…and I don’t know which possibility is the least worrying

  • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Many of these whistle-blowers are older experienced engineers who will be biased towards a higher death rate.

    This, plus being highly involved in any court case is extremely stressful, which can take a toll on your mental and physical health.

    Which is why I’m still kinda leaning towards an actual suicide with the first case. Being stressed, tired, having your life dictated around court schedules while you sleep in hotel rooms… I could see that wearing someone down after a while.

    I just don’t think it makes real sense for a company to hire an actual hitman to operate in the US. Corporate murders happen, but usually overseas, and usually not when they’ve already testified.

    Not saying it isn’t a possibility, I just think it’d be cheaper to pay the guy off and have him sign an NDA.

    • IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      A whistleblower is the type of person to refuse such an NDA, regardless of buy-off price. They would understand that if Boeing is willing to pay them 10 million or whatever, that the information they have, should they release it, prevent over 10 million dollars worth of damages to the public.

      I just don’t see someone like that committing suicide in a hotel parking lot out of state the day (two days?) before they are supposed to testify. That would go against everything they were doing up until that point.

      They wouldn’t just… go home instead?

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        A whistleblower is the type of person to refuse such an NDA, regardless of buy-off price. They would understand that if Boeing is willing to pay them 10 million or whatever, that the information they have, should they release it, prevent over 10 million dollars worth of damages to the public.

        Maybe, but 10 million dollars is nothing to Boeing, and an awful lot for even an ethically driven person. Especially if they’ve been laid off and are in active lawsuits against a multi billion dollar corporation.

        They can afford to stall as long as legally allowed, and the legal system is built to levy the scale in their favor. It’s basically impossible for a person in this type of suit to have a normal life, and the corporations know that and try to exploit it as much as they can.

        I just don’t see someone like that committing suicide in a hotel parking lot out of state the day (two days?) before they are supposed to testify. That would go against everything they were doing up until that point.

        Suicide isn’t timely, nor is it a logic based decision. Unfortunately it’s fairly common for people to kill themselves at times people (especially their loved ones) would not initially expect.

      • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
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        8 months ago

        I mean there’s an argument to be made that once the allegations are public, there’ll be in investigation regardless, and if you don’t want to go through the ordeal of being grilled by probably some of the best lawyers in the world or put your family through finding your body then it makes sense to commit suicide that way and still have a big impact

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Do you have a source for that? I doubt there’s graph of “workers murdered by companies, by country” or “murders, pre- vs post- whistleblowing” so it sounds like that might be at best an educational guess, or at worst pro-US bias.

        There’s no material reason to kill people who are going to testify against you anymore. Corporations basically started to capture the judicial system in the late 60’ and for the most part succeeded in their goals by the late 80s.

        Tort law has been effectively neutered, leaving the only real legal recourse being ineffective , long drawn out class action lawsuits. There is a reason the last person killed on that Wikipedia article was when unions started dying off.

        • Tryptaminev@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          This is incredibly naive. We are talking about a company that was literally too lazy to check if all the bolts were in place and secured in an airplane, risking a fatal incident with hundreds of people killed. And that is after two planes already force crashed killing everyone on board, because of a faulty IT system that was not properly checked.

          Boeing has proven plenty, that they have a full disregard for human lifes, if they think they can get away with it. So assassinating whistleblowers and using their influential friends to cover it up as opposed to uncertain and lengthy court battles requiring millions to be spent on it, is absolutely in character.

          Again that character was to ignore safety warnings, despite knowing that sooner or later a plane will crash and it will cause a shit ton of damages to the airlines and it will cause a shit ton of litigation towards Boeing. It was by far the obviously cheaper choice to just do proper QA. They have neither a moral nor a long term profit/investment outlook on humans lifes. All they care for is immediate profits.

          • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            This is incredibly naive. We are talking about a company that was literally too lazy to check if all the bolts were in place and secured in an airplane, risking a fatal incident with hundreds of people killed. And that is after two planes already force crashed killing everyone on board, because of a faulty IT system that was not properly checked.

            Why do you think an airplane company is so confident that they can ignore public safety in lieu of profits? It’s because they know the US Government is just going to give them a slap on the wrist. They effectively murdered those passengers, where’s the charges?

            Boeing has proven plenty, that they have a full disregard for human lifes, if they think they can get away with it. So assassinating whistleblowers and using their influential friends to cover it up as opposed to uncertain and lengthy court battles requiring millions to be spent on it, is absolutely in character.

            Corporations already have millions of dollars set aside for legal suits, it’s the price of doing business. They don’t care if court cases go on for long periods, they know they can remain solvent longer than their former employees.

            Also, killing a person doesn’t mean the court cases just stop, they’ve already given their testimony. Furthermore, hiring someone to kill someone isn’t getting rid of evidence, it’s just creating a new witness to your criminality. You think anyone working as a hired murderer is going to shy away from blackmail, or not use you as a bargaining chip if they ever get into legal trouble?

            it will cause a shit ton of litigation towards Boeing. It was by far the obviously cheaper choice to just do proper QA.

            dO yOu HaVe a SoUrCe 4 ThAt?

            Corporations do liability and cost-benifit analysis all the time, and it’s often a lot cheaper to deal with class action law suits than it is to do proper QA or Recalls, just look at the ford pinto.

            I think you overestimate the the effectiveness of courts to bring up punitive damages on multi billion dollar corporations.

        • Richard@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          That’s an incredibly long winded way to admit that you do not have a source.

          • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            Lol, no attempt to comprehend the argument?

            It’s silly that people are so adamant that sourced materials make up the entirety of any debate. Especially considering that the vast majority of people are terrible at actually comprehending what those sources are trying to say, and if they were created by authors with inherent biases.

            We live in a world with a glut of “scientific papers” created by corporations, think tanks, and desperate grad students.

            But since you insist…

            Here

            Not explicitly about hitmen, but it is about corporate murder and how the judicial system evolved to protect them. People still get killed by their employees all the time, now it’s just mostly unsafe working conditions. What is the point of utilizing a hitman when you have lawyers on retainer who can easily mitigate the problem legally?