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Unread 04-03-2009, 17:04
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Re: Peace, Love, and all that hippy stuff: robotics career outside the defense indust

I'd just like to point out that there are plenty of engineering ethics issues in basically all engineering jobs. Just because you aren't directly making weapons in the defense industry doesn't absolve you from making your own ethical judgement. Whenever anything is bought or sold, there is ripe opportunity for bribery and conflict of interest. This isn't something that is remotely exclusive to military contracts.

Certain events such as the Challenger disaster and bridge failures are taught classic examples of how whistleblowing is a critical part of the engineer's job too. Public safety has to be job #1. Lucid, sober evaluations of the possible impact of engineering decisions has to be made, even if it isn't the most popular or economically expedient thing to do.

Heck, even if you work in something as warm and fuzzy as the toy industry doesn't mean that bad things can't happen. And ultimately, anybody can use almost anything as a tool for good or evil.

I guess my point is that it's good that you care about the implications of your work, but be on the lookout for bad behavior no matter where you work. As Scott Adams of Dilbert fame wrote, "There's a gigantic gray area between good moral behavior and outright felonious activities. I call that the Weasel Zone and it's where most of life happens."
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