Prior to his death, whistleblower John Barnett was testifying against Boeing over concerns about standards.

John Barnett had worked for Boeing for 32 years, until his retirement in 2017.

In the days before his death, he had been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company.

Boeing said it was saddened to hear of Mr Barnett’s passing. The Charleston County coroner confirmed his death to the BBC on Monday.

It said the 62-year-old had died from a “self-inflicted” wound on 9 March and police were investigating.

  • @[email protected]
    50•9 months ago

    A conspiracy is when a group plans to do something unlawful. So if it’s proven true it’s still a conspiracy. It just stops being a theory.

    • @[email protected]
      9•9 months ago

      A “theory” is a collection of information we currently understand to be true.

      The term “conspiracy theory” is a misnomer that should be correctly expressed as “conspiracy hypothesis”. But that’s just a theory.

    • @[email protected]
      2•8 months ago

      I think the confusion arises from the secrecy part. A conspiracy is understood to be a secret unlawful activity, especially of subversive nature. When it’s not secret anymore is it still conspiracy? or is it just organised crime? I know it feels just pedantic, but this is why the media abuses words to steer collective opinion. Nowadays you can just say something is a conspiracy and people will believe it’s fake without recourse.

      • @[email protected]
        1•8 months ago

        I was just being kind of funny. Language is weird and I’m pretty sure that the word conspiracy is headed through the change to mean “Crazy people think this thing is true”

        • @[email protected]
          2•8 months ago

          Then we need to find another word to express when people gets together to do shady shit, which happens more often than not.

          • @[email protected]
            2•8 months ago

            No arguments here. I’d like to be able to differentiate between people going shady shit and flat earth believers.