Comment by stringsandchars | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stringsandchars | Hacker News Reader

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stringsandchars

> I don’t think it makes sense for passengers to worry about the plane model.

Why do you think we should surrender the tiny amount of agency that we still have, in the face of corporate profit-driven deterioration?

For me, this isn't about a measured risk in relation to other known risks in my life (crossing the road, cycling, drinking alcohol). It's about removing a totally unnecessary risk caused by greed and corporate heedlessness.

A similar case: I stopped eating British Beef when a British minister fed his daughter a beefburger[0] to 'prove' it was "totally safe", during the 'Mad Cow Disease' (BSE) crisis in 1990. I wasn't significantly worried about contracting BSE at the time, but the lengths and efforts that the government went to, to convince people to eat more beef for 'patriotic' reasons, when the farmers had fed their cows on ground-up carcasses for economic gain, meant that my boycott was a small but meaningful expression of my own agency when faced by this sort of appalling behavior.

I feel the same way about Boeing, and about the greed of airlines (like RyanAir), that think only about profit and see passenger safety as an irritating distraction that is only important in terms of 'brand perception'.

[0] https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/bse-crisis-john-se...

You may choose to not fly on a boeing plane for political reasons. But if you are concerned about risk, it’s not about comparing the risk of a flight in Max vs riding a bicycle. It’s about a flight in Max vs say, an A320.

What I am saying is that those respective risks are so tiny that they are immaterial, and not worth worrying about. If you want to spend energy making your trip safer, you should worry much more about what car model will drive you to or from the airport, or level of crime in public transports, etc.

> You may choose to not fly on a boeing plane for political reasons

These are not political reasons. I'm for many years now trying to avoid flying on the 737 MAX and 787. Not because I dislike the planes even as a passenger, or because I worry about crashing, or because I have a political agenda. I want to use the little bit of voting with the wallet I have. This is the core of how our system works.

I understand that in the grand scheme of things this is not really doing anything, but if a sufficient number of people make airlines uncomfortable they will increase the pressure on Boeing to improve their processes.

The current duopoly/monopoly on aircraft manufacturers is preventing innovation in the space and I do not appreciate this a single bit.

> These are not political reasons.

> I want to use the little bit of voting with the wallet I have.

Technically, voting with your wallet is a political statement, which you are sending to Boeing management and shareholders to make the world a tiny bit less profit-at-all-cost-driven.

It is interesting that people automatically equate "political" with party or country politics, which gives it a bad rep. When in fact it is a healthy thing if more people were to think and act like you and stand for their principles on issues however minor-sounding.

> Technically, voting with your wallet is a political statement, which you are sending to Boeing management and shareholders to make the world a tiny bit less profit-at-all-cost-driven.

This must be why corporations are people in the US. Voting with your wallet is an economic statement, not a political one. It can be done for any reason, let alone an ideological one. Not letting your kid go bungee jumping because you feel it unsafe is not a political statement.

Flying on a Boeing plane is incredibly safe, millions of people do it incident free every year.

Bungee jumping is actually a great comparison, because it’s also an incredibly safe activity, with only two dozen or so people dying in this century.

To put it in comparable terms, and based on random Googling, bungee jumping is approx 2 micromorts, compared to swimming, which is 12, and flying, which is 2.1 per 30,000 miles flown.

No it's not. It's a statement, yes. Not a political one necessarily.

I stopped buying El Monterrey frozen burritos last year. They removed some of the beef and replaced it with filler rice. I did not appreciate that cost-cutting, so I stopped giving them my money. It's not a political stance that I have here, it's an economic one. I don't like shrinkflation so I don't reward it.

I will refuse to buy any GM car because they made a decision to juice their subscription revenue. This has nothing to do with my political stance. It's an economic decision.

And so with the Boeing planes. They're obviously cutting corners in their safety department. The result is still a mode of travel that's really safe, but the way we got to that level of safety is by not cutting corners. I may decline to reward a company that has decided to trade a little of that hard-won safety margin for some better financial numbers.

Exercising choice as a consumer is not by definition political, but can be political. I think the technicality you pointed out is incorrect.

Oxford: (political) "Of, belonging to, or concerned with the form, organization, and administration of a state, and with the regulation of its relations with other states." [1]

Webster: (political, (2)) "of, relating to, involving, or involved in politics and especially party politics" [2]

I would therefore interpret taking a principled stance because of concerns for personal safety as not political. As another example, OTOH, given party politics can be either pro or anti-union, boycotting Boeing (based on party politics) because it was pro or anti-union - would be political.

[1] https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=polit...

[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/political

> Technically, voting with your wallet is a political statement

There is a strange thing going on where any agency by individual citizen is called political. My efforts are somehow not a valid market activity, they are politics, and should not go too far.

But any political effort by business, for example to undermine consumer safety, is ‘just business’ or ‘free market’. They should not be judged for doing so.

> but if a sufficient number of people make airlines uncomfortable they will increase the pressure on Boeing to improve their processes

I hear this sentiment a lot. And logically, it is true. But maybe it's my cynic nature, but isn't this like counting on a natural disaster level of impossible? This is something which can happen but has happened in history very few times (I personally can't think of any instances, but there has to be some company ruined by a boycott). I am not saying you are wrong, but I find this a naive view.

Edit: Let me clarify a bit. I am not saying companies have not taken feedback through what sells and doesn't sell, that of course happens. But I don't know of many instances where individuals spontaneously or otherwise caused a company to change their internal structures and processes. The implication that consumers have a knob to finetune a company process is what I disagree with.

I understand your reasoning and completely agree with it, but I suggest that if you feel strongly about this that you put some effort into actual politics, because in my opinion the only way that issues like these are solved is by regulation and giving teeth to agencies charged with it. Unfortunately our consumer dollars are insignificant to a company like Boeing supplying a very high-value market that is incredibly inelastic and 'too-big-to-fail', so the only way to dis-incentivize evil behavior is by punishing them for doing it.

I don't think they're as small as you're saying. There have been multiple well documented incidents with 737 MAX that have not been with the A320. Maybe you think it's small enough to not worry about, said incidents are enough for me to want to avoid that aircraft entirely. Absolute risk is certainly still low, but I'll take the safer in comparative risk any day there.

Paying attention to planes and risks of other forms of transport are not mutually exclusive.

The 737 MAX has crashed 2 times in 800,000 flights - >100M passengers.

The industry average for plane crashes is 1 in 16.7M flights. The 737 MAX is 1 in 400,000.

This seems a lot worse than most people are making it out to be on here. It's close to 2 orders of magnitude worse than the industry average.

And if I'm doing my math right, you have a higher chance of dying getting aboard a 737 MAX than you do getting in your car (obviously, you're going to travel A LOT farther on the MAX than you would on an average car trip - so per mile it's still significantly safer than a car).

If you don’t like the free market you can go live in … well. Maybe err. Well, you should like the free market.

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