Author Topic: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering  (Read 55370 times)

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Offline vodka

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #125 on: September 06, 2017, 05:21:09 am »
When i began the Bachiller(Highschool no mandatory) had three class(2 stems, 1 humanity) ,practically the proportional between  boys and girls on the STEM classrooms were  60% girls and 40% boys , these the half were repeater of 1 course. On humanity  was approximatly 50/50.  At finish the course, the great majority of girl had approved and pass the last course Bachiller.  At change the boys had failed approximatly the half.

 For accesing to  the university had a minium scoring for going to enter to determinate career. Practicaly all the Enginnerings Career were 5, less Electrical(5,5) and Mechanical(6) the ratio of the women 1 for each 30 men. On front to "Memoristic Career"  Medicine 8.92 ,physiotherapy 7.34 , Magistery 7.5 , engineering chemist 6.5 , all these dominatd by women.

Here, anybody can say that there are discrimination versus women.

Quote
Why should an all male robotics team have to focus on attracting more women?

Seeing the faces of the children(photo*) , it seems a poem. On compare with the teacher.

*The photgrapher had the bad milk for shooting and published this photo





 

Offline Assafl

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #126 on: September 06, 2017, 07:24:24 am »
We also need to know because the shift will destroy the sciences and other professions in developed countries. It will destroy professionalism in a great many fields. It will leave people with nothing. They wont even be able to work, because their "rights" will price them out of a market dominated by a new form of modern day slavery. Its goal is to cheapen everything. And not in a good way.

Perhaps. But if you were in a lower caste in India (let alone some untouchable castes) - your only hope of getting OUT of REAL Slavery - is some engineering or technical job (or even a Tata call center). Mumbai and other cities have 1000's of signs for engineering and technical education. 
« Last Edit: September 06, 2017, 07:55:37 am by Assafl »
 

Offline Assafl

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #127 on: September 06, 2017, 07:52:07 am »
Most high schools in my area have FTC teams, and they are around 1:3 to 2:3. My club Is 1:30 because we lack the clout to even call ourselves a legitimate thing. We came in 24 out of 26th place!!! Having one girl in a team of 10 did not look good in front of the judges! With just $2000 a year we could be successful at tourtaments and focus on attracting more women

Well there's the trick.
Why should an all male robotics team have to focus on attracting more women?
Why can't a robotics team just focus on doing cool robotics, and those who are interested will join, those who aren't interested won't.

Perhaps the fact that they have just 1 woman (out of 30) means there is an underlying issue? Maybe women in the school or women in the district are actively discouraged from participating (for any reason like religion, sexism, stereotyping etc.)? If they were from a boy's only school one can rationalize an all boy club - but for a heterogenic environment I am 100% certain they are losing out on great talent - not just girls - it may even be off-putting for talented boys (not just equality minded boys - quite a few boys seem to like hanging around girls in high school :-).

My Niece was in FRC competitions (they got quite a few prizes); quite a few girls there. My niece designed, built and tested a few iterations of the mechanical device. For whatever reason, the lathe and mill operations were guys, while the team management (handling funding, sponsor relationship, even handling the municipality relationship) was a 10th grade girl. An articulate but soft spoken laser focused go-getter that does not accept no for an answer she was able to get sponsors to donate machining time and help machine intricate mechanics for the team. It is a coed varsity that attracts the best in the school and ranks up there with the boys basketball and boys soccer teams .   
 

Offline Howardlong

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #128 on: September 06, 2017, 09:53:04 am »
I was a mentor on a student satellite project in Dubai a couple of years ago. Of the eight locally based engineering students on the project, five were female, and they were specialising in various fields including power electronics, control systems, and communications systems, as well as various mechanical engineering domains beyond my experience.
 

Offline sokoloff

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #129 on: September 06, 2017, 10:07:40 am »
People should be paid equally for equal work but that means that workers in developing countries should get more, not that people in developed countries should get less.
You realize that the answer is both are going to happen. Demand will rise in developing countries for engineering and scientific talent (and prices will follow). Demand will fall in high-cost countries (and with it prices for that labor).

Nobody wins under this scheme.
People in developing/low-cost countries will win/are winning massively under this scheme.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #130 on: September 06, 2017, 10:26:46 am »
Perhaps the fact that they have just 1 woman (out of 30) means there is an underlying issue?

