Engineer's Dilemma

Historically, efficiency has always butted heads with responsible action.  We see this in what is probably the most striking example, using efficient, but polluting, chemicals or using more natural, less polluting substances to accomplish the same thing.  One might be faster or require less materials or funding, most likely externalizing a cost, but an externalized cost is still a cost to someone, somewhere, or something.  How can we be efficient, whilst still being responsible and selfless in our endeavors.  Perhaps an engineer in a corporation is the one implementing this corporately selfish, but efficient, methodology.  Where do you draw the line between valuing your job and what is best for the companies, and then in turn your, success, and the professional responsibility you have as an engineer to do the right thing.  Through reformation of the values of those who might put the engineers in this tight position, we could abolish the dilemma from ever starting.  There are multiple ways this could happen, however unlikely to succeed they may be.  First, is through a sense of internationalism, or environmentalism.  Second, is a radical change to the system we live in where corporations are accountable for the externalized costs they put on the Earth and its inhabitants.  Through this change, the dilemma can be a thing of the past.

Our first suggestion, instilling a sense of internationalism, or environmentalism in the minds of all those who put these engineers in such a position as to choose between company and the rest of the world, is a bit far-fetched but would still solve our problem.  If everyone felt less faithful to themselves and their personal success and more about the success of Earth and humanity as a global entity, we would not be in the position we are today where engineers' consciences are tested.  Instead, the others who have already decided on doing the "wrong" thing for the good of the company, would decide to do the right thing.  This, in a way, externalizes the dilemma to management.  However, before instructing engineers, these things are generally known in the first place, and thus they experience a similar dilemma already, they just make the wrong choice a good chunk of the time.  If management did better in their dilemma, engineers would not be put in the bind they, all too often, are put in.

The second suggestion I have put forth, is more reasonable in ends, but means are still questionable as to whether their are truly possible.  Even if this suggestion can never be achieved to its fullest extent, even a partial implementation could relieve the engineers enough to call the dilemma history.  If there was a system, perhaps implemented by a universally governing body, such as the U.N. or something similar, that would hold corporations accountable for their externalized costs, then the once efficient thing to do now costs more than the once costly thing to do.  We can now force responsible inefficiency into the actions of corporations.  These corporations, if they want access to the markets they can sell their goods in, must conform to an analysis of externalized costs.  For example, if a mining company takes advantage of its workers, subjecting them to dangerous conditions needlessly and/or paying them too little, we can hold the company accountable.  "Well, Acme, I can see you are using slave labor to produce your goods, so therefore, until you address that problem your goods cannot be sold to any nation's consumers on this long list of countries."  Only through true accountability can the pressure be turned onto the companies creating problems in the first place.  If a company is doing something highly environmentally dangerous, they can be stopped. Though, the costs associated with this sort of system would surely be grand, they are worth the lives of all seven billion human beings on this earth.  Currently, continuing on this track, we will see the Earth destroyed and its inhabitants with it.  So what cost is too much for the survival of humanity?  Do not put this burden on the engineers, when it could be put on the management who maliciously bestows the dilemma currently on the engineers.

Through changes to the way we treat corporations, we can remove the dilemma engineers face every single day designing the next generation of products.  If we cannot have good people, we certainly can have corporations that do not run amuck throughout the Earth, ravaging her people and her bounties.  Instead, we can hold responsible these people who make decisions neglecting the costs they burden others with.