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Federal judge finds state law governing who is an engineer violates free speech

oregonlive.com

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Re: Federal judge finds state law governing who is an engineer violates free speech

#181

Post by chrisbennet »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #74
ken wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you think anyone should be able to call themselves "physicians" or "lawyers" or "police", as those are English words that predate their professional associations?

The problem is that there are a small, specialized clique of Engineers who have professional certification, and a huge population of engineers who don't have this certification and are not required to have it. The boundary between the two groups is fuzzy and a bit contentious, with each side seeking to expand their domain. There's no such confusion when it comes to the other professions listed, no huge gray area wher…

The PE is so “popular” that they discontinued the test for it.

https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software-engineerin...

Re: Federal judge finds state law governing who is an engineer violates free speech

#182

Post by wazanator »

ggcdn wrote: post #121
Gibbon1 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I had a discussion about this my put was that licensing is an archaic way of doing things. In short the idea is we trust the PE's signature that everything is copacetic. In more modern fields like automotive, aerospace and software engineering that idea is laughable. Everything is about process, audit and testing.

How do you propose municipal planning departments process, audit, and test the thousands of building permit drawings they receive every year? Have a staff of hundreds of engineers of their own? The professional reliance model seems to work well enough, but that isn't to say it is the optimal model out there.

I feel like that's something that could be at least in part be automated by a computer. If everyone is following a standard you should be able to feed the data in and start doing pass/fail tests on requirements. I assume that's what people who sign off on plans kind of already do anyway.

Re: Federal judge finds state law governing who is an engineer violates free speech

#183

Post by eesmith »

cabaalis wrote: post #172
EGreg wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want more people to use violence? Mob rule is better?

OP does not appear to be advocating violence, but is stating a fact. All laws are enforced by violence. If you disagree, disobey the police at your next meeting with them. You'll find out quickly who is allowed to assault and who is not.

The US Flag code is a law but it is not enforced by violence. It is purely voluntary law.

Re: Federal judge finds state law governing who is an engineer violates free speech

#184

Post by grogenaut »

caseysoftware wrote: post #176
chaseha wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely disagree. It says he can call himself an engineer in a non-professional context. Having a ChBE BS, I am an engineer (although no longer working as one). I am not a Professional Engineer (not a licensed PE). There’s a difference - doesn’t mean I should not be able to call myself an engineer, and I’m sure others w engineering degrees would agree

BS EE here. I am also an engineer and approach the world with an engineering mindset. And I would never use "Engineer" as part of my title. For me, once it becomes a title/capitalized, it's no longer an adjective but a designation. My first initial is D and I use that instead of my first name. When people address me as "Dr Casey" I correct them on that too.

Non-sarcastic question: Everyone at my company has "Software Development Engineer" on their title if that's their role. That's a capitol E. What's your thoughts on that?

Re: Federal judge finds state law governing who is an engineer violates free speech

#185

Post by anjbe »

eesmith wrote: post #183
cabaalis wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP does not appear to be advocating violence, but is stating a fact. All laws are enforced by violence. If you disagree, disobey the police at your next meeting with them. You'll find out quickly who is allowed to assault and who is not.

The US Flag code is a law but it is not enforced by violence. It is purely voluntary law.

Yes, but only because the Supreme Court ruled that there’s no way to enforce the Flag Code without violating the First Amendment, a part of the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. That’s not the usual case for laws that are on the books.

Re: Federal judge finds state law governing who is an engineer violates free speech

#186

Post by dang »

sneak wrote: post #122
jchw wrote: post #50

I both love and hate this story. Unfairly handing out red light tickets is rotten, but fining the man who pointed it out is beyond rotten. It's corrupt. There's no question Oregon was defending its income with that move. Dirty money. I don't feel like reversing the fine is nearly enough of a response. There was effectively no punishment for issuing that fine. But, I'm still pleased with the outcomes Järlström keeps a…

The state has a monopoly on violence; they do not need to protect their reputation. They’re the only game in town.

Would you please stop taking HN threads on generic ideological tangents? They're tedious (because repetitive, because nothing new) and lead to flamewars.

I feel like we've had to ask you this kind of thing a lot and have cut you way more slack than we do for most. If you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site to heart, we'd appreciate it.

You might find these other links helpful for getting a clearer idea of the original spirit:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html

http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html

http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html

Re: Federal judge finds state law governing who is an engineer violates free speech

#187

Post by dang »

oh_sigh wrote: post #163
olefoo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His premise is also wrong; in that the state does not have a monopoly on violence and indeed delegates it to private citizens specifically in several contexts. Consider any state with "stand your ground" or "castle doctrine" embedded in their statutes. In most of the US this translates into you can use violence if you are white and fearful and plausibly justified. Not so much if you are not.

Why race bait? Are you quoting any compiled statistics, or are you just going by the gut on this one? I'm wondering why white privilege on violence didn't work for Michael Drejka, who shot a black man who aggressively pushed him to the ground and was subsequently charged with manslaughter, but Devin Gibbs(a black man) was okayed to shoot his gun into a McDonalds on self defense grounds after a white man basically tau…

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, especially race war.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Federal judge finds state law governing who is an engineer violates free speech

#188

Post by heyjudy »

eigenvector wrote: post #32

As a licensed professional engineer, I find the effort exerted by various state and provincial licensing bodies to regulate the use of the term 'engineer' a bit tiresome. Yes, it's important to regulate the practice of engineering, but unlike some other types of professionals engineers rarely if ever offer their services to Joe Public. It's not like we have guys putting up billboards on the side of the highway advert…

Yes. Back some 20 years ago, I switched majors, spent another 1.5 years and $15k for a degree accreditation eligible for PE.

I'm fine with forbiding speech regarding life/safety impact like shouting "fire" and protecting the use of PE for liability and public safety reasons, and letting anyone call themselves a hacker, engineer or whatever else floats their day. To be clear: there ought to be a level of professional rigor where lives are on the line, but otherwise it's caveat hiring manager.

Re: Federal judge finds state law governing who is an engineer violates free speech

#189

Post by logicchains »

abeppu wrote: post #86
MetalGuru wrote: post #23

“The record before this Court demonstrates that the Board has repeatedly targeted individuals for using the title ‘engineer’ in non-commercial contexts, including core political speech such as campaigning for public office and advocacy against a local ballot initiative.” Although I agree with the sentiment of the article, I do think it would be deceptive for a politician to claim to be an engineer if they hadn’t done…

> it could actually be beneficial for software engineers to have an official accreditation I've waffled on this, and I'd be curious to hear input from others. On the one hand, software engineers are building systems which have incredible reach and impact. It's reasonable to want to ensure these systems are being built by people with some solid body of knowledge and skills. However, software engineering as a field cha…

My university had a "Masters of Software Engineering" course that was accredited by some European engineering body, and a significant amount of the content was UML diagrams, OO and writing huge reports. "Engineering" as it is practiced in other fields seems fundamentally tied to the waterfall approach, which makes less sense in software.

Re: Federal judge finds state law governing who is an engineer violates free speech

#190

Post by MRD85 »

chrisbennet wrote: post #181
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that there are a small, specialized clique of Engineers who have professional certification, and a huge population of engineers who don't have this certification and are not required to have it. The boundary between the two groups is fuzzy and a bit contentious, with each side seeking to expand their domain. There's no such confusion when it comes to the other professions listed, no huge gray area wher…

The PE is so “popular” that they discontinued the test for it. https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software-engineerin...

Likely because it's not a requirement for anything. Is PE required for anything in the US?
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