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"Engineering Authoritarianism"
12

"Engineering Authoritarianism"

"Engineering Authoritarianism"

(OP)
Hey all,

I came across this short text that I find interesting enough to want it widely read:
https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2016/12/05...

Interesting bits:

Quote:

Consider first, the disturbing fact that engineers are vastly overrepresented in extremist groups of all stripes: from neo-nazis to jihadists, engineering is the most common educational background of right-wing extremists. Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog, the authors of a book on the subject found that relative to their prevalence in any given nation, engineers are vastly over-represented in violent right-wing extremist groups. Left-wing extremist groups that advocate or support violent means, on the other hand, have no engineers amongst their ranks and are instead made up of people with backgrounds in the social sciences and humanities.

Quote:


Imagine if medical doctors, instead of taking the Hippocratic Oath that says, in part, “do no harm”, instead took an oath to never knowingly expose their employer to malpractice suits? No one, patients included, wants to be involved in malpractice but the change in allegiance should be clear: we want doctors to be first and foremost concerned with their patients’ well-being and their hosting institutions should be directed toward supporting that concern. Why should engineers be any different? Why are there no oaths to build things that cause harm to fellow humans? Why are there no licenses to be revoked if an engineer knowingly and consistently builds things that do great harm? These seem like common sense requests until you look at the major employers of engineering graduates: military contractors, resource extraction companies, and the governments that own those militaries and resources.

I was struggling a bit with the second part: On one hand, the kind of choice they hope more engineers make - not work in arms production or some resource extraction - is one I made myself. OTOH it would be weird to codify this in a semester long course on ethics. But practicing to think through the consequences of the work we do would be a good idea.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Without seeing the stats it is hard to say, but perhaps intelligent motivated people from poor countries see engineering as a way forward, and out of that cohort the frustrated ones go all suicide-bomby. But without the stats it is just guesswork.



Cheers

Greg Locock


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RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Authoritarianism? Lenin was a lawyer, Stalin was under-educated priest, Hitler was a painter. Sure, blame everything on engineers. smile

"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert"
Arthur C. Clarke Profiles of the future

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Engineers TEND to see the world in black and white because we deal with physical things which are governed by knowable models.
When an engineer applies this philosophy to the entire world it gets messy because there are no good models for human behavior and things are shades of grey.
Many ex-military seem to have the same problem for a different reason.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

If engineers had to take an oath not to 'build things that harm humans', the world would be a cold, dark, ugly place, because there are precious few things that don't hurt humans.

Cars, trucks, ships, planes, food slicers, chainsaws, sharp pointy things, blunt heavy things, things that move, things that fall over, things that have liquids in them....it's a long list.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Not to mention the engineers that design things specifically to harm humans. Someone has to design tanks, bombers, guns, bullets, etc. Same for the people who design the tools that go on to build those things designed to hurt humans.

Professional Engineer (ME, NH, MA) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries
www.americanconcrete.com

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

The oft-abused parallel to the Hippocratic oath often loses metaphorical value that the author desires when you realize we regularly perform chemotherapy.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

(OP)
Without debating the point if indeed "Someone has to design tanks, bombers, guns, bullets, etc.", the designer should worry by whom and to what ends these are used, and maybe walk out the door.

Occasionally this happens:
Story 1: Austrian military contractor converts small crop duster planes to military duty. Eventually the staff learn that the ultimate cusomer is former Blackwater boss Erik Prince. A few technicians quit, not wanting to work for a mercenary. (Story was in the Intercept a few months back)
Story 2: A German company that built spying software had a lot of staff turnover, since they sold to among others the gulf states and many developers did not want that on their conscience.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

I disagree that there is no "oath" for engineers. In my state, the board rules say, "Licensees shall at all times recognize that their primary obligation is to protect the safety, health, property, and welfare of the public. If their professional judgment is overruled by nontechnical authority, they will clearly point out the consequences, notifying the proper authority of any observed conditions which endanger public safety, health, property and welfare." Also, with regard to codifying ethics training, generally a certain portion of the required Professional Development Hours are already required to be in ethics training.

Here are some stats and general musings to go along with the quotes showing the engineer-terrorist correlation. I thought it was interesting when I was downloading a Solid Works update that it made me click the check box to promise I wouldn't use the software for terror.



