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Man Fined $500 for Crime of Writing 'I Am an Engineer' in an Email to the Gov't

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Re: Man Fined $500 for Crime of Writing 'I Am an Engineer' in an Email to the Gov't

#141

Post by fsloth »

takk309 wrote: post #130
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #109

Professional licensing of just about every kind serves one and one purpose only: Fatten someone's pocket and artificially restrict the labor supply to favor those already licensed. Period. You can certainly make an argument that it looks like he went out of his way to piss 'em off, but the fact that he could be charged for calling himself "an engineer" -- and the fact that we all have come to a point where we think i…

Professional licensing exists to protect the public at large from fraud. Would you want a public building, say a sports stadium, designed by someone without the proper training? Engineering licenses add a layer of protection and assurance that the person performing the work is truly capable of performing the work.

I think you need to think of a better example. The stadium would be built by a major contractor, and they would be responsible for hiring capable people. In general, having a university degree in structural engineering means a person can design structures that don't fall down. In this instance, having a license would be just like an extra stamp on the university degree.

Re: Man Fined $500 for Crime of Writing 'I Am an Engineer' in an Email to the Gov't

#142

Post by ghostly_s »

jack9 wrote: post #128

So now we have a place where you can self-identify as an opposing gender but not as a profession you practice. I'd duplicate his letters to the same recipients, if I could.

Who's at risk of getting hurt if I identify as a gender I haven't earned credentials for?

Re: Man Fined $500 for Crime of Writing 'I Am an Engineer' in an Email to the Gov't

#143

Post by dragonwriter »

wl wrote: post #139
JBReefer wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and the Shouting Fire thing are both directly harmful. Calling yourself an engineer, not a PE, without a a PE is not directly harmful, and the Constitution overrides state laws that claim otherwise. My money is on him in this one.

"Shouting fire" is a reference to Schenck v. US which has been overturned. It applied the "clear and present danger" standard. The current standard is "incitement to imminent lawless action" as articulated in Brandenburg v. Ohio.

> "Shouting fire" is a reference to Schenck v. US which has been overturned.

It's a reference to dicta in that case, which would be dubious to cite as meaningful even had Shenck not been overturned.

Re: Man Fined $500 for Crime of Writing 'I Am an Engineer' in an Email to the Gov't

#144

Post by fsloth »

In context: The guy was a swede. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that in general we in the nordic countries don't have an additional licensing scheme for engineers. Having a university degree is considered sufficient proof of skill to get hired by an engineering company. And, the last I looked, our houses and bridges were pretty okay. Nobody designs stuff alone - most structural engineers work for one engineering company or another and work in teams.

So, in his context, having a degree is sufficient to be able to call himself an engineer. Funny he hasn't acclimatized to US, though.

Re: Man Fined $500 for Crime of Writing 'I Am an Engineer' in an Email to the Gov't

#145

Post by anigbrowl »

echion wrote: post #135
rmxt wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using the title "engineer" in conjunction with "submitting the critique and calculations [...] to members of the public for consideration and modification [...] of traffic signals", I believe, is the critical part here. If he had merely submitted the "critique and calculations" for "consideration" as a concerned citizen, he would have not gotten a fine. Simply put, he called himself an engineer and suggested that pub…

> Using the title "engineer" in conjunction with "submitting the critique and calculations [...] to members of the public for consideration and modification [...] of traffic signals", I believe, is the critical part here. I hear you, and agree that when he says "I'm an engineer", we have a certain set of laws that apply to that speech. I'm saying there is another aspect which is the the crux of the reply-to-top-level…

That's because you're lifting it out of the relevant context. He has already messed things up for them by previously claiming to be an engineer to government agencies and local and national media.

He can't unring that bell because he already accepted a warning (absent any fine or penalty) and agreed to abide by the Code on not calling himself an engineer and then repeatedly broke that agreement, so he doesn't get to keep selling his proposed traffic solution because of his demonstrated bad faith.

It's like someone who called themselves a doctor and turned out to have no medical qualifications being enjoined from wearing a white coat and a stethoscope and hanging around hospitals offering unsolicited medical advice.

Re: Man Fined $500 for Crime of Writing 'I Am an Engineer' in an Email to the Gov't

#146

Post by echion »

takk309 wrote: post #89

The issue that the Board has is that he claimed to be an engineer in a public forum. The Boards interpretation of "engineer" in this context was to mean Traffic Engineer. The Board warned Järlström that he was in violation of the Law and asked him to stop claiming to be an engineer, to which he agreed. It was later, when he continued to claim to be an engineer that legal action was taken. It is also of note, and stat…

> The issue that the Board has is that he claimed to be an engineer in a public forum.

That's not the only issue the Board said it had, and not the most important one at that:

> [...] you continued to use the title "engineer" in your communication with Board staff and, of more concern, are the documents you provided that indicate you may have engaged in unlicensed engineering work in Oregon.

