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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 6 years, 10 months ago
    Let's not let engineering go the way of the AMA.

    AMSE boiler codes et al saved a lot of lives, and the government was not required.
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    • Posted by ewv 6 years, 10 months ago
      In the 1970s there was a push from IEEE to require licensing for programming, which was squashed by IEEE members in a big controversy. Most engineers in industry do not require licenses for their work internal to or consulting for companies, or for teaching and research. The progressives want government controls over what anyone can do or say. Clearly that is too unwieldy so the problem of unauthorized individualism should be cut off at the source with controls over acquisition of knowledge.

      Here are some more links on the Oregon unlicensed thinker, but the public criticisms are too narrow, conceding government "licensing" control while saying that this example only goes too far in what at least for now still supports the 1st Amendment. If the progressives can link it to 'hate thoughts' against social controls with red lights, even that will end.

      https://youtu.be/IIPYcCii7Sg

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9xVC...

      https://youtu.be/Wi4brP0sXSQ

      http://ij.org/case/oregon-engineering...
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      • Posted by $ Thoritsu 6 years, 10 months ago
        Right there with you. I am the CTO of a group of companies with about 1,000 engineers. We have a short list of ones with a PE (5?), that we periodically leverage for certain things that oddly require a stamp.
        PE is generally irrelevant now.
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  • Posted by chad 6 years, 10 months ago
    He wasn't practicing as an engineer, just using simple math to make a point. He wasn't trying to build anything, the government should have taken the 'free' information and examined their problem, fixed it, then shut up. Now he is asking the government for permission to be free in hopes of establishing a better functioning slave master. Quit asking for permission.
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 6 years, 10 months ago
    Craftsmen's guilds started this process, with the award of titles, starting as an apprentice, then rising to a journeyman, and then a master of one's craft. The government didn't get involved, except to recognize the guild's certificate of title, until they realized they could make money by usurping the guild's authority.
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    • Posted by $ 6 years, 10 months ago
      Yes, and this is what I'd like to see a return to - peer acknowledgement of status. That way you have a private system being administered by those who actually know about their area of expertise - not some bureaucrat in an office who's primary goal is collecting fees.
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  • Posted by brkssb 6 years, 10 months ago
    There is no legitimate “government” certification. All government certifications are specious, censoring, prejudicial, and boorish. Appropriate education and qualification rigors still exist (fading fast BECAUSE of government bureaucracy and greed) and are easily demanded by consumers seeking doctors, lawyers, hairdressers… DO NOT PROTECT THE PUBLIC FROM OURSELVES - WE DO NOT DESERVE TO BE SO PERSECUTED.
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 6 years, 10 months ago
    I find this very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I'm both. I'm an engineer and the government says I'm an engineer (get it?). The real issue with licensure of engineers is protecting the public. In doing the study this gentleman did on traffic lights he in no way endangered the public. They are just picking on him. I don't agree with this - But, he could have had a licensed civil engineer put a stamp on the document and that would have avoided something that shouldn't have happened in the first place...if that makes any sense. But, anybody has a right to do what he did. In fact, society could have really benefitted from it. But, they don't really care about society...
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    • Posted by jhagen 6 years, 10 months ago
      I appreciate what you're saying, but clearly the real issue with licensure of engineers (or any other profession for that matter) is NOT protecting the public. It's for creating monopolies. This is just one more piece of evidence of that.
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      • Posted by $ Abaco 6 years, 10 months ago
        It's both, actually. I like protecting the public. I don't like a lot of other stuff.
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        • Posted by jhagen 6 years, 10 months ago
          Perhaps the public is better off when it is allowed to protect itself...
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          • Posted by $ Abaco 6 years, 10 months ago
            As is should be. How would somebody do that, in terms of engineering? The best engineers I've worked with have been those who designed the earlier Boeing Commercial aircraft. They weren't licensed. But, trust me...they were protecting the public who flew through very good engineering.
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    • Posted by peterchunt 6 years, 10 months ago
      I agree with Abaco. I am a licensed professional engineer. I practice engineering only in my area of expertise. If I go outside of this envelope I would get an engineer in that field to stamp it to ensure it is correct. All professions require a license to ensure that the person is competent (Lawyers, Dentists, Doctors, etc.). While those who don’t understand that these institutions are assuring competence and complain that they limit entry into the professions are wrong. They are only attempting to ensure people who meet the required competence required for that profession practice it.
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      • Posted by rbunce 6 years, 10 months ago
        You are assuming the license grantor knows what the hell they are doing in evaluating the competency of the applicant... big assumption. Also assuming that because someone does not want to submit themselves to government licensure process means they are incompetent. Also assuming that someone who does submit themselves to government licensure process is competent.
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    • Posted by CircuitGuy 6 years, 10 months ago
      "the could have had a licensed civil engineer put a stamp on the document and that would have avoided something that shouldn't have happened in the first place"
      The PE would have to have "responsible charge" over the design, otherwise it's "doc stamping". In other words, a PE gets to bill a bunch of hours to comply with the law, and then it's her/his skin on the line if something is wrong.
      There's an Internet acronym for I am not your lawyer (IANYL) because the state bar will go after even the appearance of practicing law, regardless of if there's a legal services agreement in place. There's no I am not your engineer (IANYE) acronym. Engineers are lousy at this. Captain Kirk argues with Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy about whether sleeping with the alien is affecting his judgment, while Scotty is in the background getting stuff done.
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      • Posted by $ Abaco 6 years, 10 months ago
        You're overcomplicating what I said. I don't disagree with what you're saying, though. There are times when a PE will stamp something without being involved in it enough (IMO). Those aren't good engineers. I try to keep my statements really simple, literal. There is a lot of "doc stamping" that goes on. I'm asked to do it once in a while. I don't. Love your Captain Kirk example! LOL
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 10 months ago
    IMO, this attack on free speech boils down to Big Brother wanting revenue.
    How do you get any kind of license? You pay for it.
    The driver's license I paid for arrived Monday.
    The concealed carry pistol I paid for arrived yesterday.
    Checks for two car tag stickers are in the mail.
    Whee! Everything at once.
    Never mind that I also need to see the dentist about a molar cap I swallowed while waiting to see how much my dental insurance will pay for $855 worth of other work.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 6 years, 10 months ago
    This is rent-seeking behavior. Engineers set it up to inflate the price of engineering services. Doctors and lawyers do it, but we do a lousy job (it's good we're lousy at this) of stopping practicing without a license because there are industrial exemptions that allow you to use the word without being licensed. You just can't use it in the context of a project that requires licensure. Traffic light timing probably does require licensure. Usually projects like specifying power lines or wires in a building require it. Oddly, medical equipment does not. The companies go through FDA process controls, which results in more engineers being hired, but the engineers don't put their PE # on the docs and are not personally liable.

