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Strong Towns Has Filed a Lawsuit Against the Minnesota Board of Engineering

124 points by Breadmaker 5y ago

hirundo 5y ago
You're an engineer if you do engineering, regardless of your credentials. You aren't an "<insert-credential-here> Engineer", but the mere noun doesn't assert that. The Minnesota Board of Engineering Licensure is a bully that should be leashed by the first amendment.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  This is how every state backed/endorsed (or state operated, but those are less common) professional licensure board or trade association that gate-keeps licensing works. They all aggressively defend and try to expand their turf, even when it's stupid and harmful to society. The only reason we don't hear about the plumbing cartel going after the home repair business that isn't licensed for plumbing in every state it operates in but wrote "plumbing" on its vans in all states is because HN doesn't really concern itself with those sort of matters.
  - thereisnospork 5y ago
    >This is how every state backed/endorsed (or state operated, but those are less common) professional licensure board or trade association that gate-keeps licensing works. I wouldn't limit that statement to state-backed: it is how most (or at least many) private organizations and unions work too, from teamsters to fifa to the NRA. State backed organizations just have the extra advantage of being explicitly state backed.
  - jacckat8 5y ago
    It's a really hard task to compare engineering to plumbing. I mean the board that licenses Civil Engineers, for example, should be very stringent. We don't live in buildings that aren't structurally sound or drive on half-assed bridges. Professional Engineers hold themselves to an ethical standard that they're not even legally required to uphold, yet they still do because this organization keeps them in check.
    - abfan1127 5y ago
      I've been a hardware engineer for 15 years. I've designed medical devices, DSP chipsets, and audio chipsets. for me to call my self a "Professional Engineer", I have to pass a test almost wholly focused on Civil Engineering. There is not a single "Professional Engineer" in my office.
      - metalliqaz 5y ago
        same here, for aerospace
      - geebee 5y ago
        That may not be true anymore - I looked into the engineering exams (FE and PE), and they've been much more specialized. I think this happened fairly recently. https://ncees.org/engineering/fe/ https://ncees.org/engineering/fe/ So I could (but almost certainly won't) take the "Industrial Engineering" exam and focus mainly on IE topics: https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/FE-Industrial-and-Systems-CBT-specs.pdf https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/FE-Industrial-and-Syste...
        abfan1127 5y ago
        this is new (from when I looked at it 15 years ago). good for them to expand beyond their original focus.
      - _n_b_ 5y ago
        I'm a nuclear engineer and also unlicensed and also know very few who are, but... > for me to call my self a "Professional Engineer", I have to pass a test almost wholly focused on Civil Engineering isn't true. The FE exam has a number of discipline options, including Electrical and Computer[0] and the PE exam is then done be discipline. [0] https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/FE-Electrical-and-Computer-CBT-specs.pdf https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/FE-Electrical-and-Compu...
      - jacckat8 5y ago
        The PE exam isn't only for Civil Engineers. List of Engineering Disciplines that can take the PE exam: - Agricultural and Biological Engineering - Architectural Engineering - Chemical - Civil - Control Systems - Electrical and Computer - Environmental - Fire Protection - Industrial and Systems - Mechanical - Metallurgical and Materials - Mining and Mineral Processing - Naval Architecture and Marine - Nuclear - Petroleum - Structural
- bigbillheck 5y ago
  OK now do doctors.
  - hirundo 5y ago
    A doctorate is specifically an academic credential. A closer analogy would be "healer". Or if he claimed to be a doctor of engineering.
    - AlexandrB 5y ago
      I think he's referring to medical doctors, who are licensed in a way similar to engineers and lawyers, not PhDs.
  - ampdepolymerase 5y ago
    And also the SEC. It is absolutely terrible that private sector cartels like FINRA are allowed to exist.
    - austincheney 5y ago
      That is a product of tax money. FINRA is allowed to exist because the SEC is limited in total security examiners by budget limitations.
  - treeman79 5y ago
    Please do. As someone that spent hundreds of thousands to get answers, and majority of my answers came from other people going through same nonsense. For anything complicated you have to become your own doctor. Medical community is broken on all but straightforward cases.
  - paxys 5y ago
    Any university can hand out an honorary doctorate. You can also call yourself Dr. Whatever with zero credentials without getting into legal trouble. You will not have the license to practice medicine in the state, but that's not really what the word "doctor" means anyways.
- jacckat8 5y ago
  You're only a professional engineer if you pass the PE exam. You can't legally present yourself as a professional engineer without that license.
  - jMyles 5y ago
    This seems like an odd point to make, since Marohn did pass all the necessary exams and had been previously licensed. Are you saying that, in addition to not practicing civil engineering professionally, that he has to scrub the entire internet of his title the moment his license expires?
    - Afton 5y ago
      That seems like a strawman. The complaint is that he described himself as a professional engineer while his license had expired. As in, during that period, he wasn't a licensed engineer, and therefore shouldn't have called himself one.
      - jMyles 5y ago
        > Now, for the second time, a professional engineer has filed a complaint with the state licensing board alleging that the writing, speaking, and advocacy for reform of Charles Marohn—the founder and president of Strong Towns—constitutes a violation of Minnesota law. The complaint is that, in his advocacy, he described himself as a professional engineer, which he obviously is. The idea that one needs to stay in the good graces of the state in order to reference one's experience in their field as part of their political advocacy cannot possibly withstand genuine first amendment scrutiny, can it?
        Nicksil 5y ago