Sure, insert a dozen reasons here, not all of which might actually be problems that need solving.
Perhaps it's as simple as a randomly small intake of female students that year, and very few of them (again randomly) happen to not be interested in robotics, nothing more sinister at play.
Perhaps next year they'll naturally have a much bigger ratio?
Perhaps it's just a group friendship dynamic thing. i.e. none of the leaders of the girl peer social groups happen to be interested in robotics, so their friends likely won't be interested either. Maybe all it takes is couple of girls to form a more nerdy social group that happen to find robotics interesting, and they could drag along their friends for the ride.

The exact same peer group dynamics could also be true for males. One year you might end with a huge robotics group, and the next year you might end up with so few numbers of people interested that they don't bother running it.

I go back to my channel (and every other electronics channel I am aware of stats of), why is it only a few percent female?
Surely with Youtube, every barrier has been stripped out of the equation, there is zero pressure from anyone, no religion, no stereotyping, no sexism, nothing, if they are free to search Youtube as they desire then why only a few percent viewership for electronics?
I'm willing to bet even electronic channels with female hosts would have the same figures (IIRC Jeri Ellsworth had a similar figure back in the day).

The problem with the whole debate is that people all too often think this is a major problem that needs solving, when in fact there could be no real issue at all.
 

Online tautech

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #131 on: September 06, 2017, 11:23:13 am »
I chuckled when I got this in an email today........not saying it's right or wrong....just another POV.

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Offline JoeO

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #132 on: September 06, 2017, 11:43:23 am »
The day Al Gore was born there were 7,000 polar bears on Earth.
Today, only 26,000 remain.
 
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Online coppice

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #133 on: September 06, 2017, 12:48:12 pm »
Yes. While we welcome girls to join us, we shouldn't force girls to do EE. We should also not lower the standard for females, because that on its own is discrimination.
Its worse than just discrimination. Its self defeating. In the 80s in the UK there were programmes to try to increase the number of women in engineering. These basically took women with high school results not good enough to get into any self respecting degree programme, and helped them to get through an engineering degree. If you REALLY want to reinforce the stereotype that women make bad engineers, attracting low talent candidates seems a fantastic solution.
« Last Edit: September 06, 2017, 12:49:56 pm by coppice »
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #134 on: September 06, 2017, 01:15:09 pm »
If you REALLY want to reinforce the stereotype that women make bad engineers

IME there is no such stereotype.
 

Offline Yansi

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #135 on: September 06, 2017, 01:53:34 pm »
The solution is to ensure that women and minorities have a fair and accessible path forward into STEM.

How exactly is it currently "unfair"?

I know a local uni, that pays girls a stipendia, just for being girls.    :scared:
 

Offline Assafl

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #136 on: September 06, 2017, 02:12:54 pm »
The exact same peer group dynamics could also be true for males. One year you might end with a huge robotics group, and the next year you might end up with so few numbers of people interested that they don't bother running it.

Actually - since it is a varsity club sort of things - it is unlikely to undulate too much. Just like high schools and colleges have football and soccer teams - they don't go away when too few jocks sign up...

Like sports varsity, robotics clubs (at least the competing kind) seem to be oversubscribed rather than undulating.... All the school gets behind the team. There is a history with anecdotes, a trophy cabinet and an entire wings of a building dedicated to the club. And they get use of the Gymnasium for robot practice (when the jocks are away).

1 in 30 isn't a problem you say. Surely finishing 26 of 28 teams isn't "optimal"? I think the two are likely to be related.

IMHO, the fact they have 1 gal is indicative of a problem. As you pointed out we don't know what the problem is (and if it is solvable). But 1 in 30? At the very least they are not a very attractive club for female talent. Maybe we should not expect 50% female (no dogma!) - but it can't be that there is nothing of interest in this varsity for all the smart gals (and it is highly likely that the smart guys are avoiding the club as well).
 

Offline cdev

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #137 on: September 06, 2017, 02:32:28 pm »
The concern about women in some settings (ones where government funding is involved on some level) may be because there are job cuts on the horizon (few people seem to realize this, though) due to "services liberalization" and the fear is women will be impacted greatly and their replacements who might be likely to be from elsewhere may not be women. (The idea as its being pushed is to channel those jobs to developing country services export firms. There is a lot of concern that global "de-industrialization "will push the developing countries into a state of perpetual warfare or more likely encourage them to assert rights and develop more of a domestic employment capacity and charge more for raw materials - which the corporate world fears.