    I like to think engineering is not as strict about licensure as law and medicine because engineers look at the larger picture and see it for what it is. I think lawyers and doctors are likely ON AVERAGE (certainly not all) to take the claim on face value that licensure is for public safety and they're not going to question the issue b/c it's outside their area of practice.
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    • Posted by $ 6 years, 10 months ago
      "This is rent-seeking behavior."

      Bingo. And whomever has the power to tax/license has the power to control.

      I'm sure Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson would be appalled, however.
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    • Posted by freedomforall 6 years, 10 months ago
      Regardless of licensing, the public is not safe from lawyers.
      Anyone who has any condition adversely affecting his health is not safe from the dictatorship of the AMA. That is caused by licensing, not remedied by licensing.
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  • Posted by Owlsrayne 6 years, 10 months ago
    There are similars regulations in other states including Az. Even though I have a Mobile Hydraulics Certificate in maintaining fluid power systems which is now about 25 yrs old, I would have to retest though the Fluid Power Society to be recertified to do business here in Az. Regulations like the ones in Oregon are to protect businesses and others from incompetent people. But, Oregon is taking their regs to the legal limit and stretching it beyond reason.
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    • Posted by ewv 6 years, 10 months ago
      Licensing does not protect from the incompetent. It enshrines incompetence as pre-approved and protects monopolies.

      The "logic" defending government licensing implies that no could do anything without government approval. That is the opposite of a limited government in a free society under which we are free to act unless expressively prohibited as a violation of someone else's rights. Requirement of advance bureaucratic approval before acting is totalitarian.

      There is widespread opposition to the suppression of freedom of speech by the engineer in Oregon, but it almost universally concedes government licensing, which means you are allowed to speak but not think and act on your knowledge without approval. Do people really support that, or are they unthinkingly parroting what they have been told by statists thousands of times throughout their whole lives? Would they just as easily object to freedom of speech (as many already do) if that had been the 'tradition' they grew up in?
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  • Posted by preimert1 6 years, 10 months ago
    So a person driving a train through Oregon better call himself a "train operator" or "rail road driver" even though he bears responsibility for publlic safety?
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  • Posted by slfisher 6 years, 10 months ago
    Do you feel the same way about doctors? Should anyone be entitled to call him or herself a doctor, under free speech, and it's up to the individual to find out if they actually attended medical school?
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    • Posted by $ 6 years, 10 months ago
      I found this highly enlightening. Enjoy!
      https://youtu.be/fFoXyFmmGBQ
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      • Posted by Dobrien 6 years, 10 months ago
        Hello Blair,
        Thanks for the short informative clip. My Grandmother volunteered for the Degree of Honor
        Fraternal organization in the 60's. I still have a small life insurance policy she purchased for me. The fraternal approach allowed the members to have power over provider of the treatment. Could not have that. Time and again it is the same old story. The govt fix is like pouring gas on a fire to put it out. Let's see , worry about a certain group hellbent on your destruction
        Bring them in unvetted and pay for them. Turn affordable medical care into the unaffordable care act. Control Education and institute a numbskull curriculum . Force equality when it goes against reality : doing a bad job or service is not equal to a job well done . A well utilized talent with skill and ingenuity has no ethnicity, bloodline or nationality it is the INDIVIDUAL that produces.
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