        > The idea that one needs to stay in the good graces of the state in order to reference one's experience in their field as part of their political advocacy cannot possibly withstand genuine first amendment scrutiny, can it? Being licensed isn't to be within the good graces of the state, it's to prove the licensee has the requite knowledge and experience to design and construct things which, when fail, people die. This is something we want in society.
- TylerE 5y ago
  That depends. In Canada, for instance, you absolutely have to be certified to call yourself an engineer.
  - paxys 5y ago
    That's a myth. You can absolutely work an engineering job and call yourself an engineer in Canada without any certification. Look up all the "software engineer", "systems engineer", "marine engineer", "audio engineer", "application engineer" etc. job listings in any Canadian city. None of them are looking exclusively for certified/licensed engineers, and the people working for them aren't doing so illegally. Canadian courts have ruled many times over that professional licensing organizations do not have exclusive rights to the word "engineer".
  - grecy 5y ago
    Which is interesting, because I have a Bachelor of Software Engineering from Australia, and am certified by the Australian Institute of Engineers... but there were a TON of Engineers at the big Canadian Telco I worked for who were hell-bent on me NOT calling myself an Engineer.
  - xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
    And when I last looked at doing certification, the core requirements had literally nothing to do with what I practiced (fluid dynamics for a software engineer? Take a hike) It's all a racket. I'm an unlicensed, non-PE software engineer. Am I allowed to call myself that?
    - Nicksil 5y ago
      >It's all a racket. It's not. >I'm an unlicensed, non-PE software engineer. Am I allowed to call myself that? In many areas, yeah, you can refer to yourself as a software engineer, but the title doesn't mean anything because anyone can refer to themselves as a software engineer; there is nothing defining what that means.
      - xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
trhway 5y ago
>"A licensee shall avoid any act which may diminish public confidence in the profession…." putting critique into this category does seem to be such an act on its own. On the other side aggressively squashing any heresy - even if it is just a minor deviation from the Party line - has been working great for the Church for 2000 years already.
- OldHand2018 5y ago
  Let’s say I were a professional engineer and noticed some design flaw in a busy bridge crossing a deep gorge, and that design flaw dramatically increases the likelihood of the bridge plunging into said gorge. If I point out the design flaw, I may diminish public confidence in the profession. If I do not point out the design flaw, the inevitable collapse of the bridge may also diminish public confidence in the profession, but only if the subsequent investigation reveals the design flaw and/or my knowledge of it. What a terrible incentive!
  - trhway 5y ago
    Snowden probably can chime in here :) >If I point out the design flaw pointing a design flaw in a project which already got huge money sunk in wouldn't earn much popularity to say the least.
  - TheCapn 5y ago
    Public confidence in the engineers comes from the ethical standard to put public & environmental safety paramount to all other requirements. An engineer noticing a fault and ignoring it goes against those ethics so your example is a bit poor, though I do see the relation to the topic at hand. Reading StrongTown's account of things is one side of the story, and they really do make it sound like a bunch of grumpy old assholes are throwing their weight around where they shouldn't be. Assuming this account of facts is accurate and not embellished, I really hope they win and people like the engineers pushing this bullshit get a reality check. I am a P.Eng... Canadian though, and even though I hold the title I do not use the stamp or really work as a traditional engineer a whole lot. I just feel its important to point out that our ethical standards aren't so easily circumvented as ignoring a safety hazard because it might make us look bad.
hpoe 5y ago
I'm getting so sick of entrenched institutions and organizations acting like this. I know history and I know that is has always been like this to some degree but it seems that the level of centralization brought about our ability to rapidly communicate is causing us to revert more and more to entrenched powerful interests, and whereas before you could run away to somewhere new, a new town, a new country, a new frontier now you can't escape it. The powerful multi-billionaires and oligarchs are the new fueduel Lords who are wheeling and dealing and playing their own little games not caring about the millions of people effected by their decisions. We now see the guild is making a come back to ensure only those that toe the party line are allowed to profit from a business. What can we do to fight it?
- derg 5y ago
  > whereas before you could run away to somewhere new, a new town, a new country, a new frontier now you can't escape it. I genuinely think about this a whole lot. It's wild to think about this being an actual thing... > What can we do to fight it? Organizing and labor unions. The latter isn't the most popular thing around here but it's really the last thing we have. We broke out the guild system and forced fundamental changes in the past and it can be done again, but do we have the will to do so?
  - glitchc 5y ago
    How is a labour union any different from a guild? Have you heard of the Screen Actors Guild? It's a union!
- adamcstephens 5y ago
  > What can we do to fight it? Build local power, sustainability and resilience. Essentially some of the things Strong Towns advocates for. We probably can’t fix the massive systems, but we can strive to protect and decouple our local communities from them.
matsemann 5y ago
Is the Swedish engineer trying to fix how traffic lights work a relevant case? His fine for doing math was deemed a violation of his free speech. https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-light-timing-lawsuit/ https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-li...
- ahmedalsudani 5y ago
  I would love for this one to make its way up to a higher court. It seems like such an open-and-shut case of free speech.
- nytgop77 5y ago
  i think the violation was that technicality that he could not present him self as an engeneer. (no cert)
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    But he won his case and the court declared that he could say he's an engineer, even though he was not a "licensed professional engineer" according to the Oregon state licensing board.
avs733 5y ago
