If engineers ruled the world…
Just about everybody has ideas on how to solve the world's problems, and engineers are no exception. But rarely are they in a position of power that would allow them to put their ideas into effect.
Does it take an engineer to solve the world's problems?
But what if engineers�rather than the usual politicians, lawyers, soldiers, and clerics�were calling the shots in the world today? Here's how they might approach a couple of major issues facing the world today:
High energy prices
It's a pretty simple problem: the price of oil�a commodity in limited supply�is rising due to ever increasing global demand. While this could be addressed in a variety of ways�economic, political, and technical�engineers would probably focus on the technical first.
To an engineer, the solution is equally simple: conserve, find ways to increase supply, use oil more efficiently, and develop alternatives. All of these lend themselves to scientific analysis and technical solutions.
Would engineers spend much time massaging OPEC oil ministers or letting environmental politics�with its often questionable scientific arguments�interfere with building new oil refineries (or nuclear power plants)? I doubt it.
Not because engineers don't care about the environment, or what people think�but because they'll tend not to let facts stand in the way. They'd rather get to work finding and building practical solutions to a problem than stand around debating it.
At the same time, their proclivity to plan, analyze, and build might prove less effective�or even counterproductive�in the realms of economics and politics, which don't lend themselves to precise calculations or predictable outcomes. This might be, in part, what happened to Jimmy Carter�a former nuclear engineer�when he confronted the energy crisis of the late 1970s.
Carter did indeed recommend all of the technical solutions mentioned above. But he also went on to call for a variety of questionable economic and political solutions as well, including oil import quotas and “windfall profits” taxes, as well as the creation of yet another massive governmental bureaucracy�the Department of Energy. Over 25 years later it seems little, if anything, has been accomplished.
The “War on Terror”
The “War on Terror” doesn't lend itself to a straightforward technical solution, but many aspects of it do. Certainly, if engineers had any say, there would be no holding back on the development of the latest high-tech weaponry, electronic surveillance, and sensing and identification equipment designed to prevent terrorist acts.
As always, engineers would focus on producing practical, well-thought-out solutions to specific problems, and have little patience for style-over-substance politics�no pulling 85-year-old grandmothers from Des Moines out of passenger lines at airports for security searches in the name of political correctness.
Engineers' ability to stay focused and avoid being distracted from their primary goals would serve them well, and increase the likelihood of positive results. At the same time, this attention to detail could come at the expense of missing the “big picture.”
This was illustrated recently when I spoke with one person (an engineer) who even suggested that engineers might be inclined to search for a biochemical reason to explain the behavior of terrorists. A test could then be developed to identify such individuals, and a way might even be found to “correct” their thinking. A scary thought!
All in all, the world would certainly be different�and perhaps better in many ways�if engineers were calling the shots. But while I think we'd be better off if more engineers�and fewer lawyers and politicians�were in power, I might have second thoughts about giving them total control.
R. Pell
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