this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2024
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Engineers are good at following certain rules to solve a very specific, if broad, subset of human problems.
It sure as fuck don't make them intelligent.
I wouldn't trust an engineer to be able to solve the most trivial societal issues we face over some tennis player's.
Our strength as a species comes from every single one of us going in depth and be experts at the most random things. Being a supreme expert at any one thing does not mean you are a supreme expert at every single thing.
I think you're confusing intelligence with knowledge.
It takes intelligence to learn and understand problem solving.
It takes intelligence to breathe. Or does it?
I'm pretty sure breathing is unlocked much earlier in the evolutionary tech tree than intelligence...
That is SUCH an interesting take! Would you consider any brain function to be "more intelligent" than another?
Are you doing a Poe's law?
Are you doing an impersonation of someone with a basic grasp of cognition?
No. I'm trying to figure out if you are genuinely stupid or just pretending to be one.
How am I doing?
I can't tell. That's the entire point of Poe's law!
HEY! I'm not good at following rules to solve very specific problems. I solve problems, some of the time, but rules are seldom involved. It's mostly luck and caffeine.
First off, as a mentally underdeveloped engineer, I can say that fucking is never a certainty. I don't know if that invalidates the rest of your sentence but... Secondly we're generally dumb as bricks.
A funny engineer! That's great. It's important to be able to have fun.
I would trust a soft systems engineer to solve societal problems.
Really? Because so far their track record has been abysmal.
Do you know what soft systems methodology is?
Do you know what bullshit is? As usual nobody gets the point. Tell me what soft systems methodology says about what constitutes a "good society". I will literally wait for your answer here.
Frankly that's a pretty rude and disingenuous reply. You wouldn't treat me like that in person, and I see no reason why you should online.
If you're genuinely interested in an answer, soft systems methodology is a framework for decision making. By its nature it is not intended to make value judgements or dictate how you should build a good society, beyond the implicit assumption that any solution should come from clear consultation with everyone involved in the problem situation. What it is intended to do is provide a way for engineers and policy makers understand the problem situation they are stepping into, explicitly consult all the stakeholders involved, and develop clear definitions of the system they're working with so that solutions can deal with the root cause of problems, rather than surface level measures.
To take an example tool, let's consider applying system archetypes, and specifically success to the successful. The obvious application is the current economic system, where wealth begets wealth (landlords, investment banking, etc.). If we as policy makers wish to counteract this feedback loop, then we know that wealth redistribution will only go so far, since the reinforcing feedback loop will force more wealth to those who already possess it. Instead, if we want equity, we need to decouple that feedback loop, by e.g. restricting the number of properties a landlord can own.
As I initially said, it is just a tool, and I've only covered a small part of it, but it is one that explicitly forces policy makers to consult stakeholders and allows us to effectively model complex social systems to bring about real societal change.
Ok, you don't want to solve issues, you want a fairy tale. Sorry, but that's not achievable.
Nah, she just wants to reply some snarky comments that don't really inform people other than letting them know she thinks they are wrong, and that's she thinks she's some kind of authority on the matter.
Ha ha ha!