Does humanity play a role in your job? 7

[StefanHamminga]

Hello, I'd like to start with some background. I'm 24 years old, been working as a full time engineer/designer for the past year, it kind of crossed my path... I have no diploma's or anything, I got hired just on my rep. and am doing really well.

Ofcourse this is a good thing actually, my boss even wants to keep me from continuing my study and start an engineering company with him.

Now I'm having second thoughts about that, my life philosophy has always been that I wanted to do something to help humanity and I'm thinking engineering just doesn't doesn't do enough for me on that area.

I'm sure there are more people here thinking the same, so I'm really interested in how you solved that... Did you search for that job that you felt would help humanity or did you take the best job you could get as an engineer and learned to live with your consious? Another option might be trying to be the best in your job as possible and use your resources to help...

Let me know what you guys think, especially what you thought looking back on your life as an engineer...

PS. Sorry for my messy story ;-)

Stefan Hamminga
Mesken BV
2005 Certified SolidWorks Professional
Mechanical designer/AI student

 

[ajack1]

Every minute of every day one acre of rainforest is destroyed, does anyone seriously believe we are replacing at the same rate?

Still it is a great testament to mankind that we can produce machinery capable of doing this; just imagine how long it would take natives of the rainforest to achieve this.

 

[TheTick]

There are some theories that the ancient Mayans did just this. One show I saw on PBS theorized that the civilization collapsed in part due to deforestation. Green wood was cut down en masse to fire kilns that produced the white plaster to cover their buildings.

 

[GregLocock]

Yup, read Collapse by Jared Diamond. He analyses the collapse of 7 (I think) earlier cultures. In almost every case (not Greenland) the society collapsed more or less as they felled their last trees.

Historically human societies have been quite capable of deforesting large areas. We can now do it quicker.



Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[bioengr82]

Off topic:

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond is another good read on the fates of human societies in general.