How An Engineer Feels When Surrounded By Idiots

[vt]

http://www.cnet.com/news/this-is-how...ded-by-idiots/

[Forrest]

Re: How An Engineer Feels When Surrounded By Idiots

I'm with Anderson. Of course, my last name is actually Anderson, so that helps. I am not an engineer, but I can, if I try hard, think logically.

So I will simplify...No!

[charliebrown]

Re: How An Engineer Feels When Surrounded By Idiots

Being a a "fake" engineer, (real being mechanical) I am trained as an EE, but practice IE (informational engineering), now called computer programming.
Working in a office of mostly people who identify with project management and MBA activities, where technical people are viewed as interchangable parts,
gnaws at your soul.

[Fox]

Re: How An Engineer Feels When Surrounded By Idiots

very funny and I actually just went through a very similar meeting yesterday.

except my job was more simple. It was to draw three interconnected lines with two lines having absolutely no connection to each other (the actual term used was "divorced", but the idea is the same).

The good news was that I could use any ink I wanted.

[flintlock]

Re: How An Engineer Feels When Surrounded By Idiots

That video is my life in a nutshell.

[santafe2]

Re: How An Engineer Feels When Surrounded By Idiots

As Anderson begins to work through the Socratic method his question is characterized as an “unproductive quarrel”....

And best exchange in the video, “So what exactly is stopping us from doing this?”….”Geometry”…”Just ignore it.” I'm still laughing. Anyone who has run large projects has heard something similar.

There was a time when non technical professionals were required to take courses in logic, grammar and rhetoric. The hope being that these good folks could learn not only to think critically but to express their ideas clearly and effectively.

I've never quite had the conversation Anderson had with his video associates but I have spoken with CEOs who think their company's problem is that they're losing money. When I point out that losing money is not a problem, it's an outcome generally based on several problems, I'm sometimes viewed as a trouble maker....as quarrelsome. I suppose I am.

[vinoveri]

Re: How An Engineer Feels When Surrounded By Idiots

Funnnnny - especially all the happy talk - and it appears that our engineer is very bright and learns quickly how to get along at the end - looks like he will leave engineering and be headed for upper management.

the non-engineers remind me of those who say "deficits don't matter" and there is no limit to what we can do b/c there is no limit to the availability of "capital"

true, economics isn't engineering, but this is the sort of thing that happens when the social sciences put on the mantle of the physical science

[Adeptus]

Re: How An Engineer Feels When Surrounded By Idiots

"The task is very clear, so please get started on it"... Ahh yes, the foundation of every failed corporate project.

Translation: Here's a very ambiguous goal for this project, stop asking questions, I've been as clear as one can possibly be clear, now please get on with it before I lose my patience.

3 months later.... What is this thing you've delivered? I was perfectly clear, now fix it and hurry up, you're already going to be over time and over budget.

1 month later... This doesn't solve X new problem we never bothered to anticipate and discuss. We're going to contract this job to another company/team etc.

3 months later - They didn't deliver it either, but it doesn't matter. The consultants we hired afterwards told us that our goals needed to be better defined. We've also read in the latest issue of CIO magazine that a new shinny technology is just around the corner, and we should go with that untested solution as soon as possible, no time for questions, discussion and especially questions about why it may fail or fail to meet our needs!

[lektrode]

Re: How An Engineer Feels When Surrounded By Idiots

[gwynedd1]

Re: How An Engineer Feels When Surrounded By Idiots

Funnnnny - especially all the happy talk - and it appears that our engineer is very bright and learns quickly how to get along at the end - looks like he will leave engineering and be headed for upper management.

the non-engineers remind me of those who say "deficits don't matter" and there is no limit to what we can do b/c there is no limit to the availability of "capital"

true, economics isn't engineering, but this is the sort of thing that happens when the social sciences put on the mantle of the physical science

I do have some engineering background, and I do technical work in IT, meaning my failure to understand a problem is exposed immediately. But "deficits don't matter" is far closer to the truth than what is usually said about it. I believe an engineer first works from a sound premise before proceeding to the logical ramification hence my logic is a impeccable as any engineer who would say deficits matter. The problem lies in the premise.

Economics is not even a science. A "soft science" uses the same methods , but its simply that the tolerances in the inferential methods and statistics tend to be much more lax, usually because isolating main effects is so difficult. It also tend to work much more on probability on the smaller scale. On a large scale the "wag the dog" phenomena for example in Sociology seems as reliable as a pharmaceutical study, repeatable and observed. "Economics" usually pure charlatanism, even ignoring the observations for "pure logic" on a false premise..

[vinoveri]

Re: How An Engineer Feels When Surrounded By Idiots

. But "deficits don't matter" is far closer to the truth than what is usually said about it.