I used to count sand. Now I don't count at all.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Yesterday was Pearl Harbour day.

Imagine the world we would live in today but for what happened on December 7, 1941 and August 6 and 9 1945, and the engineers and scientists behind those things.

In my view, there is and shall always be a place to build things that can be used to deliberately hurt people. Where the ethics of it come into play is determining what constitutes a legitimate reason to authorize their deployment.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

The guy must have a very different experience of Engineering ethics etc. than I and different from anecdotes often posted on this site.

"their professional ethics (the customer/employer/contractor is always right), they are taught unquestioning deference to authority"

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RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Yea, it's going to be highly contextually variable.

Refer to the Challenger disaster for an example of complicit deferral to authority in the face of contrary evidence.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Some doctors treat "bad people" who do harm to society. Some engineers design "bad things" that do harm to society. What's his point?

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Without seeing the stats, it might be that you are just looking at a small group of people that are motivated and resourceful and it really doesn't have anything to do with engineering at all. Anyone who got their engineering degree is motivated and has energy and can care since they likely are not living hand to mouth since their family could afford to educate them. Unmotivated or people just scraping by don't have the energy or time to care to get really involved in group xxx.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

I did not read the article and generally do not read that type any way. It is in the vein of black people being over-represented in crime statistics. I doubt that many of these extremist engineers were actually employed as engineers. Any people who have no hope for a better life are potentially dangerous. The smarter ones are more dangerous.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

"....they are taught unquestioning deference to authority and unremitting neutrality towards issues of political consequence"

HA. HA. HA. Has he met an engineer? I can't think of one group in a company that management doesn't think is more of a pain.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

The writer is a maroon - from his writings and comments herein it is obvious the guy is living in academia dreamland.

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RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

MartinLe,

That article combines several not-very related issues. A number of important arab terrorists were trained as engineers, including Yasser Arafat and Osama Bin Laden. On the political spectrum, engineers tend to be right-wing. Are Islamic terrorists right wing or left wing?

If you look at the membership of hard-line right-wing groups here in North America, you would expect to see more engineers than you would in the general populace, simply due to the skew noted above. Read through the discussions in forum1088: Pat's Pub. Politically, engineers are all over the place.

It is easy to overestimate the value of any college degree (or diploma). Engineering tests are open book, or you memorize the equations. You complete your assignments and hand them in. You get marks of 60%. You get your degree. You work hard, but you don't really have to think very much. If you are creative and like to solve problems, the knowledge is a tool. The system does not weed out the sort of rigid, process driven people who believe in absolutist ideologies and theologies.

The perception of engineers to the overall population varies from culture to culture. In North America, engineers are perceived as anti-social nerds. I suggest you read The Ghost of the Executed Engineer, by Loren Graham, which covers a lot about engineering in the Soviet Union. I don't know how engineers are regarded in the Arab world.

I also suggest reading Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy: Guerrilla Warfare in the West, 1861--1865, by Richard S. Brownlee. Unless you actually care about what happened in Missouri during the American Civil War, you can read this and ignore the distinctions between terrorists, freedom fighters, lawfully constituted authority, and jackbooted thugs. You can track the development of a really vicious guerilla war. Arab terrorist groups are nasty, but the Irgun and the Stern Gang were quite nasty in their day. Maybe the engineers had important logistical skills which enabled them to rise in their organizations.

--
JHG

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Weren't the guys who flew the terror missions on 9/11 trained pilots?

One might expect that even evil people take the time to learn what they think will be useful to accomplish their ends rather than supposing the connection is the other way around. In addition, there is the likelihood that there were a lot of others with similar intentions, but without the background to succeed.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

3Ddave,
Yes they were , trained right here in the USA. In fact the specific kind of training they were asking for, raised a red flag at one of the flight schools in Arizona ,that was ignored, by the authorities. You know the rest of that story.
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

That's a problem that virtually every society has experienced when confronted with asymmetrical warfare. We can't draw the correct conclusions because we can't even recognize the clues, even when they're staring us in the face. It's not so much as weakness of our intelligence services as it is in the way the human brain processes what is sees based on what it already knows.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

So... the next step in his thesis would be to eliminate the problem imagined by his paranoia and kill all the engineers, doctors, lawyers - all the educated people - like the Cambodia and the Kamir Rouge (sp) in the 70's.

