I realize that this video is somewhat polarizing and 120% your daily value of pretentiousness ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So here's the story behind this video... I prepared a speech to give to the graduating student body at my school during the graduation ceremony. Unfortunately, the 2020 apocalypse prevented me from ever delivering it. So I reworked it into this video.
Terence McKenna: "You’ve probably heard me quote the French sociologist Jacques Ellul, who said, 'There are no political solutions, only technological ones; the rest is propaganda"
Congratulations! Thank you SO VERY MUCH for taking us along for the ride! Please know that I, for one, would LOVE to get an occasional RU-vid video update from time to time. I'm an old dog, but you've inspired me to learn a few new tricks!
Engineers have influence? No, we do not. Marketing managers do. If you disagree with them, you're fired, as simple as that, and someone with fewer objections replaces you. Capital. Who owns the means of production? By the way, i had this book. "The Inventions of Daedalus: A Compendium of Plausible Schemes". It's scary and remarkably on topic of this video. If you ever have an opportunity to get a copy, you MUST get it. It's delightful. It basically describes a couple hundred fictional inventions which all have a fatal flaw of some kind. Often literally fatal.
Yeah... companies like the one you described exist. Boeing comes to mind. But their focus on not-engineering cost them greatly. They’re still not over their 2018 disaster. Listening to your engineers really is the only way to go.
@@BlueprintScience Except in my experience it's every company, though usually the issues aren't nearly so catastrophic. Well maybe i'm biased, i worked in automotive, and i'm a European, and you know how THAT turned out. The VW emissions scandal? Except it's not just VW, it's everyone to perhaps a slightly smaller extent, and similar kinds of decisions permeate all kinds of aspects of the product. You'd think we have some effort put into security and safety, because there don't seem to be any gaping issues there (with reservations, since the CAN firewalls have known issues uncovered by white hat hackers, and a modern high-end headunit is an always-online device), but remember when Toyota acceleration pedal took many years, many researchers, and bordering on a million lines of code to audit? The investigations all concluded that the pedal operates correctly and safely as far as the electronics and firmware is concerned, but at that point, it's almost an accident that it does. What if there is a nefarious plan? Well then the ones at the top can often hide it. There are schemes in place that partition the spheres of access such, that nobody but top level management has the whole picture, so when the shit hits the fan, it's nobody's fault, plausible deniability everywhere. I wouldn't allow anything actually bad to happen from the little bit that i worked on, but i'm not allowed to see the whole picture. So on an individual level we might all care, or most of us, but there are gremlins hiding at the boundaries and in the creases where nobody looks - and the deadlines are tight, there is an immense pressure, you get to stay or you're fired based on a spreadsheet, most engineers are temps, so most things have to be done quickly rather than thoroughly, dealing with technical debt has no room within the "agile" 1-week plan, there is little opportunity to go investigating.
I'm a weapon systems engineer designing naval warships for the DoD and MoD. I regularly struggle with the conundrum of whether my work is keeping people safe, or putting people's lives at risk. This video has a lot of truth to it, I've lost quite a lot of sleep over the years pondering the nature of what I do.
@@----.__ Highly jealous of that, currently trying to minimise my digital footprint but as a member of the young digital generation I am finding tendrils of my ID all over the internet. I hope you find fulfilment in life.
@@BlueprintScience The wisdom we need, including to keep technology under control and to use it for good, is ancient and has been developed more than millennia ago. Unfortunately, it is barely found found in schools and in colleges anymore. Proverbs 9:10
love the video... and seeing the coil gun fail gag made me remember laughing my A** off, by laughing my A** off again.. THANK YOU Mr BLUEPRINT MAN FELLO GUY!!!! but seriously that was really a great speech.. : )
“Writing in Technology and Culture almost two decades ago, Lewis Mumford gave classic statement to one version of the theme, arguing that "from late neo lithic times in the Near East, right down to our own day, two technologies have recurrently existed side by side: one authoritarian, the other democratic, the first system-centered, immensely powerful, but inherently unstable, the other man-centered, relatively weak, but resourceful and durable." -- Langdon Winner, Chair of Humanities and Social Sciences in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
@@Ivan.Wright Yep. Authoritarian and Democratic technologies aren't necessarily opposite but they are two different roads for technology to take. Langdon Winner is perhaps the most quoted researcher of technology culture.
@@BlueprintScience They are commonly a road taken at the same time. Democratic rule is authoritarian in nature. How else is the mob going to control the people who voted against them? We need more librarian technologies
YES. Just some thoughts, I'm very tired so they might not make sense. Engineering is about design and innovation. A lot of the time for the finished product it's really important to know how that will affect the people who are going to interact with it. I think a lot of the time in the modern age, products are designed poorly because they are designed with people who aren't used to putting themselves in other's shoes. In the case of Moses, people trusted and took for granted that his design wasn't biased to cause harm. We don't necessarily have the scientific level of skepticism we need to analyze a design when the person in charge is well established, we just kind of assume. Today some problems with designs are being highlighted, such as how AI facial recognition software consistently misidentifies POC and women compared to white males and it's led to arrests. Still, Detroit has decided to use it. Who is responsible for the administrative and personal cost of false arrests and imprisonments? Was that part of the design intent? Also, we are capable of innovating and creating wide social change to stop being reliant on fossil fuels and eventually be carbon neutral. Politicians and executives have not shown to be willing to make those changes. Do we wait for them or do engineers develop designs and plans to take those steps?
Happens all the time... usually followed by a phone call that goes something like, “Hi, is my warranty still active, I think my instrument is miscalibrated”
Were you even in the building when any of this was recorded? haha you might want to engineer yourself some sunglasses :p did you just imply the piano playing was you, but credit the music to your brother... im watching you!
ENGINEERING ISNT POLITICAL. YOU SHOULD BECOME A FREEMASON. OH, YOU ARE. WHEN YOU GRADUATE FROM STATE SPONSORED SOCIAL ENGINEERING, YOU GET TO WEAR A MORTAR BOARD ON TOP OF YOUR HEAD. WHY DO WE HAVE TO DAWN A SQUARE ON OUR CIRCLE when we gain freedom from the systemic prison of kidnapped children? THEY HAVE SQUARED YOU CIRCLE. A PRISON CELL. Actually, engineering is technically a trade so GOOD WORK!
In all professional education, ethics should be taught. But... if you don't bring an ethical and moral character into your profession, a couple of lectures won't change you. See Trump and his family.
ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LbvBVuwohvA.html A south park reference. Stan calls out his mates for not taking responsibility for their own immoral actions.. Then Stan gets flagged as "a turd in the punch bowl"
Thanks for making me aware of the political potential of science and engineering. I’ll be sure to utilise the full extent of my profession to maximize misery among the poor and disenfranchised. Because I am a sociopath, it is fun and they deserve it, karma and all. Cheerio!
You remind me of Nikola Tesla. The inherent direction of our goals is flawed. We shouldn't be living and working for money. We should live and work for health. Since health is more important than money or power. Heck, look at Trump wouldn't he trade his millions with me for my health (Written in Epoch of Corona. Currently President Trump is infected with Corona) . In this situation this makes me more wealthy than him. And yet i havent made a single million in my lifetime for now. Heheh I wish health and spiritual well being for all.