disclosure: I am not a licensed professional engineer (PE), but I do research that intersects frequently and extensively with the boundary negotiation between engineering training, licensure, the profession, and calling oneself an engineer. My immediate take is two groups that dislike each other mutually acting like children in hopes of scoring cheap points and feeling superior. I assume/expect that the professional speech doctrine will come heavily into play here [0]. This doctrine is grounded in either a 1985 or a 1945 supreme court case depending on who you ask. It has come into play in weird ways in engineering before because the term 'engineer' vs. 'professional engineer' vs. 'licensed professional engineer' may or may not be confusing to lay people...or at least confusing enough that people are willing to spend money on lawyers related to bicker about it [1]. Basically, if one is speaking using the auspices of a regulated and licensed profession, than commentary and comments related to that profession are bound by the responsibilities, ethics, laws, etc. governing it. If one was speaking as a member of the public - does not apply - but the boundaries are fuzzier than I think a lot of people would like. That being said, generally the red line has been the use of professional knowledge and expertise with a specified client. In those cases, it has been deemed in the public interest for the state to regulate speech...because the person is speaking in part with the backing of an assertion of qualification from the state. I suspect this is one of those cases where someone on the board took whatever strong towns has been doing (never heard of them before) a little personally...and is willing to cause problems by investigating whether this engineer stepped over the line. Examples of its application include: * preventing doctors from advocating for sexual orientation conversion therapy (CA) * compelling doctors to make certain statements about abortion (e.g., PA) [0] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1551/professional-speech-doctrine https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1551/professional-s... [1] https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2018/12/federal-judge-finds-state-law-governing-who-is-an-engineer-violates-free-speech.html https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2018/12/federal-judge-finds-...
brudgers 5y ago
The board’s concern is pretty well precedented. Holding one’s self out as a professional engineer when unlicensed is bog standard violation for licensed AEC professions. Neither is there anything unusual about the circumstances of the board’s concern. Investigations are almost always complaint driven...boards don’t have the resources to conduct dragnet operations. Finally, inattention to details is a piss poor defense in the context of professional engineering. The whole idea is that professional engineers are aware of and beholden to compliance with all things legal and regulatory. This is just StrongTowns making drama. At worst there is a small fine, some administrative costs, and maybe some educational requirements. Or to put it another way, the response to the issue is unprofessional.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  "Professional engineers" in USA should make sure that structures are built well enough to be safely used by the public. They have no business weighing in on the sorts of issues addressed by Strong Towns. The fact that they have done so in the past is proof of this, because streets and roads in USA are organized very poorly when compared to those in similar nations. [EDIT:] Also, Marohn is licensed as one can see here: https://www.mn.gov/aelslagid/roster.html https://www.mn.gov/aelslagid/roster.html
  - brudgers 5y ago
    They weighed in on a person advertising themselves out as a “professional engineer” while their license was lapsed. The claim that this is because of Strongtown’s position is not supported by any evidence. It is a very ordinary complaint and board action. The only thing extraordinary here is lay people reading about it.
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      It's "ordinary" for a random person in a different state to make such a complaint, after the license was already reinstated? It's ordinary to require one stipulate to "dishonesty" when he was never actually dishonest? Such travails await every engineer who misses some mail? That seems like... dishonesty to me. All people, whether they are engineers or not, have the right to sue for equal treatment under the law.
LatteLazy 5y ago
This feeds into a bigger issue that Freakonomics rails against often: Restrictive licensing. In a lot of states you need special qualifications or licenses to do all sorts of jobs. You can't cut hair without spending thousands on a hair cutting course and passing an exam and paying a registration fee. Sure, that makes sense for (say) doctors. Maybe engineers too? But barbers? Why bar-people? Interior decorators?
- WkndTriathlete 5y ago
  Hair-cutters I'm ok with, because I don't want to get Hepatitis C or head lice from the stylist or previous patrons.
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    Is this a real risk though? I'm a limey brit. Anyone can cut hair here. I've never heard of anyone getting Hep C from a haircut...
- glitchc 5y ago
  Any occupation where there is a risk of personal (or pecuniary) injury to the client should (and does) require some form of licensing. The license ensures that a minimum standard of competency has been met by the person offering the service.
  - throwkeep 5y ago
    Wasn't the same thought of with taxis and hotels though? But we found that an Uber drive isn't meaningfully more dangerous than a licensed taxi drive. And an Airbnb stay isn't meaningfully more dangerous than a licensed hotel stay.
    - GLGirty 5y ago
      In my travels, I have been to multiple cities where the advice is, NEVER USE UNLICENSED TAXIS. Tourists are grifted or worse by unlicensed drivers. I read a tragic hand written warning at a youth hostel by a victim who was held a knife point and driven around to every ATM in the city, draining their account $200 per machine (local limit.) Closer to home, in my province, there have been issues with AirBnB operators not being properly insured. If you were injured because of something unsafe on the property, compensation could be difficult or impossible. There have been instances of airbnb rentals that have hidden cameras in rooms you would assume to be private. I personally would feel safer if bad behaviour can get a person banned from renting rooms. Anecdata, but what the fork was going on here? And do we think it would happen at a hotel? https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/hunter-toronto-woman-among-two-murdered-at-airbnb-and-friends-did-nothing https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/hunter-toronto-woman-...