He might also be included... ok, maybe not.

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)


RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

If a doctor cannot improve the condition of someone - at least - they shall not make it worse.
The Hippocratic Oath seems to me pertaining to an ethical level: the "what are you going to do/not do". (level A)
Its less on the level of negligence/malpractice, that is the "how you do it correct or not". (level B)

Appears to me more easy to hold people accountable for the later than the former. Malpractice can be proved and punished. But what about things that go undetected, these will still harm the patient but not the employer in reference to the thesis quoted texts.

I quote here Hammurabi ancient code: "... If a builder build a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, And the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death. If it kill the son of the owner of the house, the son of that builder shall be put to death." So this is "skin in the game" and that should cover Level B.

But "Level A" seems quite difficult to enforce in a sort of "skin in the game" approach. I think we should act on the educational level, to build awareness, but then comes the problem of defining the standard of ethics: where do we put the bar?

And also who said that putting the bar at its right/legitimate level was optional.
To my opinion this led us to a sort of short term win /long term loose.

There is an author who quoted the concept of "via negative" - it is often sufficient to act by removing the harm instead of adding stuffs for things to improve. Food for thoughts....

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

I used to have an undertaker friend who always said, "My biggest job is covering the Dr's mistakes.".
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

This is an interesting topic. One thing I have pondered frequently is the number of films, and some literature, where the crazy person is an engineer. For instance:
Saw
Law Abiding Citizen
Norman Osborn (Green Goblin)

Also, Stephen King's "The Stand" said that engineers and scientists were more likely to join the "evil" side of the camp. I wonder if sometimes fiction uses the engineer to make a small twist on the mad scientist stereotype.

On a more fact based note, if you do a search in the Canadian House of Commons for the occupation of "engineer", you will find that 13 members self identify as engineers. 11 of them are Liberals. Take from that what you would like. (http://www.lop.parl.gc.ca/ParlInfo/Lists/Occupatio...=)

I also find it interesting to note that this is 13 out of 339 members, which works out to 38.3 per 1000, but engineers in the general population show up as 5.7 per 1000 according to Engineers Canada (https://engineerscanada.ca/reports/national-member...).


RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

If you were to ask this same question of the American Congress, at least for 2010, this is what you would get (paragraph copied from the linked item below):

According to a release by Congress, there were a grand total of “three physicists, one chemist, six engineers including a biomedical engineer, and one microbiologist” among the 541 members of the Congress in 2010, accounting for about two percent of the United States’ legislature. In contrast, approximately 36.4 percent of college-educated citizens have science or engineering degrees. The last American engineer-president was Herbert Hoover (1929-1933), a mining engineer.

As for that last statement, I don't think it's technically accurate. President Jimmy Carter (1976-1980) was a graduate of the US Naval Academy where he received a Bachelor of Science degree and he later received additional training in nuclear engineering while working on the Navy program which developed the first atomic powered submarines. When he resigned his regular commission in 1953 (he served in the Reserves until 1961) he was being trained as an 'Engineering Officer' qualified to oversee the operation of on-board nuclear reactors.

Anyway, as you can see the level of even technical, let alone engineering experience, here in our national legislative bodies is much less (only 2% in 2010) than it is in Canada. And I suspect that if we looked at the state legislatures and governorship's that the numbers wouldn't be all that much different.

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2013/10/28/the-engine...

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
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The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Just because a person takes an oath, i.e. the Hippocratic Oath, doesn't mean they will follow it. A good example of this is the doctors that worked in the Nazi human experiment departments.

What makes anyone believe that taking an oath will preclude someone from acting adversely to that oath.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

JohnRBaker: Thanks for the information. I had looked up the statistics on engineers in the government the other day because my gut said that engineers were under-represented in politics. I guess I was right about it but just wrong about which country!

