I was slightly bemused when watching BBC news during an interview, where the interviewee was being asked about Elon Musk’s Twitter comments as to his apparent Ukraine “peace plan poll”. It was not so much the bizarre notion of a poll on such that struck me as odd, rather the comments by the person being interviewed who said (in reference to Elon Musk) (quote) “… and that’s why Engineers shouldn’t run countries”.
I am not aware that Elon Musk has ever undertaken a formal Engineering qualification, nor can I find any evidence of Elon Musk as having practiced as an Engineer. Elon Musk does himself claim to be an engineer (as tweeted on July 8, 2018), however it would not be the first time a claim (or “tweet”) associated to or by Elon Musk was seen by many as being untrue. To my mind (and I am happy to be challenged – just do not “tweet” me as I am not on Twitter) Elon Musk is many things – an Engineer does not seem to be one of those things. I would expect Elon Musk would disagree (or “tweet” to the contrary) with my views on such. It would be curious as to what word association current (and recently former) Twitter employees would associate with Elon Musk? I somehow doubt that “Engineer” would currently be high on the list!
In any case, engineers do not often get the respect, credibility, nor make the money that Elon Musk has…. So why Elon Musk claims to be an Engineer is doubly curious.
It is however a moot point as to whether Elon Musk is (or isn’t) an Engineer. The things I find bemusing and somewhat curious are:
- The general perception that Elon Musk is in fact an engineer…. mostly because he says that he is.
- The perception that Engineers should not (or are not capable of doing so) run countries.
- How such a generalised comment about an entire profession would pass unchecked by the BBC, especially as the actions of one individual (in this case Elon Musk) cannot (should not) be extrapolated across a wider collective. Shouldn’t we expect more of the BBC? What would have been the response had the comment been in relation to (say) lawyers or property developers running countries? Similarly, would the comment that “Dolph Lundgren is the reason Chemical Engineers shouldn’t be actors” pass?
Erm… best strike that last part of point 3…. Not sure it supports my case?!?!?!? :-O
Whereas we have famous (or infamous – depending upon your political view) Chemists in Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel who went on to be leaders on the world state… what of Engineers? The most notable of more recent Chemical Engineers running a country is Chinese leader Xi Jinping (noted as having studied Chemical Engineering at Tsinghua).
What is it about Elon Musk that leads people to identify him as an Engineer; and about Xi Jinping where people in the most do not? One answer I’d have to that would be in recalling a comment a professional photographer said to me when I met them whilst hiking Yosemite National Park (September 1997). “The more difficult part of being a professional (commercial) photographer was not in finding things to photograph as they are, but finding things to photograph that more closely resemble how people expected them to be”. Perhaps Elon Musk, and not Xi Jinping is how people perceive/expect an engineer to be? Ouch!
The second curiosity (and I cannot say how widespread this belief is) is that Engineers somehow shouldn’t/could not run a country. I assume that people who believe this must think that that property developers who inherited most of their wealth are somehow better suited to running countries? With Donald Trump announcing an intention to run again for US President – we may get to find out (again). We only need look to the current political parties in the UK and Ireland to gauge how well economists, arts-graduates and lawyers are doing at running countries. Would engineers do any better or worse?
From my personal experience, most of the people I graduated with (who did not stay in academia) in Australia did not actually end up in Engineering; and the majority of those few who did work as Engineers, those did not stay in Engineering long. Things may well have changed since I graduated in the early 1990s, however 2020 data from Statista (Chart: Where the UK's graduate vacancies are in 2020 | Statista) shows that “Accounting and professional services” and “banking / finance” tend to outstrip Engineering and Industrial placements by some way. By inference, that graduate engineers can and do have successful careers in such industries means that they have similar career experiences to those that do go into politics. Question is why so few graduate engineers ever do go into politics?
The answer to that question may be that perception is a hard thing to overcome and biases run deep. Perhaps the perception of what we do and who we are is too far from what the voting public believe they need…. if in fact they even know what they need. For me, cartoonist Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) does better at defining engineers and what we do than our own professional bodies. It may well be that here in is the root of the problem?
Given one of the greatest challenges the world faces in providing energy to an ever-growing population (just past 8 billion); then surely Engineers and Scientists are exactly the people we need in politics? Lorna Slater (co-leader of the Scottish Green Party) is a rare example of an Engineer taking up a political career over an engineering one. Whilst I don’t particularly agree with many of her political views, it does show that the path is open should others choose to take it.
