What is the most important engineering problem of our future?

[mechanicalbrain]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

this brings up an interesting aspect of engineering. Take genetic engineering for example. The obvious approach is to take on things that everyone agrees are defects.

Once you've done that, the line between defect and preference becomes blurred. In general, engineers solve problems and make things (systems) better. Once you have a system perfected, or a problem solved, the engineers are done.

And for any given problem their is a "best solution" or best answer. Take cars for example. For a two passenger car their is an ideal aerodynamic shape - the one shape that will give you the lowest wind resistance and the best stability at your target top speed.

Ok - so if all car manufactures get their heads around this, then one day all two passenger cars will have exactly the same shape, and all 5 passenger cars will have exactly the same shape

to use any other shape would be an error - and engineers do their best to eliminate errors.

Given enough time and free reign, human engineering (genetic engineering) would end up in the same place: there would be one ideal (perfect) human genome. If you start assigning people a task or career before they are born, then there will be one ideal genome for that career or job. In the end lots of people would be exactly the same.

But heres the weird part. Many of the things we value as humans arise out of error conditions. Our heros are doctors and firemen and the guy who pulls you off the roof of your flooded house.

most of the things we do for entertainment and hobbies are based on error conditions. Driving a car at 65mph on a straight and level highway with the windows closed and the A/C set at 71º is downright boring. Driving a convertable down a winding road up and down hills at 65mph is a blast.

in fact, we create arbitrary error conditions for sport. We pull a football at one end of the field and tell one team it needs to be at the other end if you want to win.

While we are in the middle - while we are half way there, being an engineer and solving these problems, these error conditions is a very rewarding career. But once we get 'there', once everything is perfect, I think we will be bored to tears

and if we are gentically engineered, we will be bored with each other as well.

Your post needs to be more carefully worded. When i first read it i thought you were saying genetic defects keep life interesting! Im sure your talking more along the lines of if we were all the same. When i talk about genetic defects i mean sickle cell anemia, down syndrome, blindness. Also the car example brings up another issue. Just because its the best engineering design for a task is it really the best design for a task. I think most of us know that a while back they designed a car that was nearly indestructable. The problem: after people bought one they would never need a new car! same with lightbulbs. And this also applies to FIRST.