I'm not sure if the numbers are a direct comparison but Stats Canada says that "At the university level, STEM fields represented 24.5% of all fields of study" (https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-...). It looks like Canada has fewer technical people per capita than the states, which only makes the higher representation in government even more stark.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Just to follow up on CheckerHater's 4-star post above, here is a list of dictators and their educational backgrounds:

Kim Jong-Il – Majored in Marxist Political Economy – minors in Philosophy & Military Science
Kim Jong-un – Officer Training
Idi Amin Dada – School Drop-out
Vladimir Lenin – Law (expelled)
Adolf Hitler – Artist
Anastasio Somoza Garcia – Business Admin
Bashar al-Assad – Ophthalmology
Benito Mussolini – Education
Manuel Noriega – Military School
Muammar Gaddafi – History & Military Academy
Nicolae Ceausescu – Shoemaker
Saddam Hussein – School Drop-out
Pol Pot – Radio Technology
Joseph Stalin – Seminary (expelled)
Mao Tse-Tung – Education/Teacher
Fulgencio Batista – Medical
Robert Mugabe – Education / Arts / Business / Law
Porfirio Diaz – Seminary / Law
Francois Duvalier – Medicine


Not much engineering there - some science (i.e. medicine).

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RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Coleng,

The book freakonomics by Steven Levitt shows that being treated by a doctor for a non-serious condition is more dangerous than being untreated. So, for most cases your doctor should just be screening you for serious conditions and sending you home, not giving you some drugs that you hope doesn't interact poorly. There is an expectation that everything needs to be treated and doctors give in to it at the patient's detriment.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

And this link has an explanation for why engineers tend to show up a bit in terroistic organizations:
Link

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RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Thanks for the giggle, that may be the most slanted piece of trash writing I have read all year. If the verbiage suggesting that folks on the extreme right are violent terrorists and those on the extreme left are not wasn't comical enough, suggesting that there is no engineering oath to do no harm is a bit too much. An engineer's 1st duty is to society after all...

As a proud veteran my comment to those objecting to weapons of any variety or viewing them solely as a means of doing harm is to also point out that weapons and those willing to use them are solely responsible for their protection. Many of those who have not served cannot grasp this concept, but you cannot truly hate the concept of war until you've served in one.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Let's analyze back on the analyst.. with an equal touch of polemics, perhaps..
1) Classification of and singling out a convenient subject ("the engineer")
2) Awarding that subject a stark negative image evoking negative emotions (look at all that defensive input above!)
3) Bringing said subject in conjection with further simplifications and cross references (political currents, "harm", irresponsibility)
4) Simplification and cross-referencing over all borders, again leaning on emotions rather than facts, all this by generalizing to the extreme
5) Not offering any substantial input as to how the writer intends to improve the situation he identified to be wrong by his own actions

Conclusion:
This analysis is promoting discord and seems to be a scapegoat identification exercise.

Engineering courts decision:
winky smile The analyst is for the forthcoming future exempt from any utilization of any engineered device, product, derivate of any engineering solution or product ... beginning with the internet, airplanes, refrigerators as well as the shaver.

But: The writer has nevertheless a point here, as what concerns a part of human behaviour.So, not doing harm to other fellow human beings or living creatures and rather go for understanding and being empathetic... this would be valid for the designer of the car as well as for its driver.

Roland Heilmann
Lpz FRG

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

It's like the old joke about the differences between Mechanical and Civil Engineers:

Mechanical Engineers make weapon systems. Civil Engineers make targets.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Is an "anti personnel munition" similar to an attack knife or a spoon for obese people? :p

Despite the attempts of many to take a moralistic high ground on matters such as these, there really is no correct answer that does no harm nor moral high ground to take. Doctors cause pain and damage to the human body daily in order to prolong or improve life just as many potential weapons sit unused prolonging freedom. In a similar vein the implication was made in the original post that the poster's civil engineering does no harm vs arms production and natural resource extraction. Personally, I would suggest anyone believing their work morally superior to another's reevaluate their own work before judging others' on complex matters. In the example given, realistically every year civil engineering does massive amounts of both damage in attempts and improvement to our environment and leads to many deaths just as everything else our species does, arms production and resource extraction included. In reality you cannot "do no harm" if you exist, much less if you actively attempt to improve.

Disclaimer: I previously worked for an aerospace contractor developing offensive missile systems. Yes, I've had several similar moral debates with peers, friends, and "scholars." No, I'm not offended by them nor any logical discussion, but to be fair I've never really heard what I considered a solid reason why that work was morally wrong. Somewhat ironically, I keep two references on top of my desk, Machinery's Handbook and the Bible. I'm hardly the slightest bit religious however being the stereotypical male engineer I struggle a bit with "people issues." Personally I find the Bible a pretty direct source for quality advice regarding my interactions with others, its the Machinery's Handbook for people dynamics.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

I appreciate the many cogent observations about the ridicules article. I hope you will enjoy my own humor ...

