Everyone wants engineers

[Macoy]

Now that politics has been taken over by lawyers & accountants, the world thinks that politicians should control the engineers.

I say, put engineers back into government!

[madurobob]

Bah - what do we need engineers for? Don't trains pretty much run along the tracks anyway?

[Macoy]

Bah - what do we need engineers for? Don't trains pretty much run along the tracks anyway?

How much do you think you can offer for the maintenance contract?

[madurobob]

How much do you think you can offer for the maintenance contract?

"Offer"? Don't people pay to play with trains, so the "maintenance" is actually revenue generating? Me, I was always more of a 1/32nd scale slot-car guy, but to each his own.

Curiously, in my hometown, most of the local politicians could be found on Saturdays down at the hobby shop playing with trains and slot cars.

[Macoy]

"Offer"? Don't people pay to play with trains, so the "maintenance" is actually revenue generating? Me, I was always more of a 1/32nd scale slot-car guy, but to each his own.

Curiously, in my hometown, most of the local politicians could be found on Saturdays down at the hobby shop playing with trains and slot cars.

Nevertheless, engineers must once again have equal power with politicians.

[tracer]

I agree, everyone wants an engineer. They can make Frost Grenades, which will totally pwn those alliance noobs in Warsong Gulch.

[geni]

Nevertheless, engineers must once again have equal power with politicians.

They never did. Letting engineers run anything is a bad idea. They underestimate the cost then overspend to a degree that even the worst run goverment departments would fail to match. Throw in the anoying habit of building the entire project around problematical tech and you end up in a situation rather simular to the canals in the south west of england.

[Macoy]

Politicians find it difficult to hand back power.

Engineers were persuaded in 1944 to give up theirs for "the greater good" - they never got it back. Foolish though they were, they must retrieve their equivalence.

[DRBUZZ0]

Now that politics has been taken over by lawyers & accountants, the world thinks that politicians should control the engineers.

I say, put engineers back into government!

Are you kidding? That's never going to happen. Engineers do crap. That's their job. To make things happen and solve problems. That's not what politics is about.

You tell an engineer that you need something done and what do they do? Whine about it? blame someone else? Say they have a plan and then never come up with it?

No, an engineer will look at the problem and the avaliable resources and come up with a comprehensive and entirely reasonable means of addressing it as efficiently and effectively as possible.

You put an engineer into politics and the first thing they'll do is make an obvious observation like "The second assistant deputy undersecretary of the commission to reduce government waste seems to not be doing anything. We should eliminate the whole commission actually and instead just start off by removing outdated regulations and policies and then consolidate the ones we have which apply to similar situations"

This will obviously make you no friends in the halls of politics because it means that some cushy union job would get cut and someone who works for the government might actually have to do work. it also means that contractors would not be able to intentionally drag their feet. Lots of other things which have one thing in common: They would be nearly universally opposed by any in the government

And that is why an engineer could not be a politician.

[madurobob]

Engineers were persuaded in 1944 to give up theirs for "the greater good" - they never got it back.

Sorry, my engineering history is a bit weak. Was there some surrender ceremony I missed reading about?

But, still, DBUZZO is right. The whole "need to fix things all the time" aspect makes engineers poor politicians. Its the same with my wife and I: she comes home to tell me of some terrible thing happening at work. I think abut it and give her a few very viable solutions. Wrong answer! She doesn't want solutions, she wants a someone to listen and say "everythings gonna be ok... have a martini!"

Thats what we want out of our politicians - someone to to lie to us and tell us everything will be OK. But, don't go fixing anything!

[Solitaire]

Nevertheless, engineers must once again have equal power with politicians.

Jimmy Carter 4 Ever! http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/154733e3f1e1414.gif

[jimbob]

From The engineer magazine (http://www.theengineer.co.uk/Articles/303931/Model+for+a+profession.htm)

and the linked interview (http://www.theengineer.co.uk/Articles/303950/Creation+theory.htm)



In fact, Wise believes engineers are best placed to deal with the big questions facing today's society. 'Politicians are concerned with being re-elected. Scientists are reluctant to take responsibility — they deal with facts — so it's up to other people to decide what to do with them.