pochamago 5y ago
I legitimately think we should consider replacing all licenses with certifications and just require anyone who practices a profession without a certificate to be totally upfront with their clients about that
joe_the_user 5y ago
This September, Wiley & Sons will publish Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: A Strong Towns Approach to Transportation, a book written by Charles Marohn that is deeply critical of the standard approach to transportation used by many American engineers. The complaint here is literally that the strongtowns founder has criticized other engineers. That's it (edit: the complaint also involves a technicality motivated by this criticism, see below). The thing about this situation is that, in the US, a large number decisions that are effectively "policy", questions of how we live, wind-up buried inside supposedly technical/professional regulations - zoning, codes and other standards. This situation means that attacks for "violations of technicalities" easily wind-up the means by which special interests maintain their position.
- tptacek 5y ago
  No? The whole complaint, with the backstory, is linked to the article. Marohn was a practicing civil engineer until 2012; he kept his license in good standing until 2018, when it lapsed; between 2018 and 2020, he gave talks identifying himself as a professional engineer despite not having a license in good standing; someone complained (in May 2020); he reinstated his license (in June 2020); the licensure board fined him; he sued. He has my sympathy in this case and I hope he wins, but the details are more complicated than your summary suggests. It's pretty basic stuff, as I assume a lot of us know, that part of the deal with licensed engineering professions is that you have to have the license to represent yourself as such --- people are always coming up with dopey arguments that the same applies to software engineers.
  - joe_the_user 5y ago
    Edited above - the first complaint was for criticizing engineers, the second was saying he was an engineer during the time his license had lapsed. So sure, technically more was involved in the complaint. Effectively, the complaint was about the criticism.
  - sharemywin 5y ago
    They also want him to agree he: The final order requires Marohn to agree that he made an “untruthful statement,” a “false statement,” and “engaged in conduct involving misrepresentation.”
zachware 5y ago
One thing we seem to be overlooking is the difference between representing yourself as X versus engaging in the professional rendering of X services to the public. This is a significant distinction. While I'm generally opposed to the majority of occupational licensing requirements but I can understand the function of regulating professional offerings. So in both this case and the referenced Oregon case from another comment, the "charge" by the licensure body is that the individuals are using the term engineer while doing things that aren't "rendering the service of engineering for payment." I am a reasonably decent electrician and feel confident fiddling with my own outlets. The electrician's body does not have the right to regulate that activity. Nor can it regulate my saying I'm a decent electrician. It does, however, have the right to regulate my rendering those services to the public for payment (with some legal gray area around rendering it for free). This is what makes this a first amendment case that seems justified. EDIT: I do understand by using electrician as an example, I invite comments about how I might be breaking fire code or my home insurance covenants. That's correct but it's a different externalities problem.
dalbasal 5y ago
The actual quote behind Plank's "Science progresses, one funeral at a time" is: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." It's as true for rock and roll as it is for science. Metallica never recorded a NuMetal album. The problem is many times worse when it's instituted in the form of an... erm.. institution. It's as prevalent (in many forms) in companies as it is in professional bodies, government bodies, etc. IDK what the solution is, but institutions don't die, so Max's approach won't work on them.
flaque 5y ago
For those unfamiliar with Strong Towns, here’s a best-effort summary of what they do: Strong Towns is a non-partisan non-profit that advocates for cities and towns to build financially solvent places. Many cities are perpetually broke because they owe more money in maintenance burden (fixing roads, pipes, etc) than they bring in in tax revenue. This happens primarily because towns in North America tend to build out large neighborhoods all at once (think: suburbia). At the start, the developers pay for all the infrastructure, and then “give” it to the city to maintain. At first, everything seems fine. The city gets plenty of new tax revenue! But come 20 or 30 years later, it turns out that the tax revenue is not enough to replace the roads, fix the pipes, and so on. And so to pay for the repairs, the city then builds yet another neighborhood in the same strategy to collect the initial tax revenue. It’s effectively a Ponzi scheme. When it crashes, you get Detroit. The gist is that many low-density spread-out suburban neighborhood with large, expensive infrastructure are a huge cost center for a city. And since most North American cities build this way, we have a lot of cities that are “functionally bankrupt” or will be soon. If you're a systems thinker who lives in a town that can't seem to fix it's potholes, you may want to check out the book they've published: "Strong Towns" by Charles L. Marohn Jr.
- burlesona 5y ago
  This is a good summary. To add a bit: since most suburban development doesn't generate enough in tax income to pay for its own maintenance, most places that have a steady trickle of suburban development end up in a cycle of decline as the older stuff starts to run down and the city has to use the development fees etc. from new developments to pay for maintenance on old ones, and eventually even that isn't enough, and everything starts to decline. This can turn into a much worse vicious cycle when added to other issues like pension obligations, declining schools, natural disasters, etc. You see the most of this today in inner suburban areas across the midwest, where they boomed all at one time, then ran out of land (as the wave of new suburban development moved into the next suburb's jurisdiction). Because the suburban pattern is very hard to redevelop, if an established community loses its appeal for any reason (houses have gone out of style, taxes are cheaper further out, whatever), then they tend to get into financial trouble as the maintenance obligations pile up and there's just not enough tax base to support it.

