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Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

bbc.com

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Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#51

Post by _Algernon_ »

bumby wrote: post #32
_Algernon_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They signed a waiver that mentioned the risk of "death" 3 times on the first page. I'd call that broadcasting. Edit: I mean just read the waiver: https://nypost.com/2023/06/23/read-the-death-waiver-doomed-t... It speaks for itself.

I think this is only partially true. Generally, Risk = probability x severity. From that link, they characterized the severity (death) but not the probability. Saying "you may die" is different from saying "your have a 50% chance of dying." My guess is nobody had a good estimate for the probability so nobody could have accurately communicated the risk.

"2. A portion of the operation will be conducted inside an experimental submersible vessel. The experimental submersible vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body and may be constructed of materials that have not been widely used in human occupied submersibles."

I don't know. This implies a high probability to me.

Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#52

Post by babypuncher »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #25
playa1 wrote: post #5

When CEOs make statements like this I assume they know they are lying for sake of the company. What makes this more interesting is that he clearly believed it was safe. So he wasn’t necessarily unethical. It is more that he was a bad engineer and a poor judge of risk.

Not really. He thought it was safer than it was. But I don't think he thought it was close to a 0% chance of death. It's clear that he knew it was somewhat risky. It failed after like 25 dives which means around a ~4% failure rate. I'd hope he thought it had less than a 1% failure rate. Who knows what the true failure rate is. Maybe they got really lucky, and it actually had a higher failure rate. Maybe they got extr…

I'm struggling to find real statistics to back this up, but my suspicion is that other deep-submergence vehicles used to travel to this depth (and further) have a failure rate of 0% for manned missions.

My suspicion is based on the fact that I can't find any other stories of deep sea vehicles failing and killing their passengers in the last 40 years. DSV Alvin for example has completed 5,000 dives with 0 fatalities.

Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#53

Post by Johnny555 »

playa1 wrote: post #5

When CEOs make statements like this I assume they know they are lying for sake of the company. What makes this more interesting is that he clearly believed it was safe. So he wasn’t necessarily unethical. It is more that he was a bad engineer and a poor judge of risk.

Given that he was in the submersible himself, I don't think he was lying, I think he really believed he was taking reasonable risks with cutting edge engineering.

Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#54

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

Nux wrote: post #36
jjulius wrote: post #17

An excerpt from an email Stockton Rush sent out, according to the article (emphasis mine): >I have grown tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation and new entrants from entering their small existing market. Since Guillermo and I started OceanGate we have heard the baseless cries of "you are going to kill someone" way too often. I take this as a serious personal insult. Just... wow.

A bet gone wrong.. Many innovations started off in a similar manner, ignoring or challenging the status quo.. That said, it's mighty spectacular and sad the way he was proven wrong. rip.

If cutting corners is considered an innovation, then it needs to be treated differently than other types of innovation. And not fall under this umbrella of "oh well he tried, nothing ventured nothing gained."

Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#55

Post by _Algernon_ »

miah_ wrote: post #33
_Algernon_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They signed a waiver that mentioned the risk of "death" 3 times on the first page. I'd call that broadcasting. Edit: I mean just read the waiver: https://nypost.com/2023/06/23/read-the-death-waiver-doomed-t... It speaks for itself.

If you ever do anything "risky" you'll fill out a similar form. Go look into skydiver liability forms, they also mention the possibility of death or injury. I suspect most people embarking on expensive & risky adventures are used to these and based on previous adventures being alright just sign the paperwork without reading or thinking about it deeply.

I'd be running the moment I read this paragraph:

>2. A portion of the operation will be conducted inside an experimental submersible vessel. The experimental submersible vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body and may be constructed of materials that have not been widely used in human occupied submersibles.

If you don't, you knew and accepted the risk.

Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#56

Post by joelegner »

freedomben wrote: post #47
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more to the point, taking safety warnings as a personal insult is a red flag for literally dangerous narcissism

> taking safety warnings as a personal insult is a red flag for literally dangerous narcissism It certainly can be, but I have worked with people that absolutely use "safety" as a reason not to do anything, or as a reason to shoot down ideas from people they are competing against (different departments, possible promotions, etc). Like most things in life, this is not black or white, it's some shade of gray.

Are you talking about life safety or some other kind of safety? “Safety” is a word having many different senses. Your mentioning of promotions and competing ideas makes it seem to me you are using safety in a much broader sense than the sense of safety one would have in mind when talking about submarines occupied by humans.

Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#57

Post by benjaminwai »

paulcole wrote: post #27
mydogcanpurr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue it's still unethical to put others at risk due to your own incompetence. I wouldn't offer to rewire someone's home because I'm not an electrician, and their house could burn down if I do it incorrectly.

Is it unethical if you don't know you're incompetent?

There has to be some amount of competency becoming a founder, CEO and a millionaire, with the various ventures he was involved.

Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#58

Post by _Algernon_ »

SoftTalker wrote: post #35
_Algernon_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They signed a waiver that mentioned the risk of "death" 3 times on the first page. I'd call that broadcasting. Edit: I mean just read the waiver: https://nypost.com/2023/06/23/read-the-death-waiver-doomed-t... It speaks for itself.

I sign waivers that mention the risk of "serious injury or death" for my kids to play little league. People just see it as legalese.

Do those waivers also mention the experimental vessel, explicitly disclaim that any regulations or certifications were followed, and that the construction materials are untested for the intended use?

>2. A portion of the operation will be conducted inside an experimental submersible vessel. The experimental submersible vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body and may be constructed of materials that have not been widely used in human occupied submersibles.

Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#59

Post by gtvwill »

scotty79 wrote: post #9
mydogcanpurr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue it's still unethical to put others at risk due to your own incompetence. I wouldn't offer to rewire someone's home because I'm not an electrician, and their house could burn down if I do it incorrectly.

> due to your own incompetence. Are you still unethical when you don't know about your incompetence? Can you be unethical if you had no ability to know that what you do is unethical?

Lol yes. Ethics judgements aren't exactly made by one's self on one's self (unless you really do bad and you live your life in regret). But are generally made by your peers and those around you. Your ignorance plays no bearing on their judgement of your actions being ethical or not. You can be the dumbest deadshit in the world and they can still judge your actions as unethical. So yes you can certainly be unethical, even if your too dumb to understand why.

Re: Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show

#60

Post by Johnny555 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #25
playa1 wrote: post #5

When CEOs make statements like this I assume they know they are lying for sake of the company. What makes this more interesting is that he clearly believed it was safe. So he wasn’t necessarily unethical. It is more that he was a bad engineer and a poor judge of risk.

Not really. He thought it was safer than it was. But I don't think he thought it was close to a 0% chance of death. It's clear that he knew it was somewhat risky. It failed after like 25 dives which means around a ~4% failure rate. I'd hope he thought it had less than a 1% failure rate. Who knows what the true failure rate is. Maybe they got really lucky, and it actually had a higher failure rate. Maybe they got extr…

>I'd hope he thought it had less than a 1% failure rate.

When failure means instant death that would be a pretty awful failure rate for a commercial product meant to take paying customers from the general public. And even if meant to take well informed researchers and engineers.

If failure meant "Oops, the ballast dropped prematurely, looks like we're going to have to cut this dive short", that's one thing, but when it means "You're going to be crushed by immense pressure in a millisecond", that's quite another.

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