'Social planners and think-tanks might decide how the world should be, but they have no method of actually affecting it. Engineers, as creative people, should be near the top of the tree as they can take responsibility for identifying the questions we need to deal with, because they are trained — or should be — to take multiple variables and join things together.'

That should stir the pot a little...

My job is about 70% engineering and 30% science...

[brodski]

Politicians find it difficult to hand back power.

Engineers were persuaded in 1944 to give up theirs for "the greater good" - they never got it back. Foolish though they were, they must retrieve their equivalence.

Absolutely, who needs democratic society anyway?
A entire cast of engineer-kings is what we need, let the pocket protector be their fasces!

Unite, my technocrats for who can deny that on all matter you know best.

[brodski]

But, still, DBUZZO is right. The whole "need to fix things all the time" aspect makes engineers poor politicians.

Have you actually had much experience working with politicians?

the "need to fix things all the time" is actually a pretty strong character trait in most of those that I have worked with.

Of course they also have to operate within the bounds of political reality. Would engineering training change that political reality?

[The Man]

DILBERT

for
PRESIDENT

in
2008


"Dilbert is great for ‘08"

"Engineering a better America"

[geni]

Are you kidding? That's never going to happen. Engineers do crap. That's their job. To make things happen and solve problems. That's not what politics is about.

You tell an engineer that you need something done and what do they do? Whine about it? blame someone else? Say they have a plan and then never come up with it?

No, an engineer will look at the problem and the avaliable resources and come up with a comprehensive and entirely reasonable means of addressing it as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Umm the grand western canal?

it also means that contractors would not be able to intentionally drag their feet.

Um the Southampton & Salisbury canal.

[madurobob]

Have you actually had much experience working with politicians?

the "need to fix things all the time" is actually a pretty strong character trait in most of those that I have worked with.
On a local level - county commissioners and such - yes. My experience is that they spend a lot of time listening to citizen input on things that should be done/fixed. Then, a similar amount of time figuring out ways to not really fix anything, but look like a hero not doing it.

I'll certainly admit that politicians talk an awful lot about fixing things - because thats the general basis of their interaction with their constituents. But, actually fixing things is another matter entirely. Thus my (ok, partially facetious) statement that the constituency wants someone to talk a good game, but not necessarily do anything. How else can I explain the fact that we keep electing the same county commissioners who say their going to fix things then get nothing done?

Of course they also have to operate within the bounds of political reality. Would engineering training change that political reality?
Yes, I think "political reality" = "get nothing done". I don't think an engineering background would make any difference.

[Khonshu]

Since I am an engineer who has been surrounded by politics his whole life (mom worked at the state capital - I played in Gov. Carter's office as a kid) I feel obliged to comment here. Engineers that can survive politics are rarer than hen's teeth.

Politics is a mean, cutthroat business at times, and most engineers I know are very good at picking through to find solutions to problems - except when it comes to how to get the backing you need to actually solve the problem. That is the realm of the politician, and why there are so few ideal engineering solutions that actually get built. To look into my field, transportation - costs have skyrocketed, our infrastructure is aging. A large part of the solution no matter how you look at it, is raising the money to fix/upgrade/replace the infrastructure. An engineer would raise taxes, fees, etc. - but that's not what our current batch of politicians got elected to do ("no new taxes!"), so it ain't happening anytime soon. It will wait until the infrastructure is in worse shape, and it starts hitting everyone hard with delays, car repairs, stuff falling down, etc. - then people will be clamoring to fix it.

One of my transportation professors told me, "Engineers don't build roads, politicians do." He was right - find a road, bridge, or building named after an engineer...

[Esperdome]

I think there is a misconception that all engineers are ethical, in my experience some are about as ethical as your average ambulance chaser.

If all politicians were engineers, which ones would rise to the top, the most ethical ones or the least ethical ones?