The real conflict they fear is not the one because of jobs vanishing in great numbers and not enough to eat. Its the one where the children fo the elite in those countries demand - and get reforms and reductions in corruption and nepotism, and build their own industries that compete with the rest of the world -

Instead these deals encourage patronage systems and corruption.

And especially,  the trickle down economics (help the rich and maybe they will help the poor someday, maybe not) which is a big part of that logic is utterly disproven.

We don't help poor people by helping the richest and most corrupt insiders in the poor countries who are arguably responsible for them being poor, We shouldn't help those people stay in power at all, actually, if we want the poor people to actually get helped.

So sacrificing the bird in the hand (precious, vanishing jobs) of our own (alleged to be "overpaid", which shows what the real motivators of the advocates for these schemes are) skilled workers' jobs to help the very few get even richer makes less than zero sense.

This scheme was always being pushed in one form or another going back to the 1970s, with teh argument that it would vastly increase profits.
Now they have changed how its marketedhowever adding in the assertion it will help poor countrie. The biggest advocate for this scheme internationally right now in that context is one of the most stratified and unequal countries, a country that has shared very little of its growing wealth with anybody other than its elite, India. (Contrast it with China where living standards for the vast middle and poor have steadily risen) You can read quite a bit about the services export agenda and the various issues - many focus on market access and visa obstacles - The best place really, the only place you can read about this dispute is in the Indian press. because its not covered at all in the US press, except in the very slightest of mentions. (Surprising for something that could literally change millions of peoples future lives overnight.)

One can see right off the bat that they are looking at this scheme as some kind of savior which is inappropriate given that it depends on millions of existing workers being replaced by their firms.

Even if the economics look compelling to them, the political aspects of it make it a nonstarter, unless some international organization can be enlisted to be the bad guy. Thats where the WTO comes in.

india sees huge growth opportunities if they can just get the WTO to force the developed countries to open up. And indeed, that may happen. Similar things have happened before but coverage of all news of this kind, has been conspicuously absent from the Western media.

Think of two basins filled with water with a hose thats plugged between then. Remove the plug and the levels equalize "somewhat". Well, technical people realize... they equalize.. its simple physics. Similarly with these schemes. I would be lying if I didn't say that the appeal of getting workforce for a third of what it costs today is substantial - and will become much more so if the global economy tanks as is expected, as a response to all these allegedly "long-promised", changes coming as they will, on top of automation. 

(which will also make the number of jobs actally traded much smaller than advocates anticipate, so why do it, if many of those jobs will vanish anyway, "naturally" soon?)

In other words, its a vicious circle of economic implosion that will self perpetuateonce it begins! So why trigger it in the first place?

Because the alternative is more equality, something they see as threatening their statuses as the rulers of all they survey. When you are on top, all movement is seen as a threat!  And technology makes everything exponentially less predictable. Thats whats causing this panic reaction. or so it seems. But its also I think simply an attempt to extract the worst possible outcome for working people out of the shift to automation, instead of the best.

because lets not forget, automation in theory means much more free time, and one would think, more time to spend with families and more time to become involved in governments, around the world, and less corruption. And maybe even new forms of direct democracy.  To the elite, all this translates as "mob rule".

Developing countries for the most part are fairly realistic about the chances for this scheme, with the exception it seems of India.

The Indian government is much more inward looking than many others, they also dont want to have the people realize that- in the case of the US and to a lesser extent probably also the UK to really support the healthy growth rates they enjoyed in the past they would have to overcome a great many obstacles and pretty much turn back the clock on US public awareness of these programs.

Which is still low but which is likely to expand substantially in the future, spoiling the still fairly good relationships that exist.  because most Americans still are living in sort of a pre-WTO dream world adn polticians do their best to keep it that way. therefore in the US mindset, it still is 1993 before the WTO and all the things these indian firms do are framed in the US press as likely to be illegal, even thoughthey arguably are not, under WTO law. Which is seen as superseding national laws.. See the work of the WTO Working Panel on Domestic Regulation for the process and timetable of when those changes must be incorporated into Members national laws.

Certainly currently, things like quotas DO currently limit the ability of Indian and other skilled services firms to supply the cut rate medium tech services they specialize in.