124 points by Breadmaker 5y ago

You're an engineer if you do engineering, regardless of your credentials. You aren't an "<insert-credential-here> Engineer", but the mere noun doesn't assert that. The Minnesota Board of Engineering Licensure is a bully that should be leashed by the first amendment.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
This is how every state backed/endorsed (or state operated, but those are less common) professional licensure board or trade association that gate-keeps licensing works. They all aggressively defend and try to expand their turf, even when it's stupid and harmful to society. The only reason we don't hear about the plumbing cartel going after the home repair business that isn't licensed for plumbing in every state it operates in but wrote "plumbing" on its vans in all states is because HN doesn't really concern itself with those sort of matters.
- thereisnospork 5y ago
  >This is how every state backed/endorsed (or state operated, but those are less common) professional licensure board or trade association that gate-keeps licensing works. I wouldn't limit that statement to state-backed: it is how most (or at least many) private organizations and unions work too, from teamsters to fifa to the NRA. State backed organizations just have the extra advantage of being explicitly state backed.
- jacckat8 5y ago
  It's a really hard task to compare engineering to plumbing. I mean the board that licenses Civil Engineers, for example, should be very stringent. We don't live in buildings that aren't structurally sound or drive on half-assed bridges. Professional Engineers hold themselves to an ethical standard that they're not even legally required to uphold, yet they still do because this organization keeps them in check.
  - abfan1127 5y ago
    I've been a hardware engineer for 15 years. I've designed medical devices, DSP chipsets, and audio chipsets. for me to call my self a "Professional Engineer", I have to pass a test almost wholly focused on Civil Engineering. There is not a single "Professional Engineer" in my office.
    - metalliqaz 5y ago
      same here, for aerospace
    - geebee 5y ago
      That may not be true anymore - I looked into the engineering exams (FE and PE), and they've been much more specialized. I think this happened fairly recently. https://ncees.org/engineering/fe/ https://ncees.org/engineering/fe/ So I could (but almost certainly won't) take the "Industrial Engineering" exam and focus mainly on IE topics: https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/FE-Industrial-and-Systems-CBT-specs.pdf https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/FE-Industrial-and-Syste...
      - abfan1127 5y ago
        this is new (from when I looked at it 15 years ago). good for them to expand beyond their original focus.
    - _n_b_ 5y ago
      I'm a nuclear engineer and also unlicensed and also know very few who are, but... > for me to call my self a "Professional Engineer", I have to pass a test almost wholly focused on Civil Engineering isn't true. The FE exam has a number of discipline options, including Electrical and Computer[0] and the PE exam is then done be discipline. [0] https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/FE-Electrical-and-Computer-CBT-specs.pdf https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/FE-Electrical-and-Compu...
    - jacckat8 5y ago
      The PE exam isn't only for Civil Engineers. List of Engineering Disciplines that can take the PE exam: - Agricultural and Biological Engineering - Architectural Engineering - Chemical - Civil - Control Systems - Electrical and Computer - Environmental - Fire Protection - Industrial and Systems - Mechanical - Metallurgical and Materials - Mining and Mineral Processing - Naval Architecture and Marine - Nuclear - Petroleum - Structural
bigbillheck 5y ago
OK now do doctors.
- hirundo 5y ago
  A doctorate is specifically an academic credential. A closer analogy would be "healer". Or if he claimed to be a doctor of engineering.
  - AlexandrB 5y ago
    I think he's referring to medical doctors, who are licensed in a way similar to engineers and lawyers, not PhDs.
- ampdepolymerase 5y ago
  And also the SEC. It is absolutely terrible that private sector cartels like FINRA are allowed to exist.
  - austincheney 5y ago
    That is a product of tax money. FINRA is allowed to exist because the SEC is limited in total security examiners by budget limitations.
- treeman79 5y ago
  Please do. As someone that spent hundreds of thousands to get answers, and majority of my answers came from other people going through same nonsense. For anything complicated you have to become your own doctor. Medical community is broken on all but straightforward cases.
- paxys 5y ago
  Any university can hand out an honorary doctorate. You can also call yourself Dr. Whatever with zero credentials without getting into legal trouble. You will not have the license to practice medicine in the state, but that's not really what the word "doctor" means anyways.
jacckat8 5y ago
You're only a professional engineer if you pass the PE exam. You can't legally present yourself as a professional engineer without that license.
- jMyles 5y ago
  This seems like an odd point to make, since Marohn did pass all the necessary exams and had been previously licensed. Are you saying that, in addition to not practicing civil engineering professionally, that he has to scrub the entire internet of his title the moment his license expires?
  - Afton 5y ago
    That seems like a strawman. The complaint is that he described himself as a professional engineer while his license had expired. As in, during that period, he wasn't a licensed engineer, and therefore shouldn't have called himself one.
    - jMyles 5y ago
      > Now, for the second time, a professional engineer has filed a complaint with the state licensing board alleging that the writing, speaking, and advocacy for reform of Charles Marohn—the founder and president of Strong Towns—constitutes a violation of Minnesota law. The complaint is that, in his advocacy, he described himself as a professional engineer, which he obviously is. The idea that one needs to stay in the good graces of the state in order to reference one's experience in their field as part of their political advocacy cannot possibly withstand genuine first amendment scrutiny, can it?
      - Nicksil 5y ago
        > The idea that one needs to stay in the good graces of the state in order to reference one's experience in their field as part of their political advocacy cannot possibly withstand genuine first amendment scrutiny, can it? Being licensed isn't to be within the good graces of the state, it's to prove the licensee has the requite knowledge and experience to design and construct things which, when fail, people die. This is something we want in society.
TylerE 5y ago
That depends. In Canada, for instance, you absolutely have to be certified to call yourself an engineer.
- paxys 5y ago
  That's a myth. You can absolutely work an engineering job and call yourself an engineer in Canada without any certification. Look up all the "software engineer", "systems engineer", "marine engineer", "audio engineer", "application engineer" etc. job listings in any Canadian city. None of them are looking exclusively for certified/licensed engineers, and the people working for them aren't doing so illegally. Canadian courts have ruled many times over that professional licensing organizations do not have exclusive rights to the word "engineer".
- grecy 5y ago
  Which is interesting, because I have a Bachelor of Software Engineering from Australia, and am certified by the Australian Institute of Engineers... but there were a TON of Engineers at the big Canadian Telco I worked for who were hell-bent on me NOT calling myself an Engineer.
- xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
  And when I last looked at doing certification, the core requirements had literally nothing to do with what I practiced (fluid dynamics for a software engineer? Take a hike) It's all a racket. I'm an unlicensed, non-PE software engineer. Am I allowed to call myself that?
  - Nicksil 5y ago
    >It's all a racket. It's not. >I'm an unlicensed, non-PE software engineer. Am I allowed to call myself that? In many areas, yeah, you can refer to yourself as a software engineer, but the title doesn't mean anything because anyone can refer to themselves as a software engineer; there is nothing defining what that means.
    - xyzzy_plugh 5y ago

