51–60 of 408 posts
It’s a US thing I believe . In india, I don’t need to obtain any license to sign my Structural Engineering drawings. In my organisation, EIL, a public sector EPC enterprise under Government of India, you become signing authority on drawings with approx 15 years of experience. Thats it. For expert witness in courts, I have heard only Collage Professors considered.
It is a great many countries.
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.
There is a point to enforcing it, but sometimes it is way overdone. It is a license to speak truth about a profession and perform it. Making bullshit illegal. It works for certain professions where the individual can be a commodity and the customer can't reliably determine the trust themselves. When you're designing bridges or homes or public infrastructure, a lot of times it can be very difficult to pick a good expe…
Seeing that makes me think that they should lose their license, which goes against the feeling I feel in this engineers case.
That makes me worry that I'm making my decision based on if I think what they're saying is correct or not, not if they should have the right to say it.
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 homeles…
This is why the letter of the law is so important, paradoxically. It is never good to have unreasonable/archaic laws in the book and have law enforcement look the other way. Since almost everyone ends up breaking them, it allows law enforcement to basically charge any selected person. Such laws should be struck off the book. I believe in Latin, this is called Lex malla, lex nulla - roughly translates to "No law is be…
Texas may do a lot of crazy things when it comes to state government, but one thing I think we definitely got right is the Texas Sunset Commission ( https://www.sunset.texas.gov/ ). Basically, all boards set up by the state government are automatically abolished every 10 years I believe unless the state legislature passes a law to continue the board. So every 10 years the Sunset Commission evaluates agencies/boards a…
Love this. I also have a silly question; is the sunset commission subject to the same principle?
Texas may do a lot of crazy things when it comes to state government, but one thing I think we definitely got right is the Texas Sunset Commission ( https://www.sunset.texas.gov/ ). Basically, all boards set up by the state government are automatically abolished every 10 years I believe unless the state legislature passes a law to continue the board. So every 10 years the Sunset Commission evaluates agencies/boards a…
The US was actually founded with the idea that this should be done to the entire constitution every couple of decades.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The dietary advice thing is mental the deeper you look into it, too. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! Wait, it was Kelloggs saying that. More than two eggs a day will make you die of heart disease? Apparently not any more. Was that dodgy advice from the pork board or did Big Egg just buy off the right people? Fat is bad for you and makes you fat, says CSR. Actually sugar makes you fat AND causes cancer, but dietary fat is fine, says Brownes Dairy.
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?
And since this fellow spent probably 30+ years as a practicing engineer, I would think his experience counts for more than someone who got their PE the previous week.
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 homeles…
This is why the letter of the law is so important, paradoxically. It is never good to have unreasonable/archaic laws in the book and have law enforcement look the other way. Since almost everyone ends up breaking them, it allows law enforcement to basically charge any selected person. Such laws should be struck off the book. I believe in Latin, this is called Lex malla, lex nulla - roughly translates to "No law is be…
Texas may do a lot of crazy things when it comes to state government, but one thing I think we definitely got right is the Texas Sunset Commission ( https://www.sunset.texas.gov/ ). Basically, all boards set up by the state government are automatically abolished every 10 years I believe unless the state legislature passes a law to continue the board. So every 10 years the Sunset Commission evaluates agencies/boards a…
The US was actually founded with the idea that this should be done to the entire constitution every couple of decades.