From: cacst9+@pitt.edu (Cecelia A Clancy)
Newsgroups: sci.engr
Subject: Re: The Basic Nature of This Newsgroup
Date: 17 Nov 92 13:38:02 GMT
Followup-To: <BxMozv.AyC@acsu.buffalo.edu>
             <1992Nov13.161055.3777@newshost.lanl.gov>
Organization: University of Pittsburgh
Originator: cacst9@unixd3.cis.pitt.edu


>  Shawn Thompson <v087mxgb@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu> writes:

>  Man of man! -
>  they should rename this newsgroup to:
>  sci.engr.gripe.philosophy.whine.discuss.everything.but.tech
   subjects.and.dont.dare.ever.discuss.engineering.cuz.the.
   net.is.too.busy.discussing.every.other.politically.correct.
   complaint.subject.from.education.to.work.ethics.to.why.my.
   toes.sweat.at.the.office
>  :-)
>  st

Yep, all of the above except "whine" belong here because engineering
touches everything and everything touches engineering.    When
the engineering aspects of ANY social/humanities topic is being
discussed, it belongs here.    We cannot just sit back and let
others make the political desisions and cannot relegate ourselves to
merely devising ways to implement those other-made decisions. 
We have to be, OURSELVES, part of the various political and social
decision-making processes.
 
And we must, under certain certain circumstances,
REFUSE to carry out certain political decisions.    The various Codes
of Ethics give us plenty of guidance on when to refuse.    The IEEE
Code of Ethics For Engineers goes one step further by urging us to
support others in carring out and in living up the IEEE Code of Ethics.
This means things like protecting and supporting whistleblowers, folks.
This means eradication discrimination in the workplace, folks.
This means helping engineers in countries with oppressive governments
and regimes to make their skills "unavailable" to those who want them
to design nasty things like genocidal gas chambers or whatever else, folks.

But how can we carry out such tall orders as isolated individuals who
just happen to be engineers?    We have to, from time to time, get together
as engineers, and educate ourselves and exchange ideas on the
social and political ingredients that go into engineering work and on
the social and political products of engineering work.    The difficulties
and complications of engineering go far beyond the merely technical and
the merely mathematical.    Just as we would never hesitate to support
one another in the purely technical and purely mathematical dificulties,
so must we support each other in all the other difficulties as well.

Much of our "technical" material to be posted, Shawn, is highly enough
specialized that most people are posting it put into newsgroups like
sci.engr.mech, sci.engr.chem, ieee.general, sci.math.num-analysis,
sci.engr.civil, sci.materials, sci.biomed, sci.med.physics, et cetera.
Look into them, Shawn, and you will find more "technical stuff" than
you, I, or anybody else can keep up with.


Cecelia  <muller+@pitt.edu>

       Cecelia Mu"ller            (412) 682-2798
       P.O. Box 71222
       Pittsburgh, PA 15213
       USA

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Ich komme aus dem Lande Fessendens und Fitterers.
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