trhway 5y ago

>"A licensee shall avoid any act which may diminish public confidence in the profession…." putting critique into this category does seem to be such an act on its own. On the other side aggressively squashing any heresy - even if it is just a minor deviation from the Party line - has been working great for the Church for 2000 years already.

OldHand2018 5y ago
Let’s say I were a professional engineer and noticed some design flaw in a busy bridge crossing a deep gorge, and that design flaw dramatically increases the likelihood of the bridge plunging into said gorge. If I point out the design flaw, I may diminish public confidence in the profession. If I do not point out the design flaw, the inevitable collapse of the bridge may also diminish public confidence in the profession, but only if the subsequent investigation reveals the design flaw and/or my knowledge of it. What a terrible incentive!
- trhway 5y ago
  Snowden probably can chime in here :) >If I point out the design flaw pointing a design flaw in a project which already got huge money sunk in wouldn't earn much popularity to say the least.
- TheCapn 5y ago
  Public confidence in the engineers comes from the ethical standard to put public & environmental safety paramount to all other requirements. An engineer noticing a fault and ignoring it goes against those ethics so your example is a bit poor, though I do see the relation to the topic at hand. Reading StrongTown's account of things is one side of the story, and they really do make it sound like a bunch of grumpy old assholes are throwing their weight around where they shouldn't be. Assuming this account of facts is accurate and not embellished, I really hope they win and people like the engineers pushing this bullshit get a reality check. I am a P.Eng... Canadian though, and even though I hold the title I do not use the stamp or really work as a traditional engineer a whole lot. I just feel its important to point out that our ethical standards aren't so easily circumvented as ignoring a safety hazard because it might make us look bad.

hpoe 5y ago

I'm getting so sick of entrenched institutions and organizations acting like this. I know history and I know that is has always been like this to some degree but it seems that the level of centralization brought about our ability to rapidly communicate is causing us to revert more and more to entrenched powerful interests, and whereas before you could run away to somewhere new, a new town, a new country, a new frontier now you can't escape it. The powerful multi-billionaires and oligarchs are the new fueduel Lords who are wheeling and dealing and playing their own little games not caring about the millions of people effected by their decisions. We now see the guild is making a come back to ensure only those that toe the party line are allowed to profit from a business. What can we do to fight it?

derg 5y ago
> whereas before you could run away to somewhere new, a new town, a new country, a new frontier now you can't escape it. I genuinely think about this a whole lot. It's wild to think about this being an actual thing... > What can we do to fight it? Organizing and labor unions. The latter isn't the most popular thing around here but it's really the last thing we have. We broke out the guild system and forced fundamental changes in the past and it can be done again, but do we have the will to do so?
- glitchc 5y ago
  How is a labour union any different from a guild? Have you heard of the Screen Actors Guild? It's a union!
adamcstephens 5y ago
> What can we do to fight it? Build local power, sustainability and resilience. Essentially some of the things Strong Towns advocates for. We probably can’t fix the massive systems, but we can strive to protect and decouple our local communities from them.

matsemann 5y ago

Is the Swedish engineer trying to fix how traffic lights work a relevant case? His fine for doing math was deemed a violation of his free speech. https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-light-timing-lawsuit/ https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-li...

ahmedalsudani 5y ago
I would love for this one to make its way up to a higher court. It seems like such an open-and-shut case of free speech.
nytgop77 5y ago
i think the violation was that technicality that he could not present him self as an engeneer. (no cert)
- cratermoon 5y ago
  But he won his case and the court declared that he could say he's an engineer, even though he was not a "licensed professional engineer" according to the Oregon state licensing board.

