If you’re looking for the conclusion to last month’s column, jump down to The tale of the lost iPhone. But I really wanted to talk about the top subject of the moment: the Presidential election.
It all started with a Facebook picture someone shared in my news feed. It showed Neil deGrasse Tyson (a well-known popularizer of science, who, incidentally, is an astrophysicist) asking: “What profession do all these Senators and Congressmen have? Law, law, law, law, businessman, law, law, law….Where are the scientists? Where are the engineers? Where is the rest of…life?” It struck a chord with me, not just because I happen to be of the engineering persuasion, but also because what’s struck me about American politics of late (if I may be so bold) is that it’s not based on solving the problems that we, as a nation, face.
It’s no surprise that politicians frequently start out as lawyers. We’re a nation founded on the rule of law and, make no mistake, that’s a very good thing. Along with representative democracy, it’s probably the reason the United States has survived for more than 236 years. But scientists and engineers are different beasts, and we might all benefit from more of their tendencies manifesting in the public sphere.
The question that both parties ask voters—as if it were the single most important consideration—is: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” The incumbent, of course, wants you to say “yes,” and the opponent, “no.” But the question lacks meaning unless we previously established the measurement by which we establish “better off.” An engineer wants a way to measure it. The difference is that lawyers/politicians want to pick the measurements that help them win elections; engineers want a measurement that (hopefully) mirrors real improvement in the state of the body politic. They’re less tied to the choice of measure employed than that people agree that whatever measure is chosen won’t be changed to suit “political” ends. You must have a very good reason to change the rules in the middle of the game (like new facts).
Most people judge “better” with a fairly narrow lens: If I was unemployed, do I have a job? If I was employed, am I making more money? On a national level, we can ask how many people are employed and (also important) how much money they’re making on average. More jobs at lower wages is not a net win. One of my pet peeves with politicians and news media is their failure to identify whether an “average” number is the mean (add all the numbers and divide by how many there are) or the mode (half the values above, half below). Engineers worry about these things.
Scientists determine things by applying the scientific method. They form a hypothesis, devise an experiment to test that hypothesis, and take a statistical look at the results to determine whether the outcome is in the realm of random chance or a real effect. Unfortunately, most people don’t take easily to the notion of being part of an experiment. It’s one of the reasons we build institutions that eventually stagnate. Experimentation (and failure) is the way both organisms and our society evolve over time.
You’ll never find an engineer running for President (with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, who worked on nuclear subs). They aren’t interested in winning the approval of the masses based on a clever turn of phrase—they’re interested in being proven right in the real world, where the laws of physics apply to everyone. Many engineers have problems dealing with people because those people don’t operate by a discernible set of rules. But the very best engineers want to make life better for everyone.
I guess what I’m saying is that I wish we could, as a nation, agree on a set of fact-based measurements that constitute how we judge the effectiveness of those we elect to govern us. I wish we were all focused on finding the best solution given the constraints imposed by “the real world.” I wish we would establish a way of tracking progress toward national goals and benchmarks for education, employment and prosperity.
But, hey, I’m just an engineer. As such, I encourage you to think beyond party lines and specious arguments when you vote. Thank you!
The tale of the lost iPhone
If you read last month’s column, you know my wife lost her iPhone and it was recovered by someone, which we knew thanks to the “Find My iPhone” feature of Apple’s iCloud service. We had a little trouble filing a police report (since you need both the serial number and the IMEI of the device to file a report with any chance of getting action), complicated by the fact that the loss occurred in Napa, and the phone was located in Vallejo, requiring the involvement and cooperation of two distinct jurisdictions. I can appreciate that both these departments have higher priorities than recovering lost iPhones. The problem is that the window of opportunity for recovering a lost iPhone is based on its battery life—once the battery dies, you can no longer see where the phone is. And that’s what happened: the battery died.
I was tempted to drive over and knock on the door of the house where the phone was last located, except for the fact that my wife informed me that it was “the bad part of town.” Thankfully, she still values me above her phone. But if it had been an iPhone 5…well, you never know.
So that’s what happened. Someone got an iPhone 3GS, which they probably wiped and sold for cash. As for us, my daughter had her old iPhone 3GS (she got an iPhone 4 last Christmas), and all it took was a trip to the Apple store in Santa Rosa for a new (free!) SIM card and a call to AT&T to make the switch. It would be nice, though, if Apple could figure out a way to track a stolen phone even after it’s been wiped. In the meantime, follow my advice and copy down the serial number and IMEI for your phone.
Just in case.
