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Comment by lisper | Hacker News Reader

The problem is not that this is a big number of deaths in an absolute sense. The problem is that this is a big number of deaths to result from a chain of events that can ultimately be traced back to a strategic decision by Boeing to increase profits, and where an explicit component of that strategy was to cut corners on training. The whole point of MCAS was to avoid the overhead of having to obtain a new type certificate for the new engine design, and that lead to 346 deaths. That's the problem.

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All deaths can be traced back to some kind of profit motive, but I don't see you protesting every hospital/doctor on the planet.

It's incredibly dangerous to propose changes to the FAA, given how much of an unqualified success they've had over the years at keeping flight safe. Don't let y our populist rage kill probably one of the best/most successful government institutions the US has ever created.

> It's incredibly dangerous to propose changes to the FAA

That is an incredibly ironic thing to say, because these deaths are a result of changes to the FAA, specifically, the delegation of the FAA's regulatory authority to the company being regulated. That this would not end well was easily foreseeable because it's such a blatant conflict of interest.

Literally not true, but okay...

Which part isn’t true?

The fact that my comment is ironic...

Then you don't understand irony. Which is itself ironic.

I was using the word in this sense:

"Irony: a literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character's words or actions are clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character."

This isn't a story, and I am not a character. If that's what you were using it like, you are wrong. It'd make at least some sense if you incorrectly meant "irony" in the sense that fucking with the FAA, which I said was bad, is how the MAX was made so poorly.

Your fake choice of definition is even worse than what you actually meant.

Wow. Not only do you not understand irony, you apparently don't understand literature either.

    All the world’s indeed a stage
    And we are merely players
    Performers and portrayers
    Each another’s audience
    Outside the gilded cage

Sounds like I do understand irony, and you don't like being called out for not understanding it yourself.

It is possible to see irony in real world statements, actions and situations; "irony" is not strictly the name of several literary or dramatic devices.

Of course it's possible, it's just not present here. I never said irony was exclusive to narratives, I said the irony he's failing to accurately point out is.

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