They complain quite a bit about requirements they hire workers locally. (Its SOOO expensive! Luckily, they only have to hire the less skilled ones. As it was previously pointed out, (Thank you!) they only have to hire cheaper, less skilled workers here, to make up some arbitrary percentage, 50%. imagine if they had to hire 50% of their engineers!)

Still, to expand they have to hire local workers who cost them several times more, and they have - in international neoliberal media, framed this as discrimination.

After all, if an American firm were to set up a factory in India, bringing Americans along, to work there, would they choose to hire only the lowest skilled Indians ? To save money? No, because wages there are much lower. but this selective myopia to the key economic issues is a hallmark of all the media coverage of these issues. And that should be a red flag to everybody about whats being planned and executed.

Up until now, they have successfully framed rules that make them pay workers prevailing wages or minimum wages as discriminatory. And its likely the various international bodies will rule their way, potentially disrupting a great many careers. there needs to be much more awareness of this and there needs to be a discussion about it. One which brings in all the various groups involved. that has not happened in even the slightest amount.

So, we move closer and closer to irreversible changes which may make a number of "tradable" professions - quite likely including portions of the engineering professions an even less attractive career choice for developed country young people.

Changes that could make some of the most difficult professions into low paid, precarious work on a large scale. as long as the workers are temporary.

 in the case of the US, typical trade deal based visas are for six years. For 'body shops' that supply tech workers to firms, this is a way of getting their high skill workers for less than US minimum wage.

They get a way of having high skill workers working for far less than what would be considered the norms. And they work very very hard. And cant get raises for six years.

I think that all workers in a country should be subject to the same rules. And get the same opportunities as much as possible. And should be able to negotiate raises.

Creating a new system thats often been compared to slavery (the WTO GATS Mode Four visa tied to corporate employer system) isn't working out in the Middle East and its not working out in the US.

 Its a bad bad thing.

Get rid of the low wage slavery and then the visas can be based on merit. Not cheap labor. THEN their numbers dont have to be limited to some arbitrary number. BUT only award those visas to people who are really good. NOT to people who are simply okay- and cheap.

But, then they HOWL that that gets rid of their chief "compatitive advantage" cheap labor. Under the"global value chains" system countries like the US and Australia produce high value products and ideas, countries like india produce labor. So "Global Value Chains" is a recipe for mass unemployment in developed countries on a scale its never been seen before, and those people will never get jobs again once it happens, because they will be priced out of their old proessions by competition that gains an irreversible right to stay. After all, this right "is the repayment of a debt" they are claiming. they "kept their part of the bargain" and privatized their education. If you dig a bit deeper, you'll find that there is a widespread perception that there was a tit for tat involved. A promise of jobs in exchange, in the form of market access.

 They got rid of their social programs, claiming they were promised jobs in return..

What it really is is a backroom deal between the rich in both countries that does away with democracy and is intended to make all of our problems impossible to fx by the means which make the most sense and are time proven. instead, globalization, more globalization and more deregulation becomes the proffered cure for everything. the very worst kind of cult-like, delusional logic.

Its real goals are not altruistic in any way. Quite the opposite. Its all to lock us in to bad policy and business models that are already old in the tooth, without any means of escaping them. To increase profits, and provoke a race to the bottom on wages,  and steal all the gifts of technology for a very few people who will use the situation to prevent the positive changes the entire planet deserves and substitute oppression.
« Last Edit: September 06, 2017, 04:17:04 pm by cdev »
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Offline Cerebus

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #138 on: September 06, 2017, 03:16:36 pm »
Actually, I'm not so sure about medicine. I think modern doctors are mainly trained to be technicians. Based on my experience of recent encounters with doctors they have a checklist of "if this, then this" to work through, and little ability to depart from the script based on root cause analysis. This is unfortunate because they will often fail to look at the individual circumstances of a particular patient and understand how a particular presentation requires different actions than the textbook says for the "general case".

I'd agree with you, with one proviso - it's been my experience that female doctors are more likely to do proper root cause analysis and less likely to take the 'tick box' approach. And note that I say 'more likely' not that 'men always do this and women always do that' and further note that this is purely anecdotal, i.e. based on just my experience.