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

One of my transportation professors told me, "Engineers don't build roads, politicians do." He was right - find a road, bridge, or building named after an engineer...

Michael Faraday House (http://www.theiet.org/about/locations/mfh.cfm)

Thomas Telford had a whole town named after him!

:p

ETA: That's the town of 'Telford', not 'Thomas':)

[Ivor the Engineer]

I think there is a misconception that all engineers are ethical, in my experience some are about as ethical as your average ambulance chaser.

If all politicians were engineers, which ones would rise to the top, the most ethical ones or the least ethical ones?

Exactly. If you want power and money you have to be prepared to **** people over.

[brodski]

Exactly. If you want power and money you have to be prepared to **** people over.

Personally I think we should get more scientists in top political jobs, I mean if we had a Chemist, especially female one, as the prime minister, well all our troubles would be over - a new age of political co-operation would dawn- there would never be any kind of underhand political scheming. ;)

[Ivor the Engineer]

Personally I think we should get more scientists in top political jobs, I mean if we had a Chemist, especially female one, as the prime minister, well all our troubles would be over - a new age of political co-operation would dawn- there would never be any kind of underhand political scheming. ;)

She was also a Lawyer, something which seems to be almost a prerequisite these days for a high-flying political career in the UK.

[DrBaltar]

Dr Baltar was president. That was a smashing success!

[DRBUZZ0]

One of the problems might be that engineers tend to be somewhat condescending toward those who are technically ignorant. So if you have a politician taking questions and someone asks something like "Shouldn't we have more wind power instead of building that dirty coal plant which is proposed." A politician will give a cushy answer like "We need to be investigating these things and I'm fully committed toward green energy sources" even though he knows full well that the coal plant is what will be built.

Now an engineer might take the same question and say "Pff" *Eyeroll* "Alright lets look at this. We have sustained winds here of about 12mph at 300 meters. At that rate you'd get a turbine to work at about 20% of output on a nominal day with 10% on unfavorable days. Thus if you want to provide grid stable energy you're going to need how many? Anyone? Anyone? Well, if you go with the three megawatt models you're going to need at least 500. now if you consider the return on investment here, you'll find it's not a very good choice. The other option we could look at is combined cycle gas turbine. Now how much gas are we going to need to import? Anyone? Christ! Doesn't anyone here know what the effeciency of one of those turbined is? FINE! I'll hold your damn hand and just tell you it's 54% on a nominal day when operating at 80% capacity and it can be reliable to 48% if we have a hot day. Now lets consider the demand. We'll need peak output of..."

[geni]

Michael Faraday House (http://www.theiet.org/about/locations/mfh.cfm)

Thomas Telford had a whole town named after him!

:p

ETA: That's the town of 'Telford', not 'Thomas':)

Telford was the guy who tried (mostly sucessfuly it has to be said) to take credit was Pontcysyllte Aqueduct from William Jessop (who was the principle engineer on the project and knew far more about iron than telford did).

[jimbob]

Telford was the guy who tried (mostly sucessfuly it has to be said) to take credit was Pontcysyllte Aqueduct from William Jessop (who was the principle engineer on the project and knew far more about iron than telford did).

Evidence for Ivor's other statement:


Exactly. If you want power and money you have to be prepared to **** people over.

[DrBaltar]

One of the problems might be that engineers tend to be somewhat condescending toward those who are technically ignorant. So if you have a politician taking questions and someone asks something like "Shouldn't we have more wind power instead of building that dirty coal plant which is proposed." A politician will give a cushy answer like "We need to be investigating these things and I'm fully committed toward green energy sources" even though he knows full well that the coal plant is what will be built.

And an engineer type person would say one of the problems with politicians is that they give cushy answers. I think a little intelligence at the top would be very refreshing, and it's good when the press gets lectured for their stupid questions once in a while. As long as the engineer/politician can still speak the public's language it's entertaining to watch.

A good example are the current and former administrator of Nasa. The former one was Sean O'Keefe. I've been to his Q&A sessions and he can talk for over an hour and not say a thing. It's amazing to watch. I must give credit where credit is due though... Mr. O'Keefe did get the ball rolling on moving manned space exploration beyond low earth orbit again.

