing could have made such a mistake. Would
anyone here buy a computer that overheats and catches fire unless monitored
and controlled using software? That would be very unusual indeed.

There are lots of very smart people at Boeing. If laypersons can recognize
these mistakes then there must have been hundreds or thousands of engineers at
Boeing who also recognized these mistakes. But they didn't speak up. I see
this as evidence of a cultural problem.

Do you work at a company where the boss discourages you from speaking up about
potential problems, and expects you to just do what you're told to do? If so
your company could be the next Boeing.

~~~
tbrownaw
"laypersons"

"Anyone who has stood up a service on the cloud"

I don't think I'd call those the same thing.

.

Aside from that, having a single point of failure in some component _isn 't
necessarily unconscionable_, you just make sure the system as a whole can
handle the loss of the affected component.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Well, anyone who has stood up a service on the cloud is probably a layperson
with respect to designing airplanes...

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AnimalMuppet
(Mostly) reposting from a comment on an article that very few people saw:

Reuters had an article at [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-
boeing-737max/new-boeing-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-
boeing-737max/new-boeing-..). This article contained a paragraph that was news
to me:

> Boeing had earlier turned over the documents to the Justice Department,
> which has an active criminal investigation underway into matters related to
> the 737 MAX plane.

An active criminal investigation? Wow. Boeing's in a lot hotter water than I
knew.

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samcat116
During my civil engineering studies there was an emphasis on ethics throughout
classes, even the more specialized, technical ones. This is one huge
difference I've noticed compared to the software engineering field. There
aren't these governing bodies such as ASCE or NSPE with these ethics canons. I
suspect we'll see that change in the next several years.

~~~
joe_the_user
The reason the engineers are given ethical training is because engineers (like
accountants, appraisers or similar people) have historically had an
institutional independence from their employers. A civil engineer in
particular can choose and will not to sign off on a given project that they
know will be unsafe. Given that engineers are certified by their profession,
their employment situation is not precarious and so they can reasonable make
this refusal (this is degrading like all professions naturally but still).

Programmers have no such institutional support. If a programmer refuses a job,
it goes to someone else that's it. Programmers may have ethics but ethical
training a la engineers isn't going to give them any leverage for choices.

~~~
reaperducer
_The reason the engineers are given ethical training is because engineers
(like accountants, appraisers or similar people) have historically had an
institutional independence from their employers._

Imagine the state of the tech world today if all of the "engineer" programmers
at Google, Facebook, etc... practiced at the same ethical level as actual
engineers.

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
Seeing how google is firing people for trying to unionize... I would guess
there would be less spyware in ads?

------
tonetheman
Someone has already said it I think but ethics without a way to stand up and
say something is wrong is just doing lip service to ethics. Sure our engineers
have ethics but we will get some new ones if anyone complains.

All of this is about making money and nothing else. Each quarter make these
numbers at all costs. That is what almost all companies are. Amoral beasties
that do whatever is needed to make more money.

If they could have killed 300 more people and still kept the planes in the
air, the CEO, wallstreet and anyone who held the stock would not have given a
single fork.

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nabla9
No Single Points of Failure applies also to organizations.

Boeing's corporate governance failures became life threatening only because
FAA certification process failed. Regulatory capture of FAA was the second
failure.

Regulatory capture may be responsible for Boeing's recent problems
[https://www.economist.com/business/2019/03/23/regulatory-
cap...](https://www.economist.com/business/2019/03/23/regulatory-capture-may-
be-responsible-for-boeings-recent-problems)

Barbara Hollingsworth: 'Regulatory capture' explains a lot about FAA's
failures [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/barbara-hollingsworth-
reg...](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/barbara-hollingsworth-regulatory-
capture-explains-a-lot-about-faas-failures)

> What happens to federal employees who ignore safety warnings, cover up
> incompetent or even criminal behavior, destroy official documents and
> mislead members of Congress? At the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA),
> they get promoted.

> That's the take-away from last week's National Whistleblowers Assembly on
> Capitol Hill, sponsored by the Government Accountability Project (GAP) and
> featuring famous NYPD whistleblower Frank Serpico and former FBI agent
> Coleen Rowley.

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Stratoscope
Site availability has been intermittent. In case it's having trouble:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509220235/https://blog.apao...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190509220235/https://blog.apaonline.org/2019/04/08/the-
ethical-failures-behind-the-boeing-disasters/)

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PhantomGremlin
The article specifically calls out the engineer former CEO. IIRC he was the
only engineer in Boeing's C-suite and board.

His egregious behavior doesn't get emphasized enough. It's beyond horrible. To
back up what was said in the article, here is something from Reuters on the
day after the 2nd crash:

 _“We are confident in the safety of the 737 MAX and in the work of the men
and women who design and build it,” Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis
Muilenburg told employees in an email seen by Reuters. “Since its
certification and entry into service, the MAX family has completed hundreds of
thousands of flights safely.”_ [https://www.reuters.com/article/ethiopia-
airplane-boeing-ceo...](https://www.reuters.com/article/ethiopia-airplane-
boeing-ceo/boeing-ceo-confident-in-737-max-safety-after-second-deadly-crash-
idUSKBN1QS2PJ)

That asshat CEO made those comments the day after the second crash, after 346
people were dead.

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tus88
Someone, somewhere, said "let's butcher the design of the 737 and try and
patch it up with software".

That person should be in jail.

~~~
noipv4
someone like Pat Shanahan, former defense secretary.

[https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-
military/2019/03/13/...](https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-
military/2019/03/13/shanahan-faces-ig-complaint-over-boeing-ties/)

