Most problems in the modern age aren’t complicated engineering problems, they’re the same problem: coordination failure

I’m in the 3rd year of my engineering PhD, because my whole life I thought society needed an engineering solution. I mean I didn’t blindly accept what people told me, but still it wasn’t until last year that I realized/agree with basically what this quote is saying; society isn’t bad because of an engineering problem. We’re pretty good at making water, food, shelter, and transporting stuff around but pretty bad at having a good life (ex: the loneliness epidemic). That gradual realization is part of why I’m in the solarpunk community.

Spending almost 20 years in education learning to solve the wrong problem is a real shame to say the least, which is why I think articles like this are incredibly important.

IMO, we need to change our attitude when we talk to kids of the next generation. No more “politican = bad don’t do it. Be good; be an engineer”. Instead we should be saying “our politicans are bad, you should be good, study, and run for office”

Yes! This has been very frustrating for me as an engineer. I chose this path in order to help solve the big problems of our times. And then realized that we don’t need engineers for that, solutions are lying unused on the floor everywhere.

Climate: We know electrification displaces fossil fuel usage. And we know how to produce electricity without emitting CO2 (yes, nuclear, but now increasingly renewables). We don’t have one solution to get out of the climate crisis, we have a dozen. I don’t have any work there as an engineer. There is a political opposition to overcome, from conservatives mostly but shockingly also from ecologists who refuse to do their homeworks and still claim EVs or nuclear energy is not part of the solution. We could have solved the CO2 emission crisis in the 90s.

Work automation: My main focus as a roboticist. I started doubting my path when I realized that subway trains were not automated 50 years after it became possible (and done in a real world deployment). We could be in a post-labor society today, but the transition period to it is so scary that we refuse to take the jump.

Inequality: Redistribution works. Proven, published, profitable to the majority. Ergo, the minority of rich make sure democracy remains broken.

Fascism: Education works. Population educated about critical thinking and media literacy spread far less misinformation. People who know about the Milgram experiment are less likely to fall for unethical orders. Yet we do not do it.

It is weird. I am a big technophile and hard science lover but if I were back in my 18s I would rather choose either social science or arts as a lever to change things for the best. Engineers have done their work. We will continue to make it easier to bring good to the work but when you see ecologists moan about wind turbines being ugly, EVs being non-ideal and conservatives about coal being manly and chunky vibrating thermal cars being cool, it feels a bit like installing an escalator to the fitness center: the problem is not in the accessibility, it is in the will.

Interested in other peoples take on it btw.

Sidenote: “The tragedy of the commons” is wrong and has been debunked even before the book on it was published. Hardin, the man behind the “Tragedy…” paper was a rabid right-winger who provided a false solution to a non-existing problem, providing cover to all of those who wanted to wholesale reject solutions to known problems without doing any of the legwork themselves.