That's what Capitalism does, to make as much money as possible. And it's up to the government to regulate them, and it failed to do so.
Boing has lost a lot of money on this, which capitalism should avoid no government intervention required. Instead, this is not really capitalism at work but internal forces inside a giant organization. The risk reward calculation for internal management does not track the company’s overall risks vs reward resulting in company wide losses.
And 346 people lost their lives plus whatever its costing their families. But fuck the humans, profits are in the line.
Wasn't the whole point of the 737max to all planes with new engines (which were more efficient but changed significantly the flight characteristics) to be flown by pilots without having to re certify? As I understand it, airlines or the faa only permit pilots to be licensed for 2 airframes at a time. So a 747 pilot can also fly 737s but not other commercial airliners. That's a problem because if the new boeing isn't…
Boeing backed themselves into a corner they weren’t going to get out of without major restructuring. The 737 is an old airframe design. They’ve extended the design for decades with longer cabin and more powerful engines. But underneath it all is the 60s era design considerations.
They needed a new regional airframe design a decade ago. Something to iterate on for the next 50 years. And that could be introduced while the 737 was phased out. A smaller version of the 787 would have a been a good foundation.
I hate the "everything must be a profit center" MBA attitude. Boeing is a profitable company because they make machines that fly people from place to place safely and efficiently. Part of that is having training, support, service, replacement parts, sales, manufacturing, IT, R&D, and all the other things required to make things fly. It's easy to sit in a conference room and say "gee, IT hasn't made any money, instead…
I appreciate you pointing this out. Reminds me of a book called Obliquity where I think the author specifically mentions Boeing in a story talking about how companies make more money when they don't specifically focus on making money. If I recall correctly, he mentions how Boeing used to focus on making really good planes and when they did, they made a lot of money. When they shifted to focusing on profit, they start…
Because higher-ups are incentivized to show metrics improve and get their bonus, and so called new data-driven business culture has a bias to measure whats is easy to measure, but not necessarily what’s important.
E.g. we cut 50% of the cost of training this year vs. we improved the training and pilots are more efficient.
Adding weight to headphones does have a practical advantage: it keeps them firmly on your head. I had a relatively expensive - but very lightweight - set of headphones a while ago and I swapped them for a cheaper but heavier pair because they just wouldn’t stay in place.
That doesn't sound right to me. I don't think gravity is or should be the most important or even merely a significant factor keeping headsets in place. That, and less weight on the head should feel better to the head-holding muscles (not to your biased conscious self evaluating "feel" for the only brief time while you concentrate on it). I would even say it is the opposite: The heavier the headset the tighter its gri…
It seems the padding matters a lot more than the weight, but lighter headphones need less padding, so for a given price point the lighter headphones are more likely to be comfortable.
I appreciate you pointing this out. Reminds me of a book called Obliquity where I think the author specifically mentions Boeing in a story talking about how companies make more money when they don't specifically focus on making money. If I recall correctly, he mentions how Boeing used to focus on making really good planes and when they did, they made a lot of money. When they shifted to focusing on profit, they start…
Because higher-ups are incentivized to show metrics improve and get their bonus, and so called new data-driven business culture has a bias to measure whats is easy to measure, but not necessarily what’s important. E.g. we cut 50% of the cost of training this year vs. we improved the training and pilots are more efficient.
Ah, I find that point fascinating, that this attitude trickles down into the incentive structures, and maybe just job evaluation in general. How to measure someone's impact on an org in a way that is not a number: hours inputted, dollars saved or gained, lines of code, leads gained/lost, followers gained/lost...do you know of any examples where you think they've done it in a way that takes the bigger picture into consideration?
Wasn't the whole point of the 737max to all planes with new engines (which were more efficient but changed significantly the flight characteristics) to be flown by pilots without having to re certify? As I understand it, airlines or the faa only permit pilots to be licensed for 2 airframes at a time. So a 747 pilot can also fly 737s but not other commercial airliners. That's a problem because if the new boeing isn't…
Boeing backed themselves into a corner they weren’t going to get out of without major restructuring. The 737 is an old airframe design. They’ve extended the design for decades with longer cabin and more powerful engines. But underneath it all is the 60s era design considerations. They needed a new regional airframe design a decade ago. Something to iterate on for the next 50 years. And that could be introduced while…
Broadly I agree, but the corner isn't just boeing: the faa and airlines banned pilots from knowing more than 2 (I think) air frames a while ago. That's anticompetitive and any progress. It's the reason Boeing is still selling 50 year old designs: no one will buy anything newer.
So I’m a leftist. So I sympathize with what you are saying. But you have to be careful using the term “capitalism”. It’s a highly overloaded term. For example I’ve come to realize that libertarians use the term quite differently from leftists. So if you use the term in mixed company you will find a lot of confusion results. It can be helpful to use other terminology which is less confusing. For example, Marxist econo…
Anarchist here, used to identify as a communist. I'd argue that both of your "capitalism" definitions can be pointed to as potential causes of the 737 fiasco, but that the latter ("free economic exchange through markets") seems more in line with what GP was wanting to, err, correct; I read GP as wanting more regulation for airplanes, which is antithetical to free exchange. I feel like the market itself will correct f…
Unless you live in Mogadishu you are not an anarchist. In any real sense.
I appreciate you pointing this out. Reminds me of a book called Obliquity where I think the author specifically mentions Boeing in a story talking about how companies make more money when they don't specifically focus on making money. If I recall correctly, he mentions how Boeing used to focus on making really good planes and when they did, they made a lot of money. When they shifted to focusing on profit, they start…
Is it this? https://www.johnkay.com/2004/01/17/obliquity/
The essay is from 2004, the whole book (240 pages) from 2010:
It's stable. In aerodynamics, stability has a specific meaning and it's possible for two things to be stable, and for one of those things to be less stable than the other. Picture a pendulum that is hinged on a greased axle vs one that is hinged on a high-friction axle. Both will reach equilibrium eventually (they're stable) but one will do it faster/with fewer oscillations. The 737 MAX is longitudinally stable, but…
There is so much doublespeak here. If it is less stable than required for airworthiness then it is not airworthy. Can we agree on that?