... then engineers should let others design the things that will harm people.

My particular favorite is the humor that anyone who doesn't appreciate what engineers are doing for them should refuse to partake of the technology engineers have brought them.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Gee, I guess I'm glad that my 14 years of 'hard engineering' (not the last 35 selling software) was dedicated to the design and production of automated machinery for producing baked goods, i.e. bread, rolls, pies and cakes as well as the occasional cracker, cookie and bagel.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

I once met Albert Speer's grand-nephew. Looks just like his uncle.

I was in the navy nuclear power school in Orlando. As I was walking to night study, I saw a sailor on the smoking pad and without thinking I came to a complete stop and stared for a moment. (Imagine how you would react if you saw Hitler or bin Laden on the street!)

He sees my reaction and invites me over. "You know who I look like, don't you?", he said. Then I saw his name tag: "Speer". I almost pooped a brick.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Ohhh John,
I don't know how you lived with yourself designing and fabricating machinery that would not only lead people to an early death due to consumption of all those carbs and sugar snacks, but you made machines that would make those death traps even faster!
Ohhh the insanity!

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Yea, one bakery line we built and installed in Edison, New Jersey produced 40,000 'Big Mac' and 'Quarter-Pounder' buns per hour for McDonald's, and that just supplied a portion of the New York metropolitan area. Production lines like that were operated more like a 'factory' than a 'bakery'.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

2
(OP)
All of us have a say in wherer we work, and for whom. Not a totally free choice because we need to put food on our tables, but as engineers we are pretty well qualified and have more of a pick where we work than others.

So we have the option to look at possible employers and se if we really want to contribute to their business.

So all of us in arms production must IMO face the question "Who is your employer selling to, where do the things you design end up, to what ends are they used, are you fine with that?"

My guess is, the usual answer would be:"I just design, the rest is up the sales/management/lawmakers" or in other words: "Not my department"



as a p.s. for my post above,
example 3: Bunch of people in IT vow to not work on databases that can be used to identify Muslims in the US: http://neveragain.tech/

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Please define "arms production" for us. Most of those killed and injured in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts on both sides have been victims of IEDs. Accounting for reality, should we need worry about working for a fertilizer producer or cell phone manufacturer? How about the RC car, plane, and copter manufacturers whose products are often used to deliver them? The challenge of modern warfare is that it is very unconventional, small arms and missiles account for a relatively small percentage of the damage done, thus making the suggested ethical questions rather difficult.

Regarding example #3, the database the signatories have allowed tabloid media to worry them about about has existed for decades and several of the companies they proudly signed by their name are regular key contributors.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

As I alluded to in an earlier post, these are the consequences and characteristics of being involved in asymmetrical warfare; we lack the ability to recognize what's relevant until it's too late.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

You know. Maybe, these are all engineers who have had a bad run of gantt charters.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Asymmetrical warfare has been a constant for many centuries. A pikeman and his friends can take down a heavily armored knight. Knights had their heyday, as did main battle tanks (MBTs). One of last wave of IEDs involved making explosively formed projectiles (EFPs), which originated as a high-tech defeat mechanism for MBTs, as found in Hellfires, but have since then become the IED of choice, where copper plates can be banged out in a garage, in quantities, backed with C4 or somesuch, and voila, instant EFP.

The US started its history with asymmetrical warfare as well, with guerilla tactics against a conventional British army, steeped in tradition of mass on mass battles.

Someone asked about arms factories; at the height of the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, wireless actuators, including doorbells and others, were used to detonate IEDs, so there's that. Up until recently, it's still been the case that it's people that kill people; machines only do what their operators make them do. Atomic fission and fusion could be used to provide energy, or to kill people; it's solely at the mercy of the owner or operator. Fukushima Dai Ichi was clearly intended to help people, but it wound up killing, or will kill, thousands of people.

The only way that people will stop killing or hurting other people is if they're all dead to start with.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

(OP)
CWB1 raises a tough question about dual use products.

