Drs. Rania Milleron and Nicholas Sakellariou talk about changing the culture of the engineering profession so that more will step forward when they see bad things happening. And Karen Friedman, from the Pension Rights Center, tells us about preserving your pension and answers the question: “Is Social Security really in trouble?”
What Netanyahu Wants
April 20, 2019
Facebook Must Be Restructured
May 4, 2019
Dr. Rania Milleron is a microbiologist at the Texas Department of State Health Services in Austin. She is both a biomedical scientist and a public health professional who always brings a multidisciplinary perspective to her work. She is not an engineer. But because of her outsider perspective, she was able to unify in a book voices that champion good works in engineering. That book is entitled Ethics, Politics and Whistleblowing in Engineering.
“In the healthcare profession, there’s an ethic that says ‘First, do no harm.’ What we’ve found in the engineering profession is there is more of an ethos that says, ‘Let’s design it now, and if it doesn’t turn out like we thought, we’ll just ask for forgiveness later.’ And so what the book is really about is how to bring that ‘First do no harm’ ethic into engineering.” Dr. Rania Milleron co-author of Ethics, Politics, and Whistleblowing in Engineering
Dr. Nicholas Sakellariou is a lecturer at California Polytechnic State University College of Engineering, where he teaches engineering ethics and professional responsibilities classes. He is also the author of a book about renewable energy systems.
“A female engineer said publically on Twitter that she would not be considering a job at Google now or in the future unless the company seriously rethinks the way it does business by putting human rights before profit.” Dr. Nicholas Sakellariou, co-author of Ethics, Politics, and Whistleblowing in Engineering
Karen Friedman is the executive vice president and policy director of the Pension Rights Center. She develops solutions and implements strategies to protect and promote the rights of consumers, and for more than 20 years has represented their interests in the media and before congressional committees. Ms. Friedman is also responsible for the Center’s day-to-day operations.
“Social Security is 100% funded for the next 16 years, 93% funded for the next 25 years, 87% funded over the next 50 years. If any corporation in America could say, ‘Oh, we could pay your salaries and your pensions for the next 16 and almost all of them for the next 25,’ there’d be champagne popping, not this hand-wringing.” Karen Friedman, Executive VP and Policy Director for the Pension Rights Center
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
5 Comments
Ralph Nader, among the greatest Americans of all time.
Absolutely true!
The MPRA was passed into law on 12/14/14. This bill was passed because, for 40 years prior to passing this bill, ERISA wouldn’t allow cutting pensions. We were told by the cspf director Thomas Nyhan in 2016 that the fund would be broke in 10 years. We are down to 5 years now, because of our professional ( kick the can down the road ) politicians in D.C. cannot agree on anything, including the BLA/HR-397.
Too bad this discussion couldn’t have extended to the events of September 11, 2001. Most engineers, including those involved in the design and construction of buildings, seem to accept the narrative of the U.S. government that three skyscrapers collapsed that day in New York City because two got hit by airliners. There is also a contingent of engineers who argue that this explanation violates engineering principles. Is Attorney Nader so utterly persuaded by the government account that he thinks there’s nothing to discuss, or is he simply censoring this topic out of all discussion.
Under grad engineering students enter US engineering schools as a very broad diverse group but due to the overwhelming corporate influence of the military industrial complex these malleable students come out of the engineering schools as a single focus hyper competitive homogeneous group with limited diverse critical thinking skills. The deliberate suppression of more humanities courses required for graduation limits the exposure to more “critical thinking” and maintains a bubble/sheltered existence.