karl@dartvax.UUCP (S. Delage.) (06/29/84)
A number of theories have been advanced about how ``techies'' ( I
will call them ``engineers'' in this article. ) deal with society.
Let me advance my own.
Engineers are educated, trained if you will, to look at the
world in a very different way from, say, philosophers. They are
educated in a very rational mindset [mathematics] and virtually
every problem has a solution. [Or is proved to be insolvable.]
When they start working in programming, hardware design,
architecture, whatever, their approach to problems is a holdover
from earlier days. They make the problem as exact as they can,
start with what they have, and work, rationally, towards a
solution, in careful steps.
Not everyone works this way, I realize, and certainly
``intuition'' doesn't fall into that category, but for the most
part, in my experience, that is true.
Is it unreasonable to suggest that this is applied to their
dealings with the larger world? In their work, they must discard
irrelevant ideas, pursue good ones. This tends to make
conversations limited, because small talk is pursuing irrelevant
ideas, and many social skills are predicated on such an ability.
In general, they are ``outwardly rational''. They have
something to do so they do it. No fuss. They think inwardly in
those terms, and it reflects. Non-technical people don't often
think like that, instead they sort of muddle along, and probably
end up following about the same path, but it is not as outwardly
obvious what they're doing.
karl@dartmouth~{cornell,decvax,astrovax,uvm-gen,colby}!dartvax!karl