North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering • Hacker News Board

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#11

Post by yokaze » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

clejack wrote: post #5

I first read this and immediately thought it was ridiculous. After a second read, I'm wondering if there is some deception going on. The idea that a license should be required to make advisement on designs impacting the public is reasonable. While nothing is guaranteed, it allows for a simple verification of skills. I find it hard to believe that any engineer would not know this because I was told companies and the g…

You can read the letter linked in the article: https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/NC_Engineering_051...

It looks to me more the latter: he "helping his son" by "speaking about engineering" is a written report in a court case.

Quite a bit of framing

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#12

Post by mkl95 » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

Useless bureaucracy hinders innovation and progress.

I live in Spain where engineering is very regulated. This results in some engineers spending 6+ years in university to gain the same status as their international peers who studied for 3 or 4 years.

There's no point in enforcing this other than collecting fees to pay the salaries of people who don't really do anything.

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#13

Post by blfr » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #3

No opinion on whether this is a new development or not, but needing a license to talk about engineering is really stupid. By far the majority of engineering work is stating the obvious. Even a novice with some calculus background could probably come to the right answer if they had access to the necessary data. Maybe they'd need a little help warming up. Engineers are just more reliable at getting to the obvious answe…

Needing a license to talk about anything is really stupid. We have seen credentialed experts trip time and again, succumb to industry pressure, form outright lobbies hostile to public interest.

While there is some value in credentials for quick judgements and floor requirements, there is never an honest reason to bar someone from giving their opinion or testifying. Everyone is always free to not listen or disregard that opinion.

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#14

Post by PaulHoule » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #4

I remember discussions here on HN where people were looking forward to regulating software engineering.

That’s one thing.

Criminal charges for expressing your opinion is another.

An airplane pilot is licensed and will talk trash w/ people about flying and not get in trouble unless they express an opinion like ‘i love to drink a six pack before I get in the cockpit’.

Other people say what they want about aviation and unless it is something like ‘I used this one weird trick to smuggle a sniper rifle past the X ray backscatter machine’ or ‘kewl! I jammed the gps on a plane and saw the coordinates change on ads-b’ you won’t face criminal charges.

There was a day when Wilhelm Reich was sent to jail and L. Ron Hubbard exiled at sea. Today, it seems almost impossible to face criminal charges for bogus health information.

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#15

Post by taneq » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #3

No opinion on whether this is a new development or not, but needing a license to talk about engineering is really stupid. By far the majority of engineering work is stating the obvious. Even a novice with some calculus background could probably come to the right answer if they had access to the necessary data. Maybe they'd need a little help warming up. Engineers are just more reliable at getting to the obvious answe…

It depends very much on precisely what you're talking about. Someone giving an opinion on a physical system? Absolutely should not be regulated. Someone giving engineering advice and representing that advice as the result of rigorous analysis and themselves as an authority on the topic? I can see an argument for regulating that.

We place similar expectations on legal and medical advice, and wrong engineering advice is arguably more dangerous than both. (For values of 'engineering' involving 'building heavy machinery, physical infrastructure, etc. which lives depend on - a wrong diagnoses can kill one person, a bad load calc can potentially kill thousands if a stadium collapses. I don't mean giving advice on page layout in CSS needs to be regulated.)

Edit: Note that I'm not saying he should be gagged, and the circumstances definitely need to be considered, just that I understand the reasoning behind standards for advice presented as authoritative. What's going on in TFA more smacks of union protectionism than genuine caution.

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#16

Post by ivan_gammel » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

yokaze wrote: post #11

clejack wrote: post #5

I first read this and immediately thought it was ridiculous. After a second read, I'm wondering if there is some deception going on. The idea that a license should be required to make advisement on designs impacting the public is reasonable. While nothing is guaranteed, it allows for a simple verification of skills. I find it hard to believe that any engineer would not know this because I was told companies and the g…

You can read the letter linked in the article: https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/NC_Engineering_051... It looks to me more the latter: he "helping his son" by "speaking about engineering" is a written report in a court case. Quite a bit of framing

Court itself can decide what proof of expertise is acceptable. It should not be just a license.

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#17

Post by blfr » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

taneq wrote: post #15

roenxi wrote: post #3

No opinion on whether this is a new development or not, but needing a license to talk about engineering is really stupid. By far the majority of engineering work is stating the obvious. Even a novice with some calculus background could probably come to the right answer if they had access to the necessary data. Maybe they'd need a little help warming up. Engineers are just more reliable at getting to the obvious answe…

It depends very much on precisely what you're talking about. Someone giving an opinion on a physical system? Absolutely should not be regulated. Someone giving engineering advice and representing that advice as the result of rigorous analysis and themselves as an authority on the topic ? I can see an argument for regulating that. We place similar expectations on legal and medical advice, and wrong engineering advice…

We place similar expectations on legal and medical advice

We do and received terrible medical advice during the latest pandemic while people trying to correct it were getting banned from social media. We are also reaping results of decades of terrible dietary advice.

The track record for censorship isn't great.

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#18

Post by insaneirish » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

I can imagine the Board’s overreach being applied to teaching engineering as well. All my engineering professors certainly had PhDs in engineering (or similar). Yet few if any of them had a PE license.

Would they be prohibited from testifying as well? Or what if the Board claims classroom activities are too close to ‘practicing’ engineering for their comfort?

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#19

Post by Closi » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 1:28 PM UTC

morelisp wrote: post #2

It's not clear from the complaint if he's being threatened with legal action because he's voiced his opinion, or because he prepared testimony as an expert witness concerning engineering in a trial. Given that the case cites numerous times he gave his opinion in "public and quasi-judicial" fora without mentioning reprimand, it seems like it's the latter. That's doesn't sound like a first amendment violation. Truth is…

I don’t see why someone needs to be licensed to provide expert opinion (even in court). It’s just the job of the other side to discredit the expert witness.

Engineering licences are really meant to protect unqualified people making bad designs which get made and produce safety/quality issues - their purpose isn’t to work out who should be able to say what. They are about making sure something physical gets built correctly according to code.

The idea that someone could see a safety issue related to the engineering of something and wouldn’t be able to raise it (in either a casual or legal setting) because they don’t have a licence is clearly absurd.

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#20

Post by the_lonely_road » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

What a fascinating case. There are so many details in such a short articles that is each worth its own discussion!

Let’s start with my personally theory that hopefully won’t color all of the conversation about the individual points. This guy pissed off some people and those people are using their petty power to make his life hell. It’s like the 10’s of thousands of people jaywalking without issue and then the homeless guy that gets arrested for jaw walking. We all know that’s not why he was arrested but the law is clear, he was breaking the law, and they enforced it. So the individual incident dots it’s I’s and crosses it’s t’s as long as you don’t bring up the dreaded ‘uneven enforcement’ issue which is at the heart of everything wrong with the law in America. I have no evidence for the theory but it makes sense with the multiple issues involving this guy mentioned in such a short article.

Next interesting point. Is giving a speech about how to treat a broken bone considered ‘practicing medicine’? Who gets to decide the answer. Is a PHD candidate writing an exploration of the efficacy of the various methods for treating a migraine practicing medicine? What if he’s selling copies of his paper on the checkout counter at the drug store? I use medicine instead of engineering because I think it’s easier to discuss but the point should hold the same regardless of which licensed profession we are discussing.

Shit I have to run but hope to return to this conversation to discuss the other fun questions raised.