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Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007
Great article! And just remember, it's an engineer's world. Without us, everyone is powerless, literally.
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I'm sure that you meant that in jest, but I'd like to comment on it anyway because I think it's relevant to the discussion.
You have to realize that the profession(s) you chose to hold in high regard depend on your priorities. Each has good and bad points.
Doctors help the sick. They ease suffering. But, of course, they are making humanity weaker. Every time someone is saved and has a kid, they are passing on their weak genes.
Engineers develop the technology to make our world work. Pollution seems to be becoming a serious problem. We have also developed a dependence on technology such that we can no longer function without it. Think of what would happen if the internet suddenly stopped working tomorrow.
Lawyers keep order. They ensure that only the guilty are punished. But what does that say about our legal system if we need lawyers to defend us? And why do they charge so much?
The garbage collectors keep our homes and cities clean. If they don't do their job, we'd be up to our knees in rubbish. But wouldn't their time be better spent trying to figure out how to produce less garbage in the first place? If we didn't have them, we'd be forced to do so.
Each group would also find a way to function without the others. Engineers could develop the technology to replace doctors and eliminate garbage. The legal system would be so efficent that lawyers aren't needed. Doctors would make due with basic tools, relying on their heads instead. With everybody happily healthy, there'd be no need for a complex legal system.
The original claim is that we need to produce more engineers in order to keep up with our global neighbors. But with some sort of global economy looming (take the Euro for instance), our energy might be better spent specializing. I think that all the countries in the world will inevitably join together rather than work as individual cells. If everybody was doing everything, we'd get nowhere.
Let's take the US in it's current state as an example. Silicon Valley specializes in electronics. The high-tech industry lives here. Many midwest states have a lot of farming. Texas has a lot of oil. If you don't know how to vote, you live in Florida. With the high-tech industry centralized, everyone knows where to go if they want to do something relating to it. It also makes it easier for companies to communicate with each other. And, by doing only one thing, you can dedicate all your energy to doing it well. If all the Flordians started dispursing themselves, we'd have hanging chads all over the country. Our electoral system would fall appart. We'd still be trying to figure out if Gore won.
Just because China seems to have specialized in engineering doesn't mean that we have to also. At the moment, we seem to have become the world's police force.