Any engineers here?

[SeeGeeWhy]

Engineers that have been deliberately using known psychological vulnerabilities in the human mind to build social media technology (software AND hardware) in a way that renders it as addictive as possible are without question causing tremendous harm, morbidity, casualty and impairment on individual and society level scale.

How they’re able to do this work in such an unregulated fashion is precisely why engineers are supposed to self-regulate. It’s horse####. Taking away their titles is the least that should be happening here. I’d rather see much greater consequences for these people.

And for what it’s worth, does the title even mean anything anymore? Is anyone proud to be an engineer? Does it give any other special social status other than “oh, you’re probably autistic” like it used to?

[Fuzz]

Is it the software "engineers" that are making those decisions, or is it people above them? I mean, I guess they could refuse on moral grounds. If there was some sort of software engineering code they had to adhere to, it might prevent management form forcing them, but I somehow doubt it would end the existence of these types of things. I'm just not sure it is fair to blame programmers for it.

[SeeGeeWhy]

That’s the point of being a self regulated profession that is respected and trusted by society.

Don’t want to do ethical work that isn’t harming people on purpose? Don’t call yourself an engineer.

I know it’s lame but like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, self proclaimed moral superiority is the one thing we got.

[SeeGeeWhy]

I can’t imagine people would argue against this being relevant if you consider the people programming self driving cars or the Boeing AirMax systems. How about the software that controls global nuclear weapons arsenals and early response systems? Software scales SO tremendously that it blows my damn mind how they skate by with so little regulation. No surprise it doesn’t come from governments but other white and grey hat tech people? This is the entire point of being a unique caste in our culture. NERD FIGHTS!!!

[KTrain]

I agree with all you're saying SeeGeeWhy, but good luck getting all the jurisdictions around the word who work on these programs to abide by a uniform set of regulations.

[Fuzz]

And do all software designers need to be engineers? Does the guy animating grass on ROBLOX really need to be regulated? Maybe they just need to split the discipline, so you have regulated software engineers, and unregulated software designers. The engineer would probably get payed more, but have much higher standards. Someone like Tesla, engineering automated driving would need engineers for that. It's probably time government does have serious discussions around this.

[Wormius]

To be fair, I think the Max8 MCAS was by design, not a bug?

I think for the most part avionics is highly regulated to where everything is really controlled and locked down - like no changing compilers or updating OS’s, strong regression testing, etc. That’s probably the same level of regulation that software professionals should endeavour for - depending on what the target applications are.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by _Q_

No, software engineers don't generally need to stamp drawings.

Public safety can absolutely be at risk however if the status quo is allowed.

I gave up my P.Eng years ago since it added nothing to my value in the software world and just cost money. The association magazine was lame and always featured a disciplinary case against some civil engineer.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by edslunch

I gave up my P.Eng years ago since it added nothing to my value in the software world and just cost money. The association magazine was lame and always featured a disciplinary case against some civil engineer.

I go to the website just for the disciplinary actions. The unprofessional conduct ones are entertaining.

I like my phone plan though and insurance rates. So long as employer pays, I’ll stick with it.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by edslunch

...The association magazine was lame and always featured a disciplinary case against some civil engineer.

Yep, we are the most vulnerable bunch, unfortunately.

I remember a guy (Serbian native) vocally arguing against APEGGA being a "white people's cartel" and an "old boys' club" about 30+ years ago (it had two G's at that time). "Who are they to tell me what I can and can't do?!" At some point he had publicly revoked his membership and went solo-consulting. Then, a year or so later he had quietly re-instated his membership as he couldn't get enough project work directed his way.

[SebC]

So after years of HR forcing applicants to keep up with the latest arbitrary resume trends and use the right keywords so they don't even have to look at them, now they want access to a restricted title because they're missing out on hiring applicants who can't even figure out what the job they're looking is called?

Sorry, no sympathy. Piss off.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by photon

If real engineers were anything like the software engineers I know bridges would be built and open to the public to see how many cars they could hold.

Weinberg's second law: "If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization." (circa 1975)

[Matata]

Originally Posted by SebC

Weinberg's second law: "If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization." (circa 1975)

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