avs733 5y ago

disclosure: I am not a licensed professional engineer (PE), but I do research that intersects frequently and extensively with the boundary negotiation between engineering training, licensure, the profession, and calling oneself an engineer. My immediate take is two groups that dislike each other mutually acting like children in hopes of scoring cheap points and feeling superior. I assume/expect that the professional speech doctrine will come heavily into play here [0]. This doctrine is grounded in either a 1985 or a 1945 supreme court case depending on who you ask. It has come into play in weird ways in engineering before because the term 'engineer' vs. 'professional engineer' vs. 'licensed professional engineer' may or may not be confusing to lay people...or at least confusing enough that people are willing to spend money on lawyers related to bicker about it [1]. Basically, if one is speaking using the auspices of a regulated and licensed profession, than commentary and comments related to that profession are bound by the responsibilities, ethics, laws, etc. governing it. If one was speaking as a member of the public - does not apply - but the boundaries are fuzzier than I think a lot of people would like. That being said, generally the red line has been the use of professional knowledge and expertise with a specified client. In those cases, it has been deemed in the public interest for the state to regulate speech...because the person is speaking in part with the backing of an assertion of qualification from the state. I suspect this is one of those cases where someone on the board took whatever strong towns has been doing (never heard of them before) a little personally...and is willing to cause problems by investigating whether this engineer stepped over the line. Examples of its application include: * preventing doctors from advocating for sexual orientation conversion therapy (CA) * compelling doctors to make certain statements about abortion (e.g., PA) [0] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1551/professional-speech-doctrine https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1551/professional-s... [1] https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2018/12/federal-judge-finds-state-law-governing-who-is-an-engineer-violates-free-speech.html https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2018/12/federal-judge-finds-...

brudgers 5y ago

The board’s concern is pretty well precedented. Holding one’s self out as a professional engineer when unlicensed is bog standard violation for licensed AEC professions. Neither is there anything unusual about the circumstances of the board’s concern. Investigations are almost always complaint driven...boards don’t have the resources to conduct dragnet operations. Finally, inattention to details is a piss poor defense in the context of professional engineering. The whole idea is that professional engineers are aware of and beholden to compliance with all things legal and regulatory. This is just StrongTowns making drama. At worst there is a small fine, some administrative costs, and maybe some educational requirements. Or to put it another way, the response to the issue is unprofessional.

jessaustin 5y ago
"Professional engineers" in USA should make sure that structures are built well enough to be safely used by the public. They have no business weighing in on the sorts of issues addressed by Strong Towns. The fact that they have done so in the past is proof of this, because streets and roads in USA are organized very poorly when compared to those in similar nations. [EDIT:] Also, Marohn is licensed as one can see here: https://www.mn.gov/aelslagid/roster.html https://www.mn.gov/aelslagid/roster.html
- brudgers 5y ago
  They weighed in on a person advertising themselves out as a “professional engineer” while their license was lapsed. The claim that this is because of Strongtown’s position is not supported by any evidence. It is a very ordinary complaint and board action. The only thing extraordinary here is lay people reading about it.
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    It's "ordinary" for a random person in a different state to make such a complaint, after the license was already reinstated? It's ordinary to require one stipulate to "dishonesty" when he was never actually dishonest? Such travails await every engineer who misses some mail? That seems like... dishonesty to me. All people, whether they are engineers or not, have the right to sue for equal treatment under the law.

LatteLazy 5y ago

This feeds into a bigger issue that Freakonomics rails against often: Restrictive licensing. In a lot of states you need special qualifications or licenses to do all sorts of jobs. You can't cut hair without spending thousands on a hair cutting course and passing an exam and paying a registration fee. Sure, that makes sense for (say) doctors. Maybe engineers too? But barbers? Why bar-people? Interior decorators?

WkndTriathlete 5y ago
Hair-cutters I'm ok with, because I don't want to get Hepatitis C or head lice from the stylist or previous patrons.
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  Is this a real risk though? I'm a limey brit. Anyone can cut hair here. I've never heard of anyone getting Hep C from a haircut...
glitchc 5y ago
Any occupation where there is a risk of personal (or pecuniary) injury to the client should (and does) require some form of licensing. The license ensures that a minimum standard of competency has been met by the person offering the service.
- throwkeep 5y ago
  Wasn't the same thought of with taxis and hotels though? But we found that an Uber drive isn't meaningfully more dangerous than a licensed taxi drive. And an Airbnb stay isn't meaningfully more dangerous than a licensed hotel stay.
  - GLGirty 5y ago
    In my travels, I have been to multiple cities where the advice is, NEVER USE UNLICENSED TAXIS. Tourists are grifted or worse by unlicensed drivers. I read a tragic hand written warning at a youth hostel by a victim who was held a knife point and driven around to every ATM in the city, draining their account $200 per machine (local limit.) Closer to home, in my province, there have been issues with AirBnB operators not being properly insured. If you were injured because of something unsafe on the property, compensation could be difficult or impossible. There have been instances of airbnb rentals that have hidden cameras in rooms you would assume to be private. I personally would feel safer if bad behaviour can get a person banned from renting rooms. Anecdata, but what the fork was going on here? And do we think it would happen at a hotel? https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/hunter-toronto-woman-among-two-murdered-at-airbnb-and-friends-did-nothing https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/hunter-toronto-woman-...