Furthermore, it's not recent training, as I've seen the tick box approach taken by doctors trained a long time ago. I think it's a particularly recent British thing based on financial incentives being handed out for following practices decided at a policy level. i.e. NICE guidelines say that the 'gold standard' treatment for X is Y, and doctors get a payment of Z for following that guideline for x% of their patients. My other half worked on the admin side for a British GP practice and saw evidence of this first hand.
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Offline Cerebus

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #139 on: September 06, 2017, 03:37:10 pm »
You say:

... Dare I say that capitalism doesn't care what sex you are - those in the most need will be paid the most.  Those who have the most to offer a company will be the best paid.  Everything else is just whining.  Honestly, I think equal pay is just some sort of social back door to socialism or communism. [my emphasis]

Quote from: Karl Marx
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

So you seem to be saying that capitalism follows one of the principal aims of Marxism. As Private Eye's editor was want to say, "Shome mishtake shurely".

Anyway, the mantra is not "equal pay", it's always been "equal pay for equal work". Nobody, outside of a dyed-in-the-wool communist, sees a problem with the Tea lady getting paid less than the Chief Executive* but a lot of people see a problem if a man and woman do comparable work on an assembly line but the woman gets paid less than the man for the same level of skill and effort simply because she is a woman.

*Actually, if you knew how effective most Chief Executives really are, and how little they really contribute to the average business you'd probably opt for paying them less than the Tea Lady, but that's another argument.
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Offline alank2

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #140 on: September 06, 2017, 03:55:26 pm »
When I mentioned "most need" I am referring to it from the employers side/need, the quote you brought from Marx is probably talking about the employee's need which is irrelevant to an employer except for its bearing on the negotiation of pay that benefits the employer.

How do you quantify "same work".  We have that problem everywhere already.  We have good teachers that should be paid more and we have crap teachers who whine about about how they should be paid more and don't deserve what they are being paid now.  That is what "equal pay for equal work" gets us, "equal pay for any work".  If you had an administrator with the power to decide what the salaries were who could reward/negotiate the exceptional ones and not reward the ones who don't deserve it, then schools would be better.  The administrator of course has to have a stake in things and be accountable for whether the school performs well or poorly as well, if they don't manage their job well, then their boss will not reward them accordingly or they might be fired.  When all that is thrown out the window for "equal pay for equal work" then we have a system where mediocrity and laziness rules, much like the failures of communism where no one gives a crap because it won't make a different whether they excel or not.  It is also a system that breeds discontentment, malaise, whining, and pity party of all sorts which basically undermines the entire operation until it is swirling the drain in failure.  Take a look at any organization where unions get in the middle of it and try to govern it away from capitalism.  They always end up ruining the very thing they were supposed to protect by putting employers out of business quickly followed by employees who have no job.

"equal pay for equal work" is a pipe dream that completely undermines capitalism.  It is a socialist/communist idea being thrust onto capitalism like that is somehow going to work.  But hey, like a lot of things, let's just get people fired up over social media and make this thing happen without really thinking it through.  Or have they thought it through and that is exactly what they want.....hmmmm.....
 

Offline cdev

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #141 on: September 06, 2017, 04:22:42 pm »
Social Injustice Warriors is more like it!

(note:satire in part)

if that was the title of this thread it would be more accurate. Because SIWs are trying to turn back the clock of progress!

Sure, the equal pay for equal work concept is totally anathema to market based capitalism which says that people should have the freedom to contract, even if that means sell oneself into slavery for food. 

It also says that all of you GUYS and women too. make too much, way too much!

How do you think they feel having to pay you humans more. Especially now as more and more we see a future coming where smarter and smarter machines can do almost any job!

See the problem?

In their ideal world, we ignore the fact that technology is producing ever improving almost free "workers" (computers) at a prodigious rate.

And that those workers are getting better doubling in value for any given price every 18 months (approximately)

Instead we assume that all workers who lose jobs just have to tweak their resumes to get new ones. Or maybe they "made bad life choices".

In their nonsensical world, all restrictions on multinational corporations, all global business rules and laws should be eliminated "deregulated" and replaced by "global economic governance" that reduces everything to price differentiation.

Want clean water, pay more for it, or quite possibly eventually, slowly die of pollution caused cancers.  "its natural for rich people to be able to buy better water than poor"   the same thing with health care and education too, OF COURSE..   Its the natural order of things! -

So what they are really selling is a return to the past and the law of the jungle.. But they are framing it as the way of the future.. by shameless lying and spin. After all, if there are no rules, except for "sound science" - (bought and paid for spin with a scientific looking cover) then logic goes out the window. (So does science. If it doesn't listen to logic in the form of cash*.)

