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Boeing retaliated against its own engineers working for FAA, union says

seattletimes.com

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Re: Boeing retaliated against its own engineers working for FAA, union says

#31

Post by soco »

robertlagrant wrote: post #6
resource_waste wrote: post #2

Companies are amoral, they literally can't be otherwise. I'm not sure where that puts humans in an effort to defend ourselves. We must be moral, we are judged harshly otherwise. A company uses psychology tricks against its customers(aka Ads/Marketing) making them feel status insecure or a group outsider, totally fine. Actually, those blue bubbles were a great idea, I made sooo much money on stocks. Really feel bad fo…

> there is some power sharing agreement between government, corporations, and to a significantly lesser extent workers/consumers. We only judge that latter group on morals. As in we don't judge government or corporation on morals? Of course people do that.

We should however judge them on laws - which are missing at the moment.

Re: Boeing retaliated against its own engineers working for FAA, union says

#32

Post by ThinkBeat »

The companies are in various ways run by people.

Unfortunately, it has become accepted that raw greed is a great ideology for running a business. Which in turn attracts people who are driven by greed.

These days we have a lot of people leading companies making bullshit flowery descriptions of their company and how to run things. but sadly for the most part this is stripped away when reality sets in.

Especially if the company is beholdent to investors or shareholders or similar hands behind the scenes who have their own agendas.

A lot of horrible and inhuman things companies do are explicitly legal. More so in some countries than in others.

As long as we worship greed, things cannot improve.

The Oxford definition of greed:

"intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food"

Greed by its nature is depriving others of something. If there is an endless supply of food lets say. Post scarcity, anyone can eat as much as they want, a person eating a lot of not displaying selfishness. . It may be gluttony, but the person is only harming itself.

If there is scarcity of food, and a person is hoarding it for itself is greed and it means others go hungry.

That is not a hypothetical.

It is the way our society works right now. Some people, cities, states, nations, have far more than they could ever eat, while others in different places are starving to death. Even within the US, a place with a supreme abundance of food, peole are going hungry

Re: Boeing retaliated against its own engineers working for FAA, union says

#33

Post by [deleted] »

resource_waste wrote: post #2

Companies are amoral, they literally can't be otherwise. I'm not sure where that puts humans in an effort to defend ourselves. We must be moral, we are judged harshly otherwise. A company uses psychology tricks against its customers(aka Ads/Marketing) making them feel status insecure or a group outsider, totally fine. Actually, those blue bubbles were a great idea, I made sooo much money on stocks. Really feel bad fo…

[deleted]

Re: Boeing retaliated against its own engineers working for FAA, union says

#34

Post by projectileboy »

dmix wrote: post #29
indymike wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies are amoral, they literally can't be otherwise. If you were to make a Venn diagram of amoral and illegal (including civil malfeasance) have a pretty large overlap. Eventually, the illegal part gets people (even CEOs) sued, fired and/or jailed, but the company might continue if it can afford to pay the legal bills. > These big companies are applauded for being amoral because their stock prices go up. I don'…

> Society has decided that closing down large employers is a cure worse than the disease. This sort of thinking is exactly why companies like Boeing get a free pass to do whatever it wants. Local govs protect them like the mob because "jobs" and then Congress panics every time they see the market only has 1-2 options for national security stuff and then reinforces monopolies that slowly eat away at the country's comp…

The 1-2 options is a big part of the problem. Government has been willfully asleep at the wheel allowing massive mergers to take place for decades. Then, oops, all of the few remaining companies are now too big to fail, so now what? This isn’t only a problem in the defense industry.

Re: Boeing retaliated against its own engineers working for FAA, union says

#35

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

CaptainOfCoit wrote: post #11
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies are amoral, they literally can't be otherwise. This is not true. Some company’s value proposition is explicitly moral virtue, eg organic food brands. They tend to be family-owned SMO rather than international publicly traded corporations. The issue has more to do with scale and diffusion of responsibility.

