Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Zoupa]

No, I have a BS in math, not BA.  I just laid a trap to make a point about confirmation bias.  Musk has a BA in physics, and was admitted for a graduate degree in materials science.  Clearly he has some background knowledge and interest to dabble in engineering if he so chooses.

I have some background knowledge and interest to dabble in the Latin Church. Please refer to me as Pope Zoupa from now on.

Start your own church first, and if it's wildly successful at indoctrination, I promise I won't reflexively deny the possibility that you may have some theological insights.

I like how you equate successful indoctrination to theological insight. Almost as if some dude who's good at conning money off subsidies and venture capitalists would be equated as some engineering genius.

[Savonarola]

Ah, yes - here being an Engineer means something specific.  But if anyone can call themselves an engineer in the US, what is the purpose of that designation?

We view it as a job title; like say the way "Programmer" doesn't require a degree in computer science or "Human Resource Specialist" doesn't require a business degree.  It is a little different in that there are Professional Engineers, who do require a degree in engineering, work experience, recommendations and testing.  Anyone can call himself or herself an engineer, but only people with licenses can call themselves Professional Engineers.

I don't know why it's different in the United States and Canada.

[Savonarola]

No, I have a BS in math, not BA.  I just laid a trap to make a point about confirmation bias.  Musk has a BA in physics, and was admitted for a graduate degree in materials science.  Clearly he has some background knowledge and interest to dabble in engineering if he so chooses.

My apologies, I misremembered.  While a BA in physics does sound weird to me, I have encountered it before.  A number of engineers I've worked with in my career have, in fact, had physics degrees rather than engineering degrees. 

[Sheilbh]

We view it as a job title; like say the way "Programmer" doesn't require a degree in computer science or "Human Resource Specialist" doesn't require a business degree.  It is a little different in that there are Professional Engineers, who do require a degree in engineering, work experience, recommendations and testing.  Anyone can call himself or herself an engineer, but only people with licenses can call themselves Professional Engineers.

Same here.

There are chartered engineers which sounds similar (not sure if they need a degree in engineering though) to professional engineers in the US.

[crazy canuck]

Ah, yes - here being an Engineer means something specific.  But if anyone can call themselves an engineer in the US, what is the purpose of that designation?

We view it as a job title; like say the way "Programmer" doesn't require a degree in computer science or "Human Resource Specialist" doesn't require a business degree.  It is a little different in that there are Professional Engineers, who do require a degree in engineering, work experience, recommendations and testing.  Anyone can call himself or herself an engineer, but only people with licenses can call themselves Professional Engineers.

I don't know why it's different in the United States and Canada.

I see.  Here an Engineer is a professional - in the sense that they are a member of a self-governing regulatory body, so adding the word "professional" would be redundant.  I think there is a good public policy reason for allowing the title engineer to just be a job description - it leads to confusion about who is and who is not an actual professional engineer.

A similar thing happens in the financial advice sector.  There are people who are actually trained, and have the proper accreditation to use the professional advisor title, but the field is poorly regulated so pretty much anybody can claim to be an expert and give advice, and an unwary person may not know the difference.

[Josquius]

Surely by that reasoning you don't need a medical degree to practice medicine.
Perfectly conceivable someone could be self taught.

But.... That's not a good idea for reasons. So only qualified people can be doctors.

Same too engineers.

Unusual there's no protection of this over there.

The ones that get me are where there's two very similar jobs. One a profession and one not. And you can never remember which is which. Yet "a dietitian is to a nutritionist as a dentist is to a toothiologist"

[Sheilbh]

It depends. Some professional regulatory bodies are broadly necessary and good, others are basically just guilds trying to extract rents.

(I think most lean more towards the latter because they're often a white collar combo of trade union advocacy and self-regulation which doesn't sit well together/can cause conflicts of interest.)

[garbon]

It depends. Some professional regulatory bodies are broadly necessary and good, others are basically just guilds trying to extract rents.

(I think most lean more towards the latter because they're often a white collar combo of trade union advocacy and self-regulation which doesn't sit well together/can cause conflicts of interest.)

[Savonarola]

Surely by that reasoning you don't need a medical degree to practice medicine.
Perfectly conceivable someone could be self taught.

But.... That's not a good idea for reasons. So only qualified people can be doctors.

Same too engineers.

Unusual there's no protection of this over there.

The ones that get me are where there's two very similar jobs. One a profession and one not. And you can never remember which is which. Yet "a dietitian is to a nutritionist as a dentist is to a toothiologist"

In the United States, only licensed professional engineers have a stamp; this stamp is necessary to submit documentation to public authority.  This creates a legal responsibility for the engineer who stamped the documents and if there are issues he or she can be fined or sent to prison.  So there is a great deal of protection over this; you can't, say, just have someone design a bridge and build it without government authority.

[Savonarola]

The Canadian system has messed with my job title.  Currently my title is Network and Telecommunication Designer.  It's designer rather than engineer since I had reported to a Canadian office before Alstom spun off their conventional signaling business.  Even though I am a Professional Engineer, not everyone on my team was and Alstom didn't have two titles for the same job.  Knorr-Bremse hasn't gotten around to standardizing titles yet, so I'm stuck as a designer. 

[mongers]

So should Musk now study for a qualification in Government administration?

[DGuller]

In any case, I think we've gone off on a tangent.  I think the original discussion started with a claim that Musk made no engineering contributions to the success of his companies.  Then it went further with implicit claims that he didn't even have the education to do so.  The reality is that you don't need to be a licensed engineer to provide engineering direction and have great instincts for iterative development, especially if you own the companies you work in and thus won't be credentialed out of an opportunity to prove your worth.

[Valmy]

Just to be clear my information was entirely based on what I learned about his time at Tesla. I know nothing about what he did at PayPal or SpaceX. My contention is that once he got beyond the road map laid out by the founder of the company, Tesla has failed in its designs. Even if he is not an engineer who does the detail work, those were his projects and initiatives.

What he has done at Twitter kind of speaks for itself I think though I haven't done any research on it.