Want clean air, pay more for it, or pay the consequences.

(*1 What you don't know cant hurt you.. right? heh heh..if the warning signs started being published about 30 years ago, then only 35 year old and older science is allowed on the panel.) 

In their ideal world, every person is alone against the market. All forms of bargaining should be allowed. Prostitution? Sure! Organ sales? Sure!

After all, history shows us that starving people will do almost anything for food, even cook and eat their own children.  Bon appetit!

They can serve as an example of what happens to countries that don't play the game.

This means huge profits are in the future, if the race to the bottom could only be made to happen FASTER.

Its only common sense logic that stands in their way.
That's why they are trying to divide you all.

US all-

 I am acutely aware of the growing wall thats being erected not just in engineering but really, everybody in the world who lacks some advanced credential of some kind is being silenced in the media. because what we're seeing is nothing less than a global coup. Against democracy and the very concept of merit for its own sake and science being a system of discovering facts and improving life FOR EVERYBODY.

The wedge politics is a calculated attempt at distraction.

As so many other things are these days.

They are pros. And so far its been terrifyingly easy for them to hijack the direction the world had been going without most people even realizing that it had been done, starting 20 years ago.

We should be waking up to this agenda.

Not fighting over things which are calculated to distract everybody from the big picture.

What they are pushing is not communism or capitalism, its basically a coup to put in place- under the radar-  a very ugly new kind of corporate fascism. Which I think most of us- even corporate officers I've met, would instinctively oppose.

Worth thinking about?
« Last Edit: September 06, 2017, 10:51:11 pm by cdev »
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Online coppice

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #142 on: September 06, 2017, 05:08:40 pm »
If you REALLY want to reinforce the stereotype that women make bad engineers
IME there is no such stereotype.
Have you asked any women engineers about that? in the 70s, when I started my career, there was considerable bias against women by many male engineers. By the 80s that was fading a lot, but what hasn't faded is how women engineers are seen by non-engineers, especially non-engineering women. How many women engineers have experienced a female non-engineer in their company making the assumption that the engineer couldn't possibly by an engineer? I hear anecdotes of this nature so often from women engineers that I assume is an almost universal experience.
 

Offline Galenbo

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #143 on: September 06, 2017, 05:13:07 pm »
... but what hasn't faded is how women engineers are seen by non-engineers, especially non-engineering women...
So the libtards better blame ALL non-engineers and ALL women, and leave engineering alone.
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Offline alank2

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #144 on: September 06, 2017, 05:25:19 pm »
cdev you make some interesting points.  FWIW I am not all capitalism with no regulation.  Look at the medical industry (hospitals, doctors, insurance companies) and how they are now what like 25% of the economy.  Clearly this is an industry that the populace needs that has gone wildly out of control.  I know I'm not speaking capitalism now, but there are some things that I think should be regulated even in capitalism.  Not micromanaged like each person's salary necessarily, but corporations that own hospitals can't turn more than X profit each year or they are penalized for it.  Look at the all the utilities, after deregulation it seemed the price of gas, electricity, and water skyrocketed out of control.  Some thing need regulation not from the bottom up, but from the top down.  If it is something where there exists the risk of monopoly and out of control costs, it might need to be regulated be folks who aren't in the back pocket of said industry.
« Last Edit: September 06, 2017, 05:59:52 pm by alank2 »
 

Offline cdev

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #145 on: September 06, 2017, 05:54:10 pm »
Alank..

Not speaking to what you said but just something you said reminded me of a paper I read a few months ago that goes right to the heart of a certain part of what I am describing, its entitled "HOW TO DESIGN TRADE AGREEMENTS IN SERVICES: TOP DOWN OR BOTTOM UP?" and its WTO document ersd201308_e.pdf  Google should find it.

Just so you can see that I am not speaking out of my ass as they say.

At some point a few decades ago, all these policies and jobs became "tradable" services and everything changed, but people dont realize it AT ALL yet.

And thats a very dangerous situation for democracy. In fact, as it stands right now we almost no longer have democracy. Its hanging by a thread. And people who want deregulation arent getting that either, instead they are going to get more regulation than they ever thought was even possible. And not in a good way.

