[cbsmith]

> I'm baffled by this comment. It's exceedingly rare for two middle-aged and otherwise healthy people to die without warning.

No. It happens every day. Yes, if you pick two random middle-aged people at random, it's exceedingly rare for both of them to die without warning. However, if you pick a large population of otherwise healthy middle-aged people, the probably that two of them might die without warning is actually quite high.

The question is, how large is the population? If the union is to be believed (and there's a lot of credibility there), Boeing whistleblowers are a pretty large population. Add in to that the stress & disruption of being a whistleblower, and then layer on the stress from any retaliation from Boeing (which allegedly is happening on a daily basis), and the probability of two of them dying around the same time isn't really that low.

e.g., if you assume a mortality rate of 1 in 1000/yr (which seems very low, considering their circumstance) and a population of 100, the odds of two of them dying over the course of a year is over 50% (1-0.999^100)^2 = 53.29%.

[somenameforme]

I'm really trying to figure out where you got 53.29% from. Your formula is not only not how you'd calculate this, but gives 0.009. If you want to know the right answer, the easiest way is to do a binomial calculation, which is easiest using a calculator [1].

The answer is there being at least (so this value includes all possible values >= 2) 2 deaths in a population of 100 with a rate of 1 in 1000, would be 0.464%.

[1] - https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/binomial

[cbsmith]

You're right. I screwed up the math.

[LZ_Khan]

So... it's extremely unlikely two would die in the same year from natural causes.

(given a pool of 100, not even 32!)

[cbsmith]

If we assume their base mortality rate is 0.1%, that the pool is only 100, and that the deaths are completely independent (and we know that since they were both whistleblowers, both worked for the sample employer, that may very well not be true), it's a low probability case, yes. The sense is that those are both extremely conservative numbers.

Try looking at the cumulative probability for P(X>=2) when you manipulate the numbers a bit. Even if you just change the base probability of mortality to 1%, it jumps to 26% chance. If you restrict the population to 32 people, the threshold for it be more likely to happen than not is a 5.2% chance of death.

[LZ_Khan]

Well luckily the mortality rate for 45-55 in the US is well-documented at 0.5%.

Plugging that in the binomial calculator, P(X>=2) at 32 trials is... 0.09%!! Astronomically low odds.

And you are right, their deaths are certainly not independent :)

[cbsmith]

I'm not sure why you think the 0.5% figure is relevant. One of them was 62. Even if they were both 45-55, their risk of death would no doubt be dramatically higher than the mean. They were both whistle blowers, and not just ordinary whistle blowers, but whistle blowers in a high profile story. IIRC, at least one of them had been fired from their job in the last year. That's not average for that age group.

[somenameforme]

Here is how to use the calculator, because you're still messing up the math a bit. We'll assume a 1% chance of death, and a population of 32.

---

Probability = 0.01

Number of Trials = 32

Number of Successes = 2

Now you look at cumulative probability (P X>=2) = 4%

---

You are correct that if bump the chances up to an annual 5.2% of death, then finally it starts becoming reasonably probable. So, for contrast, whistle blowers at Boeing seem to have approximately the same survival rate as somebody diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer.

[sxg]

I agree with you in that the population size is the key question here. However, I have two issues:

First, otherwise healthy people don't just die from stress. Stress can sometimes exacerbate underlying health issues and lead to a long, downward spiral in health that can result in death, but it does not happen in a matter of just weeks or a couple months. It also does not happen in people without underlying health issues.

Second, while a mortality rate of 0.001/yr is reasonable for middle-aged men, that assumes we know nothing about them or their deaths—that isn't the case here. John Barnett's death was a suicide. According to the CDC, there were 14,668 suicides in the 45–64 age group in 2021. The 2020 census shows that there are 85 million people in the US in that same age group. The suicide mortality rate comes out to 0.00017, which is about an order of magnitude lower than your estimate. Josh Dean was otherwise healthy from what's being reported. Given his age and state of health, his 1-year mortality rate is also likely substantially lower than your estimate

[cbsmith]

> First, otherwise healthy people don't just die from stress. Stress can sometimes exacerbate underlying health issues and lead to a long, downward spiral in health that can result in death, but it does not happen in a matter of just weeks or a couple months. It also does not happen in people without underlying health issues.