Unless those organic food brands are structured as non-profits, they'll eventually need to make compromises on their value proposition, balanced in a way that shareholders/owners get profits while (hopefully) still provide a net-positive to society. So far, not many for-profit companies have been successful long-term in balancing those two things, as net-positive for society is not strictly necessary for the ultimate…

In the eternal words of Norm McDonald: "no offense but it sounds like some commie gobbledygook".

Re: Boeing retaliated against its own engineers working for FAA, union says

#36

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

dwallin wrote: post #10
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies are amoral, they literally can't be otherwise. This is not true. Some company’s value proposition is explicitly moral virtue, eg organic food brands. They tend to be family-owned SMO rather than international publicly traded corporations. The issue has more to do with scale and diffusion of responsibility.

Maybe it would be more accurate to say that the structure of a public corporation is inherently (and imo, intentionally) amoral? A defining characteristic of modern capitalism is the widespread laundering of responsibility.

Incidentally, this is also true for modern democracies.

Re: Boeing retaliated against its own engineers working for FAA, union says

#38

Post by helsinkiandrew »

> engineers overseeing design work on behalf of the Federal Aviation Administration

Who would have thought that engineers employed by Boeing but working 'for' the FAA would cause an issue? It's the 'business friendly' relationship between the FAA and Boeing that's lost both credibility around the world.

This quote from Seattle Times article sums up the relationship:

> “The FAA basically takes orders from Boeing. That’s been going on for the past 10, 15 years for sure,” said Joe Jacobsen, who worked for Boeing from 1984 to 1995 and then at the FAA for more than 15 years. “At the FAA, they talked about being a partnership [between the regulator and the company]. I would call it more of an abusive-spouse relationship.”

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/faas-cozy-relationship... (archive: https://archive.ph/F5BWe)

Re: Boeing retaliated against its own engineers working for FAA, union says

#39

Post by resource_waste »

indymike wrote: post #13
resource_waste wrote: post #2

Companies are amoral, they literally can't be otherwise. I'm not sure where that puts humans in an effort to defend ourselves. We must be moral, we are judged harshly otherwise. A company uses psychology tricks against its customers(aka Ads/Marketing) making them feel status insecure or a group outsider, totally fine. Actually, those blue bubbles were a great idea, I made sooo much money on stocks. Really feel bad fo…

> Companies are amoral, they literally can't be otherwise. If you were to make a Venn diagram of amoral and illegal (including civil malfeasance) have a pretty large overlap. Eventually, the illegal part gets people (even CEOs) sued, fired and/or jailed, but the company might continue if it can afford to pay the legal bills. > These big companies are applauded for being amoral because their stock prices go up. I don'…

>If you were to make a Venn diagram of amoral and illegal (including civil malfeasance) have a pretty large overlap.

What is moral about the American Medical Association using Taxes to fund their artificially scarce residency programs which causes consumer prices to go up?

Okay, so that one falls outside the venn diagram.

With lobbyists writing the laws, I'm really wondering if there is as much overlap as you think.

Re: Boeing retaliated against its own engineers working for FAA, union says

#40

Post by resource_waste »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #4
resource_waste wrote: post #2

Companies are amoral, they literally can't be otherwise. I'm not sure where that puts humans in an effort to defend ourselves. We must be moral, we are judged harshly otherwise. A company uses psychology tricks against its customers(aka Ads/Marketing) making them feel status insecure or a group outsider, totally fine. Actually, those blue bubbles were a great idea, I made sooo much money on stocks. Really feel bad fo…

> Companies are amoral, they literally can't be otherwise. This is not true. Some company’s value proposition is explicitly moral virtue, eg organic food brands. They tend to be family-owned SMO rather than international publicly traded corporations. The issue has more to do with scale and diffusion of responsibility.

These kind of comments make me sad because I remember being younger and believing this stuff.

Companies are legal entities, they are amoral. What you are seeing is a leader. I really hope that leader that you believe in, and inspires you to believe and comment such things on HN never fails you.

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