We all need to wake up and get involved. (Even though we're not supposed to, as the entire system has been designed to COMPLETELY REMOVE HUMAN INPUT FROM THE EQUATION. Only corporations and the countries (many of which they keep as pets) get a voice.)

People are on the table being carved up. We're the meal.

Silence will not serve anybody's interests.

"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline cdev

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #146 on: September 06, 2017, 06:11:55 pm »
Alank,

Which economy? You have to remember its global now. To get the business "we" want, very high margin rich peoples business, we may have to trade sick poor peoples business away to other countries. making them uninsurable helps.. which is easy because we already agreed to freeze insurance regulation to its state on February 26, 1998. the day a certain document was signed. So, in the US, that means a simple WTO procedure could be used to force us to revert any objectionable (unprofitable) changes in our financial services laws (yes, the same ones that regulate banking and there is another terrifying situation!) So, in 1998, no coverage for people with pre-existing conditions (the expensive ones) was required. People who had had some health condition had to negotiate coverage from a position of extreme weakness.

Also, genetic discrimination, so called "genelining" was allowed. As was dumping people like that retroactively (claw back of befits already paid) if they could be shown to have made a "material misrepresentation" to get benefits.. "they were not entitled to" Can you see where this is going?

As well as a zillion other things which are now, not so coincidentally, on the chopping block in the US.

This isnt some little thing I am talking about here.

See "Does Health Insurance Impede Trade In Healthcare Services" by Matoo and Rathindran - World Bank publications


the goal is to force large numbers of people out into the global marketplace and create a fake "emergency" which can be used to suspend common sense thinking.   An "emergency" get it?

Into that void they will step with their arguments.. "Its that pesky lack of health insurance portability across international borders" - and "standards" of professional behavior, in developed countries, where people have certain expectations - that are in the way!

Also, expectations of all kinds held by those in developed countries - some say, have to be lowered or eliminated..
expectations which are absent in the developing world, where people die every day because they don't have enough money for a $5 medication, and 9/10 of all the lives are wasted because nobody can afford an education beyond whats supplied by the state. (Which in India didn't even BEGIN until recently)

In some peoples eyes, giving peple a chance to go to SCHOOL is too MUCH "government regulation". Where does that take us?

As Richard Feynman once said, "There is plenty of room at the bottom".

Since jobs are going away, a lot of people will be joining the poor soon. The road needs to be made clear for the profit making! Other countries banks want in on that action. They are willing to make concessions in other areas so they can all be included.


Its all those social justice expectations that are standing in the way of (in?)equality for all.

 Goodbye middle class. The 99.99% % is about to get even more inclusive!

get the picture?
« Last Edit: September 06, 2017, 10:56:11 pm by cdev »
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline alank2

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #147 on: September 06, 2017, 06:19:23 pm »
you won't get any argument from me that globalization is a bad thing, but I suppose we are getting off topic here.
 

Offline cdev

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #148 on: September 06, 2017, 06:34:12 pm »
What they are really trying to do is prevent real globalization. Which is less and less one where people are needed at all, although the framing now is that the market should determine everything.

But in that world, wages in developed countries fall a lot and wages in developing countries dont go up, they merely get more work for a short time during the transition to automation. careers are cut short because people "make too much".  thats not a good thing because people with technology skills need to keep their skills sharp to maintain them.

In the scenario thats being pushed on us that wont happen, people will just suddenly find themselves excluded from economic life by sudden shifts in the regulatory situation. Dont forget were it not for regulation, there would be no reason to pay people in any country more.

Supply and demand would determine everything. Period. Same with safety. And of course, many people woudl get sick never knowing why, and with no way of ever finding out.  Because chemicals used in everything would be closely guarded trade secrets. Also, doctors main jobs would be preserving state security, not curing anybody.

Under totalitarianism, typically a third of society are informers for the state security apparatus. Even though the Internet simplifies that, we should expect something similar. because the difference between right and wrong is being intentionally blurred to enable the legitimizing of totally profit mad behaviors. We've lost democracy in this global governance layer already. Its been replaced by something much more like the divine right of corporations and those that own them.