On the other hand there's the current Nasa administrator, Micheal Griffin. He has a BS in physics, masters degrees in aerospace science, applied physics, business administration, civil eng, and electrical eng, and a PhD in aerospace eng. He taught courses in spacecraft design, applied mathematics, guidance and navigation, compressible flow, computational fluid dynamics, spacecraft attitude control, astrodynamics and introductory aerospace engineering. He is the lead author of more than two dozen technical papers, as well as the textbook, "Space Vehicle Design." Prior to Nasa he has had several high profile technical jobs such as deputy for technology at the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. He is an excellent leader and takes no flak from the press and responds with very logical and airtight arguments for why he's doing what he's doing. He is also very direct with congress and lets them know exactly what impact their budget cuts have on Nasa's ability to carry out their charter.

[Beerina]

Politics is fundamentally flawed in that there's no "control group" to see what would happen had different political decisions been made.

This disturbs engineers. This pleases politicians.

[YoPopa]

Replacing politicians with something else is about as likely as replacing all the bacteria with the fresh scent of a mountain spring.

A more reachable goal might be to replace politically appointed urban planners with engineers. The engineers still need some direction but ask them to build a better highway system and more people will get safely to work in less time. Ask them to build a better commuter rail system and fewer people will get to work for 100 times the cost but much more elegantly.


Politics is fundamentally flawed in that there's no "control group" to see what would happen had different political decisions been made.
Isn't this the reason that we have had states rights?

[DRBUZZ0]

Politics is fundamentally flawed in that there's no "control group" to see what would happen had different political decisions been made.

This disturbs engineers. This pleases politicians.


The first thing I thought when I saw that was "Hmm... no control group. That seems to be a problem. How can we go about fixing it? Well, we could allocate a separate group simply for the purposes of being a control or we could dispense with the actual groups and go based entirely on theory. Perhaps we could run some simulations. Obviously with no control to measure we will have a lower degree of confidence so..."

The fact that I immediately tried to think of the most effecient way of rectifying the situation shows I am not cut out for politics :-(

[Macoy]

So would it be fair to say that most politicians exploit engineers because they find them naive and suggestible?

[DRBUZZ0]

So would it be fair to say that most politicians exploit engineers because they find them naive and suggestible?

No. Politicians exploit everyone. Whether or not engineers are more susceptible to being exploited I don't know but I think it mas more to do with the fact that they don't have much choice.

Politicians make policy. Everyone lives by that policy. These policies are made by the person elected by the majority and generally tending to push policies which are not too intolerable to the electorate or are at that the electorate won't notice the intolerability of.

The majority of people are stupid. That is the ultimate problem. Unfortunately when they try to dispense of elections and democracy in general things tend to get worse. It turns out having idiots controlling a country is better than having non-idiots who are trying to destroy it control things.

I guess the best thing to do would be to get some non-idiots who want to not destroy things to run stuff, but that's not likely to happen.

[Beerina]

So would it be fair to say that most politicians exploit engineers because they find them naive and suggestible?

Pretty much. Some stories that shed more light on the relationship:

The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven -- The "Moties" are a race that has clearly genetically engineered itself in the past into a number of physiologically different casts. Among them are a "politician" caste and a genius "engineer" caste. The engineer caste's body and mind are highly optimized to solve technical problems and build things. However, they almost don't talk and don't interfere with the political caste.

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein -- The bugs are a non-sentient race that's evolved to create "brain bugs" when they encounter difficulties, that, from their point of view, magically solve the technical problems.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand -- Here and in her philosophical papers, she wonders why engineer and scientist types are content to do the technical thinking for politicians, so things keep things running, for the benefit of politicians.


In these stories (The Mote is the most brutal if you read between the lines) the engineers are little more than idiot savants who roll over for politicians. To them, and from their point of view, you are nothing more than a magical black box that solves technical problems when they point you at them. You are allowed to exist only insofar as you serve them.