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Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

bbc.com

481–490 of 618 posts

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I am unable to find a therapist, and I was unable to manage with antidepressants. My mechanism right now is "see if you still feel this way a week from now" which - so far - helps. It isn't so much that I changed my mind, but more that I understand that there are people that depend on me being around. Job is indeed a major factor. I don't currently work in a great place - it is generally a rather toxic pla…

Well what i can say is that there's always the possibility that you find true happiness somewhere you don't expect. It's gotta be somewhere you don't expect cause otherwise we'd have it by now! And since you can't expect it, you can't forsee it. But it's there, waiting for its moment. I came close a couple times but I held on and eventually found things. One thing that keeps me on is wanting to fix things. It can be…

Thank you for your thoughtful comment

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#482
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Occam's razor From my point of view Occam's razor here wouldn't be assassination. It's would be as mentioned above, mental health and overwhelmed by the sheer impact of your whistleblowing. Maybe there is no Occam's razor here if there's no obvious answer.

suicide due to mental health makes zero sense. sorry you just have to introduce way too many elements. The real explanation is simple.

I am grateful that you have been so fortunate in life to not even understand how someone’s feelings could lead to suicide.

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#483
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self inflicted wound in the middle of several days of scheduled depositions. Just about as suspicious as could be.

I'm not convinced. Boeing doesn't want more attention, depositions are stressful, and whistleblowers are predisposed to martyrdom. If you're Boeing, this doesn't make the problem go away, it makes it worse .

You shouldn't be convinced, no one has presented any evidence of anything happening or not happening. Being suspicious means the situation warrants investigation.

If there were foul play, the person who made the decision may not agree that this is worse for Boeing, or may not even care about what effect it has on Boeing at large. Being accused of something no one can prove might be greatly preferable to having specific evidence come to light, especially if the scrutiny will fall on a massive company instead of on you in particular.

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#484
post #188

The timing is suspicious but that doesn't mean it wasn't suicide. If he was determined to kill himself there might be several reasons to do it today. Maybe he wanted to cast suspicion on Boeing. Or maybe he didn't want to testify - could be tons of reasons for that. I have no idea. Just saying the two events could be connected without it being murder.

> Maybe he wanted to cast suspicion on Boeing What he already disclosed has done far more harm than that. And what he could have said would certainly cause even more harm than his silence.

Oh yes, it's ridiculously unlikely. Just the point is there are lots of ways for the timing to be not a coincidence, yet the death still a suicide.

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would a nation state "thrive" on assassinating this person? May I ask if you live in the U.S.? I have the impression that a lot of people there think that other nations revolve around destroying the U.S.

There are a lot of reports of Putin actively interfering to destabilize the west, and also reports in places like the NYTs about the US expanding bases in Ukraine to provoke Russia into the war. These aren’t Twitter rants, they’re in our mainstream “big” media outlets.

World leaders have way too much on their plate to be personally involved in assassinating random foreign citizens for high-degree political effects.

If you see this headline, and story, and immediately think of Putin, that is an unhealthy level of conspiratorial thinking. There is literally no evidence to support this line.

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a couple of ways to look at it: 1. If another player(s) are able to start and freely operate as a competitor then talented engineers will have more options for employment and each entity will have to compete on both price AND quality in order to win business. This requires continued investments. 2. If the original player is able to use regulatory frameworks, lobbying and other tactics to enforce a monopoly,…

We all know that the Boeing mess will end up with everyone involved in creating the mess walking away richer as the state goes in an cover whatever bill to keep boeing from collapsing as the alternative will be for non-american companies to take over the entire commercial airoplane manufacturing sector. The problem with the just more competition argument is that it never actually works once a market reach a broken st…

It can work as long as we're willing to let companies fail. Typically, a huge company shouldn't fail quickly, it should slowly downsize as it loses revenues to a competitor while it has time to react.

The government stepping in to just hand out money will preserve the broken status quo because the failure incentive has been removed.

Potential sudden failures due to outside factors like the collapse of the banking system are certainly different situations though.

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#487
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing was deleted. We never delete a comment, except when the author asks us to. As hayst4ck pointed out, your parent comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39676467 was flagged by users. When enough users flag a comment, it gets killed—but not deleted. Anyone with 'showdead' turned on in their profile can see all the killed comments. We can only guess why users flag things, but most likely it's because you'r…

> Nothing was deleted. We never delete a comment, except when the author asks us to. I have confirmed that the text of the comment has been replaced by [flagged] and is no longer readable. It's just sophistry to say that the text was only deleted and the comment was not deleted.

Wrong, your original comment is still viewable with showdead on. Dang is not trying to mislead you here, it seems you just legitimately aren't very familiar with this site.

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do know that professional hitmen actually exist, right? You can straight up pay a guy to kill someone for you. It would be utter insanity to ask someone who legally works for you to kill someone. Which is why that doesn't happen. What actually happens is someone tells someone to deal with the guy and a paper bag full of cash appears in front of Joe's Killin Place in the middle of the night.

No, professional corporate hitmen do not exist in contemporary America. Again, movies and video games are not real life. The only "hitmen" in real life are idiot junkies who get hired by their idiot cousin to kill their estranged wife in exchange for drug money and then immediately get caught because violent criminals are morons and not criminal masterminds.

[deleted]

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#489

Even if it was a suicide, that still doesn't mean it was self-motivated. People who care enough to be whistleblowers, would likely care enough about wellbeing of their family or other people - enough to sacrifice themselves once again under sufficient threats and pressure. Or, even more likely, end things not because directly being requested to, but because of having no other way to NOT be forced to back out and cowe…

Was this suicide by jumping out of window, like all of high profile suicides in russia?

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#490

The emotional strain of being a whistleblower and having your colleagues now see you as the enemy is not something I’ve read about, but it must take a toll. A whistleblower, almost by definition, is a hero to strangers and a villain to those they know and work with. Or he was simply executed like in many corporate espionage movies.

> The emotional strain of being a whistleblower and having your colleagues now see you as the enemy is not something I’ve read about, but it must take a toll. A whistleblower, almost by definition, is a hero to strangers and a villain to those they know and work with. Hmm I don't know, if I were a whistleblower I wouldn't really care what my colleagues would think. And I'd probably not continue working there anyway.…

Barnett spent 32 years at Boeing. This would be like everyone you've ever worked with in your career being against you.
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