The real crisis facing us today: Or why Engineers need to learn history...

Engineers are capable people; the world’s economic machinery runs because of their work. I know, because I was one.

Today the world (and India) is full of two kinds of engineers - both of them problematic: I will call them the ‘Haves’ and the ‘Have Nots’.

The Haves - or the Silicon Valley types - the uber-competent - have hubris. They think that all the world’s problems can be solved through applying principles of engineering design, and technology: if only the rest of the world, especially people, would please get out of their way. 

We know where their algorithms are taking us already; they don’t!

If they want to look deeper into their hubris, click here. Or this here. And here. And here.

I think that they all ought to be encouraged to figure out ways to colonise the Moon, or better still, Mars. Or Meta-Worse. Whatever. And give all of them a free one way ticket there. 

There! That’ll give the rest of us a bit of peace.

Or would it?

Not really! Remember, there are those other engineers still around?

A good place to start is the engineering workshop in their first semester. From the sound of it, you would think that it’s a good, productive place.

No chance. You heat a piece of iron in the furnace, and hammer, angle, grind it to a specified measure. Enough experience to tell you that things in the real world are very difficult to shape, and you’re better off learning and memorising the number and dimensions of pipes in the Lancashire Boiler. 

(What you’re not told of course is that these very boilers were used to run the steam engines that constantly pumped out water from the mines in Lancashire so that coal could be mined. Which is probably around the time the entire Industrial Revolution mischief started, and has brought us here - to the Climate Change crisis. Be instrumental in creating the problems in the first place. Then, a century or two later, claim monopoly over being the only ones capable of solving it.)

Yes indeed, engineering has brought us a lot of good, and technology does hold a lot of promise for tomorrow. 

But what about ethics? 

What about human sensibilities?

Not taught in Engineering? 

“What do you expect from ‘Human Numerical Problem Solving Machines ?” - I heard an exasperated IIT Director say.

Never mind. Here’s a small story about a German scientist at the time of the 1st & 2nd world wars which you might find insightful: Fritz Haber - is the classic Dr. Jekyll (Ammonia - Nitrogen Fertilizers) & Mr Hyde (TNT - Bombs, and Father of Chemical Warfare) - was responsible for creating the poisonous gas Zyklon B that was used to kill a million of his fellow Jews. 

Back to that young student-engineer in that Engineering Workshop then - with his memorising of the details of the Lancashire Boiler.

Thereafter, through a series of logical causalities, Google doesn’t hire you, and you become a software engineer. (At least you’ll spend your entire working life in air-conditioned comfort.)

For all practical purposes, you are now accounted for: “settled”.

You work for glamorous sweat-shops housed in high-rise gleaming glass and concrete buildings, fully convinced that you have made it to the Silicon Valley, at least in India.

Until you hit a mid-life crisis, that is. For some of you it starts at age 25 - which lands you at the MBA door.

The same series of causality - that started when you passed your maths test in class 1, that turned you into an engineer, now makes you an MBA. 

Thus you’re again accounted for - at least till your real mid-life crisis happens, especially in case you become a FUFAji.

That brings us to the Have Nots: Unemployed, and mostly unemployable.

Cannon fodder for the IT Cells; the Social Media Troll. And worse: The Assam high jumper. The Thar driver. The rioter.

A human being – turned into a weapon against other human beings.

See that ‘Ugra Hanuman’ sticker on the vehicle, and in the Social Media digital profile picture? Yes, that is most likely you.

You know that you can’t afford to do this with your real identity. So along with the Ugra Hanuman DP, you keep a nice fictitious name, and in the lines about you: a few words about nationalism, truth seeking, honour, pride, etc., and a dire warning to those who invoke your ire.

Now try reconciling this person’s mental models with the second line of the Doha in Hanuman Chalisa:

 "

बुद्धिहीन तनु जानिके, सुमिरौं पवन-कुमार।

बल बुद्धि बिद्या देहु मोहिं, हरहु कलेस बिकार।। 

 "

'Aware of the deficiency of my intelligence, I remember Hanuman and humbly ask him for strength, intelligence, and knowledge to relieve me of my blemishes, which cause me pain.'

Yep.

Completely and exactly opposite of these wise words! :

“Now with all my lack of intelligence, lack of knowledge, dysfunctional mental models, social and material frustrations of my life going no-where, and overt aggression, I want to inflict pain on everyone else.

No, it gives me no pleasure to point out this fact. It gives me immense pain that we have to deal with this fact. Everyday, everywhere.

It has to do with education. 

More accurately, it’s about the lack of a real education.

If there was an international ranking today about how to ensure that children and young adults don’t develop their minds, nor learn how to use their critical faculties, but entrench patriarchy, and build narrow perspectives: the Indian education system would be the winner.

Right at the top would be these engineers. 

They’re the ones with the free “extra 2ab”.

And they have a Rudra Hanuman DP.

Now, YOU deal with it.

I will not.

Because experience tells me that any sort of harmful and extremist viewpoints and behaviours are typical of about 2% of a population. Maybe 5%. Exceptions. Outliers. 

But if every third citizen shows dysfunctional behaviour, it’s no accident. It has been designed to be so. Arduously, over a generation or more.

It's a 'feature', not a 'bug'.

There are no accidents, as wise old Oogway will say.

Fake news - wouldn’t be there, if there was’t already a huge WhatsApp University.

If they’re this way, they WANT to be this way; nobody forced them. It used to be a free country, hey!

We have consciously created and nurtured a generation and a half of idiots who have been primed to jump, and have now been brought to the edge.

 They do not know about the rise and fall of the Third Reich.

And those of you here who are wise (learned in history or not), would know that this is not about Engineers alone …

(And, whether you burst crackers, or not ...)

 Happy Diwali!