This will lead to a total breakdown of the trust which keeps society together. Conservatives today who claim to want deregulation - as you just implied, have limits. You clearly dont want total deregulation, because then basically everything weve gained over the last century and a half would be lost. Only a madman would want that. No, what they are forcing us into is a least common denominator approach which will freeze further progress at the lowest level.  they are doing this because they feel entitled to all the benefits of technology - even when they dont deserve them they are working very hard to make up phony arguments to get them. Because the alternative would lead to reductions in inequality which would be shared across the board. They have successfully reversed that trend now for 22 years. Since the WTO was instantiated basically.

In order to have progress begin anew, we need the world to get the benefits of technology, not the 1%. Thats what this is really all about. Otherwise, as jobs go away, the global standard of living will crash. Businesses of all kinds will fail and a monoculture of megacorporations and a cult of "efficiency" will mop up the remaining pockets of decent quality of life where they exist one by one, using their "shock therapy" of austerity to strip nations and taxpayers of anything that could be said to be a legacy of public interest.

In their version of globalization everybody is enslaved by debt to them. the experiment with having a middle class and innovations like public higher education, rules regulating things like toxic chemicals and drugs and insurance and trying to make products safer are all framed as bad,  depriving people of their rights, and even public primary education that characterized the postwar labor scarcity era will be ended.  After all, people don't need education if there are no jobs for them, right?

Maker culture and tools as well as all uncontrolled knowledge sharing, would be tightly controlled, like in North Korea.

Engineers would likely have to be from the engineer caste which will likely be separated from the rest because of the need for security clearances. (And kept on a very tight leash by the threat of losing it, and likely death or imprisonment. With ones entire family also being locked up for the rest of your short lives, because you all likely know too much.)

Because to maintain the tightest level of control devices of every kind will likely have embedded surveillance. Thats the cost of intentionally dumb people, smart machines.  Think Orwell's 1984, THX-1138, or Terry Glliam's "Brazil" except much worse.

Free simple devices like the ones we have or had in the recent past will be made intentionally unbelievably complicated to add DRM and a million other hooks for various things which are above all of our pay grades to even know about. Thats just one of a million reason why knowledge will become tightly controlled.

Totalitarianism should be understood for what it is. An attempt to take over the entire world and poison its future.

It doesn't tolerate any other systems or even other thoughts co-existing alongside it.
« Last Edit: September 06, 2017, 07:02:44 pm by cdev »
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline buck converter

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Re: Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering
« Reply #149 on: September 06, 2017, 08:17:58 pm »
The exact same peer group dynamics could also be true for males. One year you might end with a huge robotics group, and the next year you might end up with so few numbers of people interested that they don't bother running it.

Actually - since it is a varsity club sort of things - it is unlikely to undulate too much. Just like high schools and colleges have football and soccer teams - they don't go away when too few jocks sign up...

Like sports varsity, robotics clubs (at least the competing kind) seem to be oversubscribed rather than undulating.... All the school gets behind the team. There is a history with anecdotes, a trophy cabinet and an entire wings of a building dedicated to the club. And they get use of the Gymnasium for robot practice (when the jocks are away).

1 in 30 isn't a problem you say. Surely finishing 26 of 28 teams isn't "optimal"? I think the two are likely to be related.

IMHO, the fact they have 1 gal is indicative of a problem. As you pointed out we don't know what the problem is (and if it is solvable). But 1 in 30? At the very least they are not a very attractive club for female talent. Maybe we should not expect 50% female (no dogma!) - but it can't be that there is nothing of interest in this varsity for all the smart gals (and it is highly likely that the smart guys are avoiding the club as well).

I think it is a problem, but not anyone's fault. The solution is simple on paper, but hard to implement. The solution solves multiple  problems. WHAT IS HE MAGIC CURE FOR MY CLUB?
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  • My school does not hand over a dime because giving the robotics team money means giving money to all the other clubs. Today, we had a meeting to discuss how to get $2000 in the next 2 weeks (donations accepted hinthintsendmeapm). Other schools give their club unlimited money, and they have girls.
  • The middle school in my district has a FIRST FLL team. They get all the funding they need, a coach who is an engineer, and guess what, their ratio is 1:3, now this club is new, and these female students are now freshmen, hopefully they will join to replace the "1" female I have been talking about who graduated.
  • My club is anything but varsity. We get no professional coach, no money, no busses.

I see a direct correlation between robotics budget and the sex ratio.


There is no other solution without funding a universal program first.

Makeing sure schools have a funded robotics program is the first solution
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