First, there's a difference between being "otherwise healthy" and appearing to be "otherwise healthy". People who seem otherwise healthy but under a tremendous amount of stress are absolutely more likely to die from a sudden heart attack or stroke. People who seem otherwise healthy but under a tremendous amount of stress are absolutely more likely to commit suicide. People who seem otherwise healthy but under a tremendous amount of stress are absolutely more likely to be in a car accident...

> Second, while a mortality rate of 0.001/yr is reasonable for middle-aged men, that assumes we know nothing about them or their deaths—that isn't the case here. John Barnett's death was a suicide. According to the CDC, there were 14,668 suicides in the 45–64 age group in 2021. The 2020 census shows that there are 85 million people in the US in that same age group. The suicide mortality rate comes out to 0.00017, which is about an order of magnitude lower than your estimate. Josh Dean was otherwise healthy from what's being reported. Given his age and state of health, his 1-year mortality rate is also likely substantially lower than your estimate

I don't agree that John Barnett's death was as likely to occur as anyone else in that age group. He was almost certainly experiencing stress above the level of the top percentile of the 45-64 population. The mean likelihood of suicide mortality isn't representative of his risk condition.

But you're right, if you narrow it down to the specifics of the deaths, you can absolutely reduce the probability to ridiculously low percentages. Like throw in the day of the week that they died, the hour of the day, the use of a gun, the specific gun used, etc. Does that really reduce the chances that they died though?

[jjk166]

> But you're right, if you narrow it down to the specifics of the deaths, you can absolutely reduce the probability to ridiculously low percentages. Like throw in the day of the week that they died, the hour of the day, the use of a gun, the specific gun used, etc. Does that really reduce the chances that they died though?

The chance they died is 100%. The question we're asking is what are the odds we'd be talking about their death. If it had been a different day of the week or a different model of gun, that would not have an influence. If the cause of death were different, it would. No one would be talking about foul play had he died of say a long term chronic condition, or cancer, or a natural disaster. The odds of dying under suspicious circumstances are inherently less than the odds of just dying in general.

[ClumsyPilot]

> No one would be talking about foul play had he died of say a long term chronic condition, or cancer, or a natural disaster. The odds of dying under suspicious circumstances are inherently less than the odds of just dying in general.

This is an extremely important point, looking at most causes of death, they are things like Heart Disease, Alzheimer, Chancers, diabetes. Nobody would be accusing Boeing if that was the case. Comparing this to general chance of death will lead to vast overestimate.

You have to compare to causes of death that are sudden, where the person was healthy enough to testify in court just a few weeks ago.

[cbsmith]

How do you figure this is suspicious circumstances? The pathology seems pretty reasonable, he got sick, developed pneumonia & MRSA, and ultimately suffered a stroke. It's not like he had radiation poisoning.

[jjk166]

It's suspicious in that foul play can not be easily ruled out. It is plausible that someone could be deliberately infected with an infectious disease that has high odds of killing someone quickly. Conversely it's not plausible to say make a hurricane strike someone's house.

And again, this is all with the context of another suspicious death - gunshot wound to the head. Again, suspicious because foul play is plausible, not because there are no other reasonable explanations.

If someone died of something for which there was no reasonable explanation besides foul play, such as radiation poisoning, that would be referred to as evidence.

[cbsmith]

> The chance they died is 100%.

There you go. Because it is after the fact, it's a given. It's not surprising that you can find a connection of some kind between them after the fact. Just because you can, after the fact, draw the connection, doesn't change the probability that they are dead.

[jjk166]

But the suggestion of foul play against boeing whistleblowers was made before the second boeing whistleblower died. The connection was pre-existing.

And that is quite irrelevant to the question of what are the odds either of them, in isolation, would die under suspicious circumstances.

[cbsmith]

I was unaware of such prediction, but it's unsurprising. In that case, it's the probability of one dying, which was no more unlikely than the first one.

...and of course, people have said this about whistleblowers and witnesses who testify thousands of times. It'd be weird if one of those forecasts didn't come true once in a while.

[peter422]

One of those people died of a gunshot wound, so whether it was self-inflicted or not, their age and health and any related statistics have nothing to do with the death.

[cbsmith]

> One of those people died of a gunshot wound, so whether it was self-inflicted or not, their age and health and any related statistics have nothing to do with the death.

Mental health is health. Age and physical health are factors that can effect mental health, particularly when someone is under tremendous amounts of stress. Their age and health could very well have something to do with their death.