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Professional ethics are based on the obligations that come with specialized knowledge and responsibility. Even professions that are solidly middle class are se

Professional ethics are based on the obligations that come with specialized knowledge and responsibility. Even professions that are solidly middle class are seen as having duties and obligations. Librarians are expected, for example, to resist censorship, and to protect the privacy of their patrons. If professionalism seems less meaningful in modern society, it is because a distressingly large number of professionals in occupations like finance are acting dishonorably and unethically.

lsc 14y ago
Fine, fine, I'll post the screed. My point is that the word "professional" is now all but synonymous with "slick salesman" Personally, I doubt that "professionals" were any more trustworthy before I was old enough to notice, too... thus me poking fun at the very ideas underpinning it. (as an aside, I don't know all that much about finance... but as far as I can tell, it's nothing but sales, so there really isn't any room for professionalism in the way you mean the word. They aren't doing anything but selling.) My experience with people that claim to be 'professional' or who attempt to dress professionally - nearly all of those people I know are salespeople. If you want someone to show up on time and look good? sure, go with one of them. If you want the correct answers to your questions? if you want someone to give you truthful answers even when those truthful answers mean you go with a competitor? find someone who is actually into what you are trying to do. That's the thing, at least in the part of Engineering where I work? sure, some good Engineers claim to be professionals, but almost none of them put any effort into the appearances of professionalism. Few put any effort into dressing or grooming, and many are habitually late. The only people I know that put a lot of effort into appearing professional are the sales people. I mean, sure, you and I can argue back and forth all day... "Words have meaning!" and, of course, a 'professional' is someone that does a job that requires a lot of training, and probably comes from an upper middle class background. But the thing is, that meaning changes over time, as how the word is used. Personally, I associate the word 'professional' along with the western style business suit, with fraud, mostly because the Engineers I know don't put much effort into claiming to be professional, while most sales people do. I think that more and more people have that opinion of the suit; even salespeople I meet rarely wear suits, (though, of course, they still loudly declare they are 'professionals' even though they have little knowledge of the product and are more than happy to make up ridiculous lies about their own product and the competition.)
- yuhong 14y ago
  Yea, I will refer you to this post that describes the fundamental flaws: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3426201 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3426201
- billswift 14y ago
  "Professional always means power." Frank Herbert Most specifically, the power to exclude competition, that is the sole real purpose of "professional licensing", whether medical, legal, engineering, or other. The "protecting the public" is fraudulent window dressing to impress the suckers.
  - forensic 14y ago
    Overly cynical. If doctors did not have a professional association their conduct would likely get worse, so there is a public interest being served when professions self-regulate for quality. There is also an anti-competitive factor, but corporate oligopolies do the exact same thing. Libertarians criticize professional bodies and unions while giving monopolies, oligopolies, and regulatory capture a free pass. This is plain stupid because it is those corporate monopolies that are stifling human progress, not the relatively powerless unions whether they're the white collar "association" variety or the blue collar "union" variety.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    You're presupposing that the costs of decreased competition outweigh the benefits of regulation. I have yet to see convincing evidence in support of this proposition.
- forensic 14y ago
  Your point, in short: non-professionals work really hard to present themselves as professionals, to the extent that actual professionals now shun the word. The word has a strict technical definition, however, and that definition is all about trust. What makes a professional unique is that they are ethically and legally bound to do their best for the client. If they fail, they can be held responsible. Stricter regulation over the word is obviously needed, because non-professionals have appropriated it.

lsc 14y ago

Fine, fine, I'll post the screed. My point is that the word "professional" is now all but synonymous with "slick salesman" Personally, I doubt that "professionals" were any more trustworthy before I was old enough to notice, too... thus me poking fun at the very ideas underpinning it. (as an aside, I don't know all that much about finance... but as far as I can tell, it's nothing but sales, so there really isn't any room for professionalism in the way you mean the word. They aren't doing anything but selling.) My experience with people that claim to be 'professional' or who attempt to dress professionally - nearly all of those people I know are salespeople. If you want someone to show up on time and look good? sure, go with one of them. If you want the correct answers to your questions? if you want someone to give you truthful answers even when those truthful answers mean you go with a competitor? find someone who is actually into what you are trying to do. That's the thing, at least in the part of Engineering where I work? sure, some good Engineers claim to be professionals, but almost none of them put any effort into the appearances of professionalism. Few put any effort into dressing or grooming, and many are habitually late. The only people I know that put a lot of effort into appearing professional are the sales people. I mean, sure, you and I can argue back and forth all day... "Words have meaning!" and, of course, a 'professional' is someone that does a job that requires a lot of training, and probably comes from an upper middle class background. But the thing is, that meaning changes over time, as how the word is used. Personally, I associate the word 'professional' along with the western style business suit, with fraud, mostly because the Engineers I know don't put much effort into claiming to be professional, while most sales people do. I think that more and more people have that opinion of the suit; even salespeople I meet rarely wear suits, (though, of course, they still loudly declare they are 'professionals' even though they have little knowledge of the product and are more than happy to make up ridiculous lies about their own product and the competition.)

yuhong 14y ago
Yea, I will refer you to this post that describes the fundamental flaws: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3426201 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3426201
billswift 14y ago
"Professional always means power." Frank Herbert Most specifically, the power to exclude competition, that is the sole real purpose of "professional licensing", whether medical, legal, engineering, or other. The "protecting the public" is fraudulent window dressing to impress the suckers.
- forensic 14y ago
  Overly cynical. If doctors did not have a professional association their conduct would likely get worse, so there is a public interest being served when professions self-regulate for quality. There is also an anti-competitive factor, but corporate oligopolies do the exact same thing. Libertarians criticize professional bodies and unions while giving monopolies, oligopolies, and regulatory capture a free pass. This is plain stupid because it is those corporate monopolies that are stifling human progress, not the relatively powerless unions whether they're the white collar "association" variety or the blue collar "union" variety.
- rayiner 14y ago
  You're presupposing that the costs of decreased competition outweigh the benefits of regulation. I have yet to see convincing evidence in support of this proposition.
forensic 14y ago
Your point, in short: non-professionals work really hard to present themselves as professionals, to the extent that actual professionals now shun the word. The word has a strict technical definition, however, and that definition is all about trust. What makes a professional unique is that they are ethically and legally bound to do their best for the client. If they fail, they can be held responsible. Stricter regulation over the word is obviously needed, because non-professionals have appropriated it.