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The problem I have with your statement is that it seems to put 'brilliant engineers' on some kind of magical pedestal. Engineers, much like police, are humans.

The problem I have with your statement is that it seems to put 'brilliant engineers' on some kind of magical pedestal. Engineers, much like police, are humans. Therefore they hold biases, they can be short-sighted, and they may not understand many of the long-term ramifications of their jobs. All this does is move the power and bias up the chain from police to engineers while simultaneously making some very, very powerful decisions about what privacy is and what your rights are in society with 0 oversight from the actual society. In fact, police are (in theory) beholden to politicians and the voting public right now. If piss-poor decisions are made based on faulty software from software conglomerate A, who do we hold accountable?

notus 7y ago
Your average engineer is far more intelligent and introspective than your average police though. They will have biases, but not the same ones police have and far less racist or sexist ones. Police officers have a rate of domestic violence at 2-4x that of the normal population. We 100% benefit by moving the power up the chain from uneducated people to educated people.
- Loughla 7y ago
  >We 100% benefit by moving the power up the chain from uneducated people to educated people. Most cops are college educated? >They will have biases, but not the same ones police have and far less racist or sexist ones. I honestly am going to need citations for that statement. >Your average engineer is far more intelligent and introspective than your average police though. Again, this is nothing more than a magical belief. There is nothing about the field of engineering that makes the people doing it inherently better than other fields. I'll say it again, all you do is shift the biases from a publicly accountable (in theory) position to something hidden behind a corporation and unaccountable to the public. This is not a solution, it's just a shell game.
  - chuckgreenman 7y ago
    Most cops are college educated, however, let's not kid ourselves, a BS in criminal justice is a little different than a BS in engineering.
    - therealdrag0 7y ago
      Ya they probably are a little different... a BS in CJ probably included more liberal arts and sociology classes that forced the student to think and talk about things like race and class, and looked at specific historical examples of social injustice etc. The engineer rolled their eyes at the required non-degree classes.
    - jfk13 7y ago
      At least the cop and the engineer have BS in common, apparently. As an "engineer" myself, I don't think my peers are in general much better or wiser people than the rest of the world, and I'm not at all comfortable with implicitly handing them an ever-increasing level of power within our society.
- ppseafield 7y ago
  Intelligent, possibly. Introspective, I'm not so sure. Being educated can help protect some against abuses of power, but do you believe engineers are immune to abuses of power? I don't think so. The mechanisms are the same. What would lower abuse is deescalation training, dedicated, well-founded mental health care, decriminalizing drugs, and most importantly breaking the blue shield: holding officers accountable by actually trying officers that have committed crimes, increasing the power of agencies regulating them, weakening the power of the police union so they can actually be accountable.

notus 7y ago

Your average engineer is far more intelligent and introspective than your average police though. They will have biases, but not the same ones police have and far less racist or sexist ones. Police officers have a rate of domestic violence at 2-4x that of the normal population. We 100% benefit by moving the power up the chain from uneducated people to educated people.

Loughla 7y ago
>We 100% benefit by moving the power up the chain from uneducated people to educated people. Most cops are college educated? >They will have biases, but not the same ones police have and far less racist or sexist ones. I honestly am going to need citations for that statement. >Your average engineer is far more intelligent and introspective than your average police though. Again, this is nothing more than a magical belief. There is nothing about the field of engineering that makes the people doing it inherently better than other fields. I'll say it again, all you do is shift the biases from a publicly accountable (in theory) position to something hidden behind a corporation and unaccountable to the public. This is not a solution, it's just a shell game.
- chuckgreenman 7y ago
  Most cops are college educated, however, let's not kid ourselves, a BS in criminal justice is a little different than a BS in engineering.
  - therealdrag0 7y ago
    Ya they probably are a little different... a BS in CJ probably included more liberal arts and sociology classes that forced the student to think and talk about things like race and class, and looked at specific historical examples of social injustice etc. The engineer rolled their eyes at the required non-degree classes.
  - jfk13 7y ago
    At least the cop and the engineer have BS in common, apparently. As an "engineer" myself, I don't think my peers are in general much better or wiser people than the rest of the world, and I'm not at all comfortable with implicitly handing them an ever-increasing level of power within our society.
ppseafield 7y ago
Intelligent, possibly. Introspective, I'm not so sure. Being educated can help protect some against abuses of power, but do you believe engineers are immune to abuses of power? I don't think so. The mechanisms are the same. What would lower abuse is deescalation training, dedicated, well-founded mental health care, decriminalizing drugs, and most importantly breaking the blue shield: holding officers accountable by actually trying officers that have committed crimes, increasing the power of agencies regulating them, weakening the power of the police union so they can actually be accountable.