The far easier question is about the bombs Saudi Arabia drops in Yemen, or Syria & Russia drop on Syrians, or the tanks Turkey uses to level kurdish towns, or the small arms that are the main killers in most conflicts: Continue to work on these, or walk away?

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

It's unclear to me whether there's actually anything non-military that isn't "dual-use." A butcher knife can be used to cut meat, or cut people. Water sustains us, or can drown us. Drones can be used to survey earthquake damage, or destroy houses.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Sure, the thing doesn't do the killing, and the dose makes the poison. However, it's obvious that some tools greatly facilitate the killing- of multiples, from a comfortable distance...

Technology isn't inherently value neutral. The mere fact that you can kill someone with a cliff or a rock or a bucket of water doesn't change that fact.

People's work should, as much as possible, be consistent with their values, with as little rationalization as possible.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Another extremist used a truck to kill scores of innocents. Did the engineers consider that in their design of the vehicle? Where do you draw the line in your moralistic hierarchy? You don't own Smith & Wesson stock, but what about their suppliers? Coke has vending machines at Smith & Wesson facilities, oh the humanity. The lines get blurry pretty quick, and as mentioned above, making your own choices is fine, condemning and judging others is more problematic.

IC

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Killing for the sake of killing is separable from killing in war. No one gets arrested and convicted for "normal" acts on the battlefield, although, there's apparently some reluctance to use weapons that cause excessive pain or suffering, but "clean" deaths and maiming is apparently OK. So, clearly, purpose is a critical factor in the decision process; if the purpose is beyond a certain threshold, wherever that might be, then the engineer must make that hard decision. Knowingly manufacturing mustard gas would seem to be generally conceded to be over that threshold.

But, that's a pretty simple and pristine decision. Is developing the full-motion-video (FMV) sensor for a Global Hawk over a normal person's threshold? The Hellfire was designed and built as part of the West's weaponry for defending against the perceived Soviet threat during the depths of the Cold War. However, many of the sensor chips used in many current weapon systems were designed for use in general purpose cameras. Sony, being a Japanese company, is ostensibly not supposed to sell their products for the purposes of building weapons, yet, their imaging chips do find their way into military systems. So, how does the Songy design engineer or factory worker deal with that reality? And, can they, given that anything electronic, such as FPGAs, GPUs, which have 99.99% commercial applicability, can and are being used in weapon systems. We are currently in a de facto, undeclared war against an asymmetric protagonist that we mostly dodged for nearly 2 centuries, but are now in their crosshairs for all foreseeable futures. And, this war is not carried out as traditional battlefield engagements, but more as assassinations, either directed or indiscriminate. Which raises the question of how far you are willing to go to protect your families and loved ones, which is a very distinct difference than the abstract protection of families through the development of weapons for the battlefield, like the M1 Abrams, as compared to the FMV sensor on the Global Hawk being used to target Al Qaeda or ISIS leaders.

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RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

The line seems awfully easy to draw in the sand - either you design a weapon intended for harm or you don't. You can't extend any moral responsibility to the engineer of some product that isn't meant to cause harm if it is (ie the Sony FMVs). Whether you think weapons design is immoral or not is another question though.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Given the Star Wars thread I would submit - Which is immoral, the engineer working within the defense industry to ensure it remains ethical or the engineer who blindly deems it immoral, leaving it to potentially unethical folks?

At its core, professional ethics along with every major religion teaches that if you can act to prevent wrongdoing you are obligated to do so.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

"either you design a weapon intended for harm or you don't"

It's not even that straight forward; what do you mean by harm? By calling it a weapon, you automatically infer harm to someone at some time.

Do you avoid work on defensive systems? Even if that leaves your loved ones less protected?

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RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

2
It's a deep set of questions, with very personal answers. But the old trope that "guns don't kill people- people kill people" is a total cop out. It's a false rationalization which allows some people to work on anything without troubling themselves about the ethical issues behind that work.

I guess it's best to start out at the edges with problems like this, to figure out the limits. The mushy grey middle can then be made a little clearer after the edges are defined.

Designing an object which can be either a weapon or a tool is not an ethical issue. So: no problem with a transport truck, or a kitchen knife, or a baseball bat. Probably also not a problem designing a shotgun or a hunting rifle, unless you don't believe that animals should be killed.

