Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

abcnews4.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 505 posts

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#101

Post by 4ggr0 »

bmer wrote: post #84
gruez wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This happens way too often 1. What some other recent occurrences? 2. What's the baseline rate of suicides we should expect for people in high stress positions, like being a whistleblower? How many people could plausibly be categorized as "whistleblowers"?

One prominent one in recent memory is the Epstein "suicide". Aaron Swartz is another, although not so recent.

John McAfee?

EDIT: Not saying that I believe it or care, but even wiki mentions it. Thought it would fit the other mentions...

> McAfee's death ignited speculation and conspiracy theories about the possibility that he was murdered. Such speculation was particularly fueled by a 2019 post McAfee made on Twitter that read, in part, “If I suicide myself, I didn't. I was whackd [sic].”[133]

> Several times, McAfee claimed if he were ever found dead by hanging, it would mean he was murdered.[137] The day after his death, his lawyer told reporters that while he regularly maintained contact with McAfee in prison, there were no signs of suicidal intent.[138] McAfee's widow reaffirmed this position in her first public remarks since her husband's death, and also called for a "thorough" investigation.[139][140]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McAfee#Death

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#102

Post by mort96 »

zer00eyz wrote: post #89

Yea... SO if you really feel this way you say this to every reporter you see. You write it down and give it to your lawyer. Your wife. Your kids. You put copies in the safety deposit box. You give notarized copies to every 3rd homeless person you meet. You don't just tell one friend.

I mean he could just not have expected to be murdered?

If you're a whistleblower and truly expect there to be a high chance you get suicided, sure, you tell as many people as possible, but if it's not something you think is likely to happen, just telling one friend seems reasonable.

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#103

Post by hello_computer »

silisili wrote: post #4

This happens way too often, and I'm genuinely curious why. The easy answer is that paranoid people with a vendetta say exactly this to throw guilt onto the other party. The hard answer is harder to swallow. What can we do about it?

It is the way of the world. Television, magazines, social media, etc do their best to conceal it, but it is always there in the background. It boils down to power. Boeing can make fighter jets, I can't. This is where the socialists err. "If we just take their money!" They'll make it all back within the year. "If we just had a law!" They'll buy legislators, bribe judges & law enforcement. If that doesn't work, they'll kill people. The public will clutch its pearls over this, for a while anyway, then promptly forget.

The only solution is to remember and to retaliate on an individual basis (stop the wars, don't fly, shun execs, boycotts). And not just until they relent, because they are machines, and have no conscience. Do this until they hit the pink sheet, and then keep doing it.

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#104

Post by raizer88 »

geek_at wrote: post #6

While I can't see "Boeing" (as a whole command structure) can be blamed for his death I do see the possibility of some corrupt person in a high position fearing what he had on him personally and ordered a strike against him.

Boing is so entrenched with defence contractors that any one of them could have killed him to preserve existing contracts to be canned do to some "deep restructuring" due to the trial.

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#105

Post by pindab0ter »

zer00eyz wrote: post #89

Yea... SO if you really feel this way you say this to every reporter you see. You write it down and give it to your lawyer. Your wife. Your kids. You put copies in the safety deposit box. You give notarized copies to every 3rd homeless person you meet. You don't just tell one friend.

This is the rational thing to do, yes. I'm not sure I would've thought of getting that notarised myself.

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#106

Post by phpisthebest »

XorNot wrote: post #81
madaxe_again wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing is also deeply entwined with state/political entities with a strong vested interest in preserving the status quo who may not be squeamish about direct action. Against the general backdrop of Boeing’s woes, suiciding a whistleblower is low-hanging fruit. Who knows. Maybe he has a deadman’s set up.

Contrary to popular belief, there is not a readily and highly available supply of assassins and hitmen in the world. The problem with this whole "he totally didn't kill himself" thing is...okay, so how did they kill him? Because you can't just put a gun in the hand of an unwilling person and force them to shoot themselves without leaving evidence.

There is a case where a woman "stabbed her self" 17 or so times, including in the back of the head and it was ruled a "suicide"

It does not take much for a motivated medical examiner to rule a death a suicide, their are plenty of examples where clearly not suicide was been rule suicide in history.

Then there is always the movie "The Shooter" where they had an arm contraption purpose built to force someone to "commit suicide", The device itself is plausible

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#107

Post by politelemon »

zer00eyz wrote: post #89

Yea... SO if you really feel this way you say this to every reporter you see. You write it down and give it to your lawyer. Your wife. Your kids. You put copies in the safety deposit box. You give notarized copies to every 3rd homeless person you meet. You don't just tell one friend.

This is a poor take. People don't find themselves in this situation normally and we should not be expecting them to have TV-murder-mystery style hypervigilance.

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#108

Post by roenxi »

snickerer wrote: post #66
ixaxaar wrote: post #12

Oh so in Russia its jumping out a window and in the USA its some random method of suicide? Why not be specific, and consistent, like Russia?

Because in Russia it is an open message to the public 'don't mess with the KGB or we kill you and maybe your children'. Everybody knows and understands who is the sender and the message. Classic mafia move of intimidation. It is a message to the living. In the Western World the secret services kill to silence people, not to broadcast messages to the public. Quite the opposite PR strategy.

And when powerful people want to show off their power it tends to be less fatal and more drag-through-the-mud style tactics. Like what happened to Julian Assange. Killing him was an option on the table as far as I recall, but it wasn't what they ended up doing.

Although that being said, I wouldn't rule this out as being organised by Boeing's management or a major shareholder or something. It is a company in the military-industrial complex.

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#109

Post by switch007 »

sedatk wrote: post #71

No. If you’re concerned that you might get murdered, and want to make it clear that you have no intention of killing yourself, telling your one friend about it in a conversation in the midst of moving a sofa with no records to prove it whatsoever is the worst possible way of doing it. Tweet it, send it in a message, leave a note in your home. But, “hey push that side, and let’s lift this in 3..2…. oh by the way I hav…

While evaluation of someone's behaviour to work out the truth is a valid endeavour, I find people have a tendency – and I notice it often in our community – to expect perfect rationality in humans at all times. I guess as it makes it easier to criticise them.

People who are stressed, sick, anxious, depressed etc often operate more on emotion and in aa reactive way rather than with foresight, clarity and rationality.

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#110

Post by DonHopkins »

ixaxaar wrote: post #12

Oh so in Russia its jumping out a window and in the USA its some random method of suicide? Why not be specific, and consistent, like Russia?

Not random. In Russia, they blame it on an open window in a tall building. In America they blame it on a black guy with a gun.

Man in Sioux Falls, South Dakota shoots himself in penis and tries to blame black guy:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/man-shoots...

‘We failed the city of Boston’: how a racist manhunt led to chaos in 1989:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/dec/07/we-fail...

Blake Masters blames Black people for gun violence. But remember, he's no racist:

https://eu.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2...

Post reply on HN