Not sure I understand; perhaps you could elaborate. If you mean, deficits don't/may not matter 1) to some OR 2) in the short run, then I agree.

Economics is not even a science. A "soft science" uses the same methods , but its simply that the tolerances in the inferential methods and statistics tend to be much more lax, usually because isolating main effects is so difficult. It also tend to work much more on probability on the smaller scale. On a large scale the "wag the dog" phenomena for example in Sociology seems as reliable as a pharmaceutical study, repeatable and observed. "Economics" usually pure charlatanism, even ignoring the observations for "pure logic" on a false premise..

We agree that economics is "usually pure charlatanism" and in fact this is goes to the heart of the matter, b/c although soft sciences may be over-confident and over-selling their surety, charlatanism is directed at fraud and deception. Economics is routinely classified as a social science by academics and does purport to represent empirical and theoretical approaches to understanding "society".

[santafe2]

Re: How An Engineer Feels When Surrounded By Idiots

I passed this video on to all of the software engineers I'm currently working with and several more I've worked with in the past. If you're an exec, a director or a business manager and you don't get how completely money focused you've been and knowledge agnostic you've allowed your team to be...refocus. The polite intellectuals are laughing at you. Hell, they're laughing at me and I completely support them.

[gwynedd1]

Re: How An Engineer Feels When Surrounded By Idiots

Not sure I understand; perhaps you could elaborate. If you mean, deficits don't/may not matter 1) to some OR 2) in the short run, then I agree.

I don't think they matter in long run necessarily. All deficits do is print money( all the Fed does is set rate and how much is interest bearing money. I think one can chase goods and service with Treasuries). When you print too much or too little then it , by the definition of the ideal, is a potential bottle neck on commerce. So basically I believe it just the wrong terminology to have a debt or a deficit. As to the global financial picture , trade deficits are more murky since taxing and political power are absent. So trade deficits is more appropriate. In that case there is potential instability.

We agree that economics is "usually pure charlatanism" and in fact this is goes to the heart of the matter, b/c although soft sciences may be over-confident and over-selling their surety, charlatanism is directed at fraud and deception. Economics is routinely classified as a social science by academics and does purport to represent empirical and theoretical approaches to understanding "society".

The term "political economy" was correct all along.

[vinoveri]

Re: How An Engineer Feels When Surrounded By Idiots

I don't think they matter in long run necessarily. All deficits do is print money( all the Fed does is set rate and how much is interest bearing money. I think one can chase goods and service with Treasuries). When you print too much or too little then it , by the definition of the ideal, is a potential bottle neck on commerce. So basically I believe it just the wrong terminology to have a debt or a deficit. As to the global financial picture , trade deficits are more murky since taxing and political power are absent. So trade deficits is more appropriate. In that case there is potential instability.

I suppose I get you, although we are coming at it from different world views and I have to disagree.

there is no bottleneck on commerce - commerce has always occurred, with or without debt. the rate may be different of course. unlimited credit and debt fuels greed as we have seen, and IMO greed and "generating profit for the sake of profit" is not good.

The picture that emerges in my mind is the plutocrats pulling the strings of the central bankers who sit at the top with a whip and reins whipping the rest of us "get to work" and make some commerce - so we can skim our unearned income and keep floating at the top

[gwynedd1]

Re: How An Engineer Feels When Surrounded By Idiots

I suppose I get you, although we are coming at it from different world views and I have to disagree.

there is no bottleneck on commerce - commerce has always occurred, with or without debt.

Would you say the same thing about money? Where we disagree is, again, on this premise. Money has always essentially accounted for debt. Now debt accounts for debt. So its pretty hard to no involve some king of debt in a transaction.

the rate may be different of course. unlimited credit and debt fuels greed as we have seen, and IMO greed and "generating profit for the sake of profit" is not good.

What money exists today that is not credit?

The picture that emerges in my mind is the plutocrats pulling the strings of the central bankers who sit at the top with a whip and reins whipping the rest of us "get to work" and make some commerce - so we can skim our unearned income and keep floating at the top

There we agree. However I think I am even more pessimistic. The system is a heads they win, tails we lose. When the economy is credit starved they can bankrupt debtors and much of the middle class, leaving cheap assets and easy pickings. The sub prime scam was well played since now it acts like a scape goat for the process which always punished the last ones to take any sort of credit regardless of credit quality. When inflation does occur is always credit inflation. So creditors never see their gains inflated away. The only time the fiscal budget tends to inflate the currency is in the after shock of a large credit bubble. So either they cause inflation with credit, or they pick up assets at depressed prices. When and if it gets out of hand once every generation, the bailout.