Designing an object which has no legitimate purpose other than killing people is a little harder to justify. A handgun or an assault rifle: it can be in a sense a "tool", i.e. a weapon used by police legitimately for defense against armed assailants, or it can be used as an aggressive weapon. Generally in civil society we give the monopoly on lethal violence to the state, i.e. the police or military. So most places ban military weapons and either ban or put severe restrictions on handguns. If you can be reasonably assured that your weapons will only be legitimately used for defense, the mere fact that these tools can be misused for evil acts wouldn't be sufficient reason for most people to avoid making them. However, some do not trust the state to use its monopoly on lethal force wisely in all cases, and hence have to make the choice to avoid making some of these weapons at all.

OK, so what about landmines? Poison gas? Chemical or nuclear weapons? It seems to me that we've evolved to the point where we're reluctant to give access to certain devastating and/or indiscriminate weapons even to the state. Most people would consider being engaged in the development of such weapons to be unethical today. Some obviously can still find a way to rationalize it.

Things that kill indiscriminately or by accident are the most troubling typically. Landmines kill innocents 50 years after their "legitimate" purpose in war is past. Cigarettes, which are both addictive and the proven cause of serious disease, are in the same category in my book.

Personally I find I am happiest and most secure when my work is as consistent as possible with my values. I ask myself: will this make the world better, or worse? And I try hard not to be a hypocrite about it, though it's easy to fail at that too.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

A handgun, for many people, is simply something they use for fun, for target use, for competitions, etc. In fact a large percentage of gun owners are in this camp.
Do they have a handgun also for self-defense purposes? Probably....but so do shotgun owners.

So to say that a shotgun or hunting rifle is somehow in a different ethical category than a handgun or "assault rifle" (which there is really no such thing) is not correct or logically consistent.

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RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

I don't know how much Alfred Nobel was bothered by the use of his inventions but he was in the least really bothered what was written about him in his premature obituaries. Enough so, he setup an institute for recognizing achievement. Maybe, fewer people would work on weapons and such if their obituaries stated that their life work consisted of making deadlier land mines or whatever.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Yea, I guess if we all were able to predict the future, we'd be able to avoid working on projects that would be perverted into something we object to. :)

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

"OK, so what about landmines? Poison gas? Chemical or nuclear weapons?....Some obviously can still find a way to rationalize it."

Yes, some of us have lived firsthand with the use of that technology so rationalization is easy. When you are one of 50 men a helicopter ride up into the mountains of Afghanistan and you wake up to a few hundred Taliban within small arms range you're pretty darn thankful someone thought to set up a few Claymore mines. Similarly, when your squad stumbles into a mustard gas factory in Iraq (wait, WMDs in Iraq, who knew?), you start thinking about what you might be exposed to and are pretty darn thankful someone's back home experimenting with it to develop methods to protect you. JME but I never feared technology, only the folks using it against me because one is inherently neutral, the other both good and evil.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Quote (JAE)

A handgun, for many people, is simply something they use for fun, for target use, for competitions, etc. In fact a large percentage of gun owners are in this camp

Lots of fun stuff is illegal or at least tightly regulated because of how easily it can be put to a dangerous prohibited use. Different societies regulate these things differently, in accordance with their values.

Quote (CWB1)

When you are one of 50 men a helicopter ride up into the mountains of Afghanistan and you wake up to a few hundred Taliban within small arms range you're pretty darn thankful someone thought to set up a few Claymore mines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty

168 nations are signatories to the ban on antipersonnel land mines. It wasn't without controversy, for the very reason you've mentioned- they can be viewed as incredibly effective protective weapons. Some weapons of war are banned. In the heat of battle, if each soldier was given a button which you could press which would with certainty kill not only the enemy in the field but also every man, woman and child in the enemy nation, there is little doubt that the button would be pressed- not by every soldier, but by some- even though doing so would clearly be a war crime. That's why we don't make those decisions in the heat of battle.

"...stumbles on a mustard gas factory in Iraq..."

Experimenting on methods to protect against chemical weapons is very different from developing new chemical weapons and munitions to deliver them, in the same way that developing armour protection is different than developing armour-piercing munitions or the guns to fire them.

Technology isn't value neutral. Technology and human values definitely do interact.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Quote (moltenmetal)


168 nations are signatories to the ban on antipersonnel land mines.

