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More credentialing and requirements would do plenty to curtail leadership incentive problems. First, as the sibling points out, it gives the licensed engineer a

by toss1 2mo ago

More credentialing and requirements would do plenty to curtail leadership incentive problems. First, as the sibling points out, it gives the licensed engineer a solid ground to stand on when refusing a stupid leadership order — "I'm not going to lose my license for that stupid idea", and a serious incentive to do so, as well as solid job prospects if he does get canned for it (because there's a limited pool of credentialed engineers). You glibly say "More schooling does not mean more trustworthy or careful doctors.". Yet the schooling and credentialing clearly cuts off huge numbers of would-be doctors who never pass the exams, never graduate med school, or never even get into med school, or decide it is too difficult in the first place. In the software realm, those people just go to some boot camp and they're off to the races... Another huge aspect of credentialing is required ongoing education, which REQUIRES physicians and engineers to take updated continuing education just to maintain their license. This again continuously improves the talent pool. And, if your main concern is that they be "more trustworthy or careful", credentialing also helps that by finding the worst, least trustworthy and careful and cancelling their license, so they are NOT doctors anymore. The untrustworthy or careless SWE just gets a new job to ruin stuff elsewhere, probably taking one from the actual good engineer because their talent is not engineering, but bullshitting.

groundzeros2015 2mo ago
> it gives the licensed engineer a solid ground to stand on when refusing a stupid leadership order I disagree to the extent to which this is real leverage. It changes the language and approach, but not the outcome, Ask a civil engineer the degree to which they can fight their leadership on these grounds. > clearly cuts off huge numbers of would-be doctors who never pass the exams Yes the fallacy is that more exclusive is better. You don’t understand the traits you select for. > those people just go to some boot camp and they're off to the races I don’t see any kids who just got off a boot camp running large software projects. Does this happen at your workplace? Why not? > This again continuously improves the talent pool. I just disagree to the extent to which the talent actually increases. The people who excel already learn and study all time. This slightly raises the floor by forcing the least curious person to be exposed to some PowerPoints and videos. > The untrustworthy or careless SWE just gets a new job to ruin stuff elsewhere They can only ruin the extent of responsibility and scope given to a new hire with no reputation. > least trustworthy and careful and cancelling their license Once again you assume the system works as stated. I think it actually selects against those who are bad at avoiding responsibility and not legally savvy. The image that comes to mind is someone who made a mistake, cares a ton about medicine, and hates the organizational administration.
- toss1 2mo ago
  Wow you have a relentlessly unrealistic view of things. >>Ask a civil engineer the degree to which they can fight their leadership on these grounds. Both civil engineers and doctors both can and absolutely do refuse to sign off on unsafe situations. That does not mean they detect them 100% of the time, or never cave to pressure, but they absolutely do. We just never hear about the incidents that didn't happen because a doctor or engineer forced the right solution or no action — precisely because nothing newsworthy happened. We DO hear about the ones that did happen, Therac-25, Mars Climate Orbiter loss, Cloudflare outage, it is endless >>I think it actually selects against those who are bad at avoiding responsibility and not legally savvy. You might think that, but clearly you have never read even the summaries of cases where doctors lost their licenses. Hint: it was not some mistake that could have been covered up by better schmoozing. If anything, the system is too lenient. The rest isn't even worth the bytes to respond; just handwaving an attitude. There are very good arguments to not have licensing on software engineering but you are not making them
  - groundzeros2015 2mo ago
    > Wow you have a relentlessly unrealistic view of things. I noticed from your response that you didn’t really refute the claims, but that suggesting that systems don’t achieve their stated goal gives you a distasteful feeling. > We just never hear about the incidents that didn't happen because a doctor or engineer forced the right solution or no action And the same is true of software. I and my peers tell my bosses ideas are bad all the time. We don’t need a credential to do that. And the credential is not what gave us trust with that decision maker. > If anything, the system is too lenient. Correct. Bad doctors continue to keep their jobs all their time. So that’s my point. What is the criteria that distinguishes those cases? Both doctors made a medical error. Which one gets off and which one gets fired? The doctor who is more focused on medicine is likely the one less skilled at navigating the legal problem. The doctors making mistakes and keeping their jobs are a pathological minority that is reinforced by their credential giving them authority to operate.

by toss1 2mo ago

groundzeros2015 2mo ago

> it gives the licensed engineer a solid ground to stand on when refusing a stupid leadership order I disagree to the extent to which this is real leverage. It changes the language and approach, but not the outcome, Ask a civil engineer the degree to which they can fight their leadership on these grounds. > clearly cuts off huge numbers of would-be doctors who never pass the exams Yes the fallacy is that more exclusive is better. You don’t understand the traits you select for. > those people just go to some boot camp and they're off to the races I don’t see any kids who just got off a boot camp running large software projects. Does this happen at your workplace? Why not? > This again continuously improves the talent pool. I just disagree to the extent to which the talent actually increases. The people who excel already learn and study all time. This slightly raises the floor by forcing the least curious person to be exposed to some PowerPoints and videos. > The untrustworthy or careless SWE just gets a new job to ruin stuff elsewhere They can only ruin the extent of responsibility and scope given to a new hire with no reputation. > least trustworthy and careful and cancelling their license Once again you assume the system works as stated. I think it actually selects against those who are bad at avoiding responsibility and not legally savvy. The image that comes to mind is someone who made a mistake, cares a ton about medicine, and hates the organizational administration.

toss1 2mo ago
Wow you have a relentlessly unrealistic view of things. >>Ask a civil engineer the degree to which they can fight their leadership on these grounds. Both civil engineers and doctors both can and absolutely do refuse to sign off on unsafe situations. That does not mean they detect them 100% of the time, or never cave to pressure, but they absolutely do. We just never hear about the incidents that didn't happen because a doctor or engineer forced the right solution or no action — precisely because nothing newsworthy happened. We DO hear about the ones that did happen, Therac-25, Mars Climate Orbiter loss, Cloudflare outage, it is endless >>I think it actually selects against those who are bad at avoiding responsibility and not legally savvy. You might think that, but clearly you have never read even the summaries of cases where doctors lost their licenses. Hint: it was not some mistake that could have been covered up by better schmoozing. If anything, the system is too lenient. The rest isn't even worth the bytes to respond; just handwaving an attitude. There are very good arguments to not have licensing on software engineering but you are not making them
- groundzeros2015 2mo ago
  > Wow you have a relentlessly unrealistic view of things. I noticed from your response that you didn’t really refute the claims, but that suggesting that systems don’t achieve their stated goal gives you a distasteful feeling. > We just never hear about the incidents that didn't happen because a doctor or engineer forced the right solution or no action And the same is true of software. I and my peers tell my bosses ideas are bad all the time. We don’t need a credential to do that. And the credential is not what gave us trust with that decision maker. > If anything, the system is too lenient. Correct. Bad doctors continue to keep their jobs all their time. So that’s my point. What is the criteria that distinguishes those cases? Both doctors made a medical error. Which one gets off and which one gets fired? The doctor who is more focused on medicine is likely the one less skilled at navigating the legal problem. The doctors making mistakes and keeping their jobs are a pathological minority that is reinforced by their credential giving them authority to operate.