(emphasis mine). It's the emphasized clause, and the Board's Final Report, page 6, Section 14[1], that is concerning: he's being punished mainly ("of more concern"!) for doing thinking and speech that, IMO, should not be prohibited.

1. https://www.scribd.com/document/346354146/mats4#from_embed

Re: Man Fined $500 for Crime of Writing 'I Am an Engineer' in an Email to the Gov't

#147

Post by sidlls »

lacampbell wrote: post #104
grecy wrote: post #10

I run up against this sometimes in Canada. I studied "Software Engineering" and have a bachelors degree from Australia. I am a member of the Australian Institute of Engineers (accredited degree). If I say something like "I am a Software Engineer" when I work in Canada, any other Engineers will get all prickly and go on about how that's not a recognized kind of Engineer, and it's illegal to say-so, blah blah. Even if…

For you, what's the distinction between being a software engineer, and being a software developer? The line seems blurry to me.

I'm not Canadian, but a long time ago, before graduate school, I was on an engineering track. Most of my friends joined my path (physics) but several went on to advanced degrees in engineering, accreditation/licensing, etc. When I describe to them what "engineering" is like in this industry they snicker and guffaw. The two fields are quite far apart. Mainly this is because software "engineering" is still quite immature. "Real" engineering has been something humans have worked on for literally millennia, so in this sense it's hardly a fair comparison.

One thing that is especially hilarious is the interview process: the equivalent of the software world's interview process would be to grill an engineer by requiring him to, say, solve a projectile motion with air-resistance problem (fairly common in first-year calculus-based mechanics classes and as review in sophomore/junior year classical mechanics) on the whiteboard and using that as a way to gauge his ability to design whole systems. These interview processes aren't good at looking for engineers, they're good at looking for code monkeys with a high opinion of themselves.

Re: Man Fined $500 for Crime of Writing 'I Am an Engineer' in an Email to the Gov't

#148

Post by jpambrun »

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #138
jpambrun wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It's about public safety. Do you want anybody calling themselves Doctors and making surgery without proper training? How about civil engineers building bridge? How about software engineers that work on medical devices that can kill? If you are building iOS apps you are probably a developer, not an engineer.

I actually do. Doctors with "proper training" still kill people and are grossly negligent. Like I replied to someone above, where I think I and you would sharply disagree on is the notion that without mandated professional licensing it would be a free for all. I don't think that is true at all. I think systems of accreditation, checking for competency, etc. would emerge, and likely even be better than the ones we hav…

It's not enough. I have a bachelor's degree and Ph.D. in Engineering, but I still cannot call myself either engineer (I'm not a member of the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec) nor Doctor. And it is fine.

Professional orders can disbar you temporally and impose training for any competence or ethical shortcoming. Their role is solely to protect the public. This is the 'systems of accreditation, checking for competency' that many societies came up with. The idea that you can rely on self-regulation is ridiculous.

Most Doctors are not grossly negligent, but if you find one that is what are you gonna do? There is no one to complain to without professional orders.

Re: Man Fined $500 for Crime of Writing 'I Am an Engineer' in an Email to the Gov't

#149

Post by coupdejarnac »

ghostly_s wrote: post #140
coupdejarnac wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was because of the engineering license issue, most or all states have similar laws.

I don't think the issue is the law, it's the seemingly capricious enforcement.

It might seem capricious, but what typically happens is that companies operate under the radar until they get caught. Unfortunately, being ignorant of the law is not a good excuse. I'm not even sure how you can have an engineering firm that large and be ignorant of the need for licensure. It sounds like they blew it off, and it finally came back to bite them.

Re: Man Fined $500 for Crime of Writing 'I Am an Engineer' in an Email to the Gov't

#150

Post by anigbrowl »

flamedoge wrote: post #111
anigbrowl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing got trumped. He would have been fine if he had made the exact same argument with asserting that he was an engineer, a claim that has specific legal implications that are easily verified. If you wrote an article on cardiology, and you said 'I am a doctor' but you hadn't kept your medical license current, then it would be a false claim, regardless of the fact that your article on cardiology was 100% true. Asser…

There appears to be desire to adhere to whatever legal framework to give power and authority to status based on education and history. However, certain things are absolute and trumps any legal framework. Math and science don't change or abide by human laws. Discrediting work based on credentials may work in other fields, but you can't discredit math and science *by anything other than themselves.

Nobody is trying to discredit the math and science. I have no objection to his proposal and neither does anyone else. The issues is that he tried to use the social construct of credentials to get attention for his proposal in a manner that bordered on fraud (since he was first given a friendly warning about the inappropriateness of titling himself as an engineer).

This is not an attack on math and science no matter how much you want to see it that way. If he had been frank about his amateur status from the outset hew would have had no problem. getting it wrong without bad intentions is nothing serious either, but after he was warned and agreed to abide by the state code, he had no excuse to repeat the behavior.

You can come up with the most interesting scientific result in history, but that does not give you an automatic right to have your discovery implemented by others, does it?

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