And which the United States is NOT one of them.

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RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

Ignorance is a blessing. The question is: is it really in the eyes of the beholder ?

Looking backward at my career decisions, taking adverse career choices (example not working for xyz company/managers because of personal values) have often generated a great set back on the immediate term and on a personal level. But on the long run, it turned out that intellectual honesty is powerful for career (and salary) advancement ! it opened new doors that I would not have been able to open my self just by my own will / persistence and determination.

With reference to "personal values" as stated in some posts above..I see a connection with the school / educational model (can argue you its in fact about the culture). At the end, you are on your own. Without a solid references (good professors, educators...) you may sink with the whole ship. I guess the "standard" education teaches you how to deconstruct/deal with things surrounding you of "moderate" complexity. Now things are getting exponentially more complicated and this is plain fact (see demography trends, social interactions, overflow of information, rapid technology evolution, social engineering, etc.). I am wondering if our brain is equipped to handle that level of complexity/threats and break down those things into basic blocks that can be dealt with. Especially when technology is at backbone of this exponential trend. Think of it as a transition from laminar to turbulent flow. Possibly the brain is naturally equipped and has amazing / untapped capabilities but education maybe the cognitive bottleneck. Or should we just keep it "simple stupid"? means rely on sort of heuristics "tested and proved" to navigate our own way through difficult career/life choices. The problem is that the source of these heuristics is typically a legacy from the ancients. It is paradox, but a legacy can be conserved only when it is adapted/tweaked, namely to tackle nowadays problems (not obsolete ones). Some people need to take of that (example: human sciences level, think tanks, etc.), but what are they doing? I think ethical problems will go increasing in the coming years when technology will deploy into new domains and push limits (genetics, artificial intelligence, etc.). I suppose these topics can also potentially do harms societies and individuals.

It requires "guts" for an engineer to turn down a job offer because down the road, the end product is conflicting with personal values(environmental, ethical, etc.). Think about the drug industry for example. My point is that erosion of values on social level does not help (very general statement, I must admit) and once again you are on your own. At the end this is a multi-constrained problem : on top of the basic exercise of landing a job offer and get started learning engineering stuffs and work for a living (this is already not taken for granted); some sort of "personal value filters" is to be applied.

RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

"A handgun, for many people, is simply something they use for fun..."

Sure, I can see that firing an AR-15 might be "fun," but don't kid yourself that it isn't a "assault rifle," because the military version is nothing but, and the Army itself compares the M16 to the AK47 assault rifle and that the M16 was developed as a direct response to the AK47 and the fact that the previous weapon, the M14, used heavier ammunition, thereby putting US soldiers at a disadvantage by carrying less rounds per unit weight.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: "Engineering Authoritarianism"

It's just that "assault rifle" is a silly and arbitrary line that's impossible to define, so it becomes meaningless to anyone trying to apply logic. It's become like the definition of obscenity/pornography as argued over in a US/SCOTUS court case:

Quote (Justive Stewert)

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."
If you've kept up on all the peculiar (and hilarious from the outside) laws against obscene pornography in the UK, you see how quickly things get absurd when trying to nail down laws against the arbitrary.

I think the whole "assault weapon" (there's a difference between assault rifle and assault weapon, and the similarity is used in bait-and-switch quite often, to mislead people) definition is an overblown thing. One time, people focused on whatever made it look different than Grandpas old bolt action rifle. Then people worried about single mag capacity. Then it was having detachable mags at all. Then we're back to demonizing muzzle devices, stocks, and the way you hold it. Then we're back to capacity in addition to trying to blur the difference between semi-automatic and automatic. Meanwhile, people who own belt fed semi-autos are laughing at everyone concentrating on mag capacity.

IMO, it's just dumb. Columbine happened during the AWB using compliant weapons.

And millions of people have used those same weapons every day since that tragic event and no one suffered but the paper and backstops, and some dirt. An incredibly small portion/minority using something for criminal action shouldn't curse the tool. I mean... we still can buy ammonium nitrate fertilizer.

I'm also reasonably sure that no engineer, chemist, or agricultural scientist has ever felt guilt over the invention of various products perverted into disastrous and violent effects. I don't think any reasonable person would point the finger at them for responsibility of the events such as we experienced in Oklahoma City, back then.

End of story.

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