pochamago 5y ago

I legitimately think we should consider replacing all licenses with certifications and just require anyone who practices a profession without a certificate to be totally upfront with their clients about that

joe_the_user 5y ago

This September, Wiley & Sons will publish Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: A Strong Towns Approach to Transportation, a book written by Charles Marohn that is deeply critical of the standard approach to transportation used by many American engineers. The complaint here is literally that the strongtowns founder has criticized other engineers. That's it (edit: the complaint also involves a technicality motivated by this criticism, see below). The thing about this situation is that, in the US, a large number decisions that are effectively "policy", questions of how we live, wind-up buried inside supposedly technical/professional regulations - zoning, codes and other standards. This situation means that attacks for "violations of technicalities" easily wind-up the means by which special interests maintain their position.

tptacek 5y ago
No? The whole complaint, with the backstory, is linked to the article. Marohn was a practicing civil engineer until 2012; he kept his license in good standing until 2018, when it lapsed; between 2018 and 2020, he gave talks identifying himself as a professional engineer despite not having a license in good standing; someone complained (in May 2020); he reinstated his license (in June 2020); the licensure board fined him; he sued. He has my sympathy in this case and I hope he wins, but the details are more complicated than your summary suggests. It's pretty basic stuff, as I assume a lot of us know, that part of the deal with licensed engineering professions is that you have to have the license to represent yourself as such --- people are always coming up with dopey arguments that the same applies to software engineers.
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  Edited above - the first complaint was for criticizing engineers, the second was saying he was an engineer during the time his license had lapsed. So sure, technically more was involved in the complaint. Effectively, the complaint was about the criticism.
- sharemywin 5y ago
  They also want him to agree he: The final order requires Marohn to agree that he made an “untruthful statement,” a “false statement,” and “engaged in conduct involving misrepresentation.”

zachware 5y ago

One thing we seem to be overlooking is the difference between representing yourself as X versus engaging in the professional rendering of X services to the public. This is a significant distinction. While I'm generally opposed to the majority of occupational licensing requirements but I can understand the function of regulating professional offerings. So in both this case and the referenced Oregon case from another comment, the "charge" by the licensure body is that the individuals are using the term engineer while doing things that aren't "rendering the service of engineering for payment." I am a reasonably decent electrician and feel confident fiddling with my own outlets. The electrician's body does not have the right to regulate that activity. Nor can it regulate my saying I'm a decent electrician. It does, however, have the right to regulate my rendering those services to the public for payment (with some legal gray area around rendering it for free). This is what makes this a first amendment case that seems justified. EDIT: I do understand by using electrician as an example, I invite comments about how I might be breaking fire code or my home insurance covenants. That's correct but it's a different externalities problem.

dalbasal 5y ago

The actual quote behind Plank's "Science progresses, one funeral at a time" is: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." It's as true for rock and roll as it is for science. Metallica never recorded a NuMetal album. The problem is many times worse when it's instituted in the form of an... erm.. institution. It's as prevalent (in many forms) in companies as it is in professional bodies, government bodies, etc. IDK what the solution is, but institutions don't die, so Max's approach won't work on them.

flaque 5y ago

For those unfamiliar with Strong Towns, here’s a best-effort summary of what they do: Strong Towns is a non-partisan non-profit that advocates for cities and towns to build financially solvent places. Many cities are perpetually broke because they owe more money in maintenance burden (fixing roads, pipes, etc) than they bring in in tax revenue. This happens primarily because towns in North America tend to build out large neighborhoods all at once (think: suburbia). At the start, the developers pay for all the infrastructure, and then “give” it to the city to maintain. At first, everything seems fine. The city gets plenty of new tax revenue! But come 20 or 30 years later, it turns out that the tax revenue is not enough to replace the roads, fix the pipes, and so on. And so to pay for the repairs, the city then builds yet another neighborhood in the same strategy to collect the initial tax revenue. It’s effectively a Ponzi scheme. When it crashes, you get Detroit. The gist is that many low-density spread-out suburban neighborhood with large, expensive infrastructure are a huge cost center for a city. And since most North American cities build this way, we have a lot of cities that are “functionally bankrupt” or will be soon. If you're a systems thinker who lives in a town that can't seem to fix it's potholes, you may want to check out the book they've published: "Strong Towns" by Charles L. Marohn Jr.

burlesona 5y ago
This is a good summary. To add a bit: since most suburban development doesn't generate enough in tax income to pay for its own maintenance, most places that have a steady trickle of suburban development end up in a cycle of decline as the older stuff starts to run down and the city has to use the development fees etc. from new developments to pay for maintenance on old ones, and eventually even that isn't enough, and everything starts to decline. This can turn into a much worse vicious cycle when added to other issues like pension obligations, declining schools, natural disasters, etc. You see the most of this today in inner suburban areas across the midwest, where they boomed all at one time, then ran out of land (as the wave of new suburban development moved into the next suburb's jurisdiction). Because the suburban pattern is very hard to redevelop, if an established community loses its appeal for any reason (houses have gone out of style, taxes are cheaper further out, whatever), then they tend to get into financial trouble as the maintenance obligations pile up and there's just not enough tax base to support it.