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

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

#301

Post by retromario »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #268
Swenrekcah wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just the concept of “jaywalking” as a punishable offense is revolting to me.

I find the handing over of personal responsibility for my safety to be alarming. If I'm about to cross the road, I am perfectly capable of deciding when it's safe or not. If the light is red but there's no traffic, it's safe to cross. If I'm standing at a crossing and the light is green, meaning that I can walk, but there's a car out of control heading down the road (or an ambulance with its sirens on, etc) then it's…

The other points are fine, but a 3 or 4-year old does not understand nuance or personal responsibility. I think that in general German society encourages a strong sense of personality responsibility as part of developing healthy children and adults, so kind of a weird thing to pick on.

Personally I jaywalk when it's safe and no kids are around.

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

#302

Post by blix »

Aeolun wrote: post #292
_nalply wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct would be lex mala, lex nulla (omit one L).

This is weird. Even I can see that it seems to say nothing but: Bad law, no law. Does latin have an implied ‘better than’ in sequences?

What's implied here is 'is', i.e. "a bad law is no law."

The phrase seems to be a rehash of a quote from St Augustine: "lex iniusta non est lex" meaning "an injust law is not a law", which is more clear.

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

#303

Post by dada78641 »

the_lonely_road wrote: post #20

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…

> Next interesting point. Is giving a speech about how to treat a broken bone considered ‘practicing medicine’?

Regardless of whether it is, you can really tell the hypocrisy. Medicine is a vastly more protected profession than engineer. The article states about 80% of engineers nationwide work legally without a license. That would be unthinkable for any form of medical work.

And yet, there are vastly more people giving out medical advice without a license, and even performing all kinds of quack procedures like faith healing as replacement for medical science.

Some retired engineer talking about his profession while technically not having a license is an absolutely minuscule problem, if it even is one, compared to the reprehensible alternative medicine industry.

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

#304

Post by jbluepolarbear »

brudgers wrote: post #279
jbluepolarbear wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is a license more important than skill and experience? So you’ll trust a person that’s failed the license multiple times, is barely able to do the job, and has a history of failing at their job because they have a license? Because those issues still happen with licensed professionals. A license doesn’t prove aptitude, it just proves you passed a test. I’ve met multiple structural engineers that relied heavily on…

The person without a license who is doing something that requires a license is not taking full responsibility for what they are doing. They are doing something that is only to their own benefit in a context where other people’s lives are at stake. Quite simply it is unprofessional. A person without a license can hire a licensed professional for oversight. That’s the responsible thing to do. In the US, engineering lic…

But who decides it needs a license? Other licensed individuals? I would do a better job sticking to requirements than a lot of licensed engineers. It’s cheaper and easier for me to do all the work, and then hire a firm to say it passes requirements than getting said license. It gives me the freedom to engineer in any field I’m interested. I have previously done mechanical, electrical, structural, and medical engineering. How would a license help me? It’s waste years of my life, tons of money, jobs in don’t want, and at the end of it I can work in a field I may no longer want to be in.

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

#305

Post by geoduck14 »

Aeolun wrote: post #296
mcguire wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy provided expert testimony in a court. The opposition reported him to the Board of Examiners. The Board of Examiners requires a PE license for those who provide expert testimony. He is going to get to pay the fine. " Is giving a speech about how to treat a broken bone considered ‘practicing medicine’? " Giving the speech in a court, on the witness stand, under oath, claiming to be an expert in treating broken…

Yes? If you literally state “I, like 80% of the other engineers in this state, am not a licenced engineer, but here is my testimony”, what else would you expect the poor man to do? It’s up to the judge/jury to take the testimony with a grain of salt. That said, I’m not sure if being licensed means anything more than ‘I paid my dues to the state board’.

To be a PE, you have to do a handful of things. From memory:

Take a test

Study under an actual PE for a period of time

Take another test

Pay some money

Do some work

I studied Engineering in school, but I didn't get a PE because taking the test was too much effort and I wasn't going to work with any PEs, so I assume that actual PEs know stuff that I don't know.

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

#306

Post by Taniwha »

cloverich wrote: post #186
xf1cf wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the ford conspiracies how exactly should jaywalking be treated then? It's both a danger to the drivers and the people. We can't get rid of cars and streets. That cat is over a hundred years outside of the bag. It's moved on, had it's own family, and died. Jaywalking as a punishable offense makes sense to me at least. The level of punishment is often excessive certainly. $250 fine for stepping onto the street…

Alternatively we could amend jaywalking to only be an offense if the act directly impedes drivers. That is, always legal to cross when safe. It more reflects the spirit of the law, eliminates bad (cop) behavior, and still allows fining bad pedestrian behavior. It’s how cars are regulated after all — you can turn through a cross walk with it’s walk sign on as long as there’s no pedestrians. So maybe right if way yield…

Why not have drivers stop for pedestrians? In many US states pedestrians have right of way at the end of each block, why not in the middle too? Remember all drivers are also pedestrians

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

#307

Post by geoduck14 »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #183
tablespoon wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just the concept of “jaywalking” as a punishable offense is revolting to me. It's a required compromise to allow pedestrians and high-speed automobile traffic to coexist. This unfairly-dead comment has a good discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27561530 Get rid of it, and you'll either have more pedestrians getting run over (e.g. some distracted guy on his cell phone accidentially rushing out in front…

> e.g. some distracted guy on his cell phone accidentially rushing out in front of some car, getting killed in the process and traumatizing some driver I think this comment demonstrates the perverse value system I’m commenting against. I don’t mean this as an insult to you, merely to point out how people have been programmed to think people shouldn’t be able to live in a city without being terrified of their lives so…

> Cars have no business driving faster than 15-20mph on a city steet.

Where do you live where you think it is reasonable to set a speed limit below 35 mph?

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

#308

Post by [deleted] »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #183
tablespoon wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just the concept of “jaywalking” as a punishable offense is revolting to me. It's a required compromise to allow pedestrians and high-speed automobile traffic to coexist. This unfairly-dead comment has a good discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27561530 Get rid of it, and you'll either have more pedestrians getting run over (e.g. some distracted guy on his cell phone accidentially rushing out in front…

> e.g. some distracted guy on his cell phone accidentially rushing out in front of some car, getting killed in the process and traumatizing some driver I think this comment demonstrates the perverse value system I’m commenting against. I don’t mean this as an insult to you, merely to point out how people have been programmed to think people shouldn’t be able to live in a city without being terrified of their lives so…

[deleted]

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

#309

Post by [deleted] »

geoduck14 wrote: post #307
Swenrekcah wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> e.g. some distracted guy on his cell phone accidentially rushing out in front of some car, getting killed in the process and traumatizing some driver I think this comment demonstrates the perverse value system I’m commenting against. I don’t mean this as an insult to you, merely to point out how people have been programmed to think people shouldn’t be able to live in a city without being terrified of their lives so…

> Cars have no business driving faster than 15-20mph on a city steet. Where do you live where you think it is reasonable to set a speed limit below 35 mph?

[deleted]

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

#310

Post by gscott »

blunte wrote: post #263

Of course it's corporate corruption of government that is driving this case. "he is an engineer at heart and speaks up when he sees people make what he believes to be engineering mistakes. He has written letters to state and county governments and testified before a county commission. But Wayne’s troubles began when he when he agreed to help his son, Kyle, a North Carolina attorney, with a case about a piping system…

In this case he was speaking as an expert to the jury. I think the real question is who can define who can be an expert to the court. Is it the court or the state that defines the qualifications of the expert. If it is the State who can define who is an expert then the could very well require him to have a license. It is not about what he said but where he said it.
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