If I drive to the store to get milk and end up getting in a fatal accident along the way, am I pursuing milk at the expense of human lives?

If you drove to the store in a car you knew had faulty brakes and killed someone: yes you would be pursuing milk at the expense of human lives. And I guarantee you if they could prove you knew your brakes were bad, the punishment would absolutely be worse than if you just had an unpreventable accident.

This assumes Boeing had a priori knowledge that the system would cause a crash.

The fact that the system safety analysis didn't label it 'catastrophic' seems to indicate they didn't know this. This doesn't absolve them of the responsibility that they should have, or that they still didn't follow their design procedures stating redundant senaors

“I didn’t KNOW removing three of the four brakes on my car would cause a crash” is an argument you could make. I wouldn’t want to stake my freedom on it.

That's assuming you are making a connection between brakes and a catastrophic failure.

The fact the system safety analysis didn't call out an MCAS failure as catastrophic seems to indicate they misunderstood the system risk which is different than claiming a catastrophic failure is an acceptable risk

Yes. Driving is dangerous. Our society has just deemed its danger acceptable even though we know how many people die because we are so dependent on cars. This is the grim fact of the matter.

It's like going to get milk every day for 20 years, then deciding to let your sometimes reliable brother get milk for you because it's cheaper, and after they kill people in a wreck getting milk you keep on letting them get milk for you.

Except, going by your anology, this would be the first time Boeings brother killed someone getting milk.

If you weren't wearing a seatbelt, then yeah, that's a fair characterization.

Not trying to be a Boeing apologist, but if the bar is "zero risk" almost no business plan in industry would be implemented.

They have to acknowledge at some point that lives may be at risk in their business. Whether or not that risk level is a acceptable and that they properly gauge that risk 8s another matter