2025-04-15
We traditionally consider engineering to be associated with the design of things: clocks and cars that work, software that sits in a computer and works, medicines that work.
Covid has shown us that that last "medicines that work" may not be as simple as it appears.
Sometimes it seems that medicines may perform differently than advertised, although you have to start asking supplementary questions, such as "advertised by whom?".
It rather comes down to the definition of that weasel word "work". And it turns out that it can have variable meanings dependent upon whom you ask, why you ask, and what might be the consequences of a wrong answer.
In the age TV and newspapers - the printed word - we make assumptions about the accuracy of what we are reading depending upon our view of the publisher - how reliable is this source?
In times past we viewed all the major "serious" publishers as reliable, although we may have had a rather different view of the "gutter press" who published for entertainment as much as (or more than) for information.
In current times we have a welter of "social media" to choose from for both information and entertainment, and it's easy to slip into confusing the two, due to our innate tendency to prefer the articles that confirm our viewpoints. And if for social media, also for mainstream media?
That is highly dangerous, given that these days, the manipulation of our worldview is big business, and has become a branch of engineering in its own right - the engineering of our worldview. The infamous CIA Mossad Five Eyes etc know this too, and it is perhaps no accident that mainstream news outlets tend to be owned by a specific nationality.
Fortunes ride on it, and indeed the fate of nations - and of the world - may hang on it.
Act accordingly!
