Why everything eventually becomes an engineering discipline
I was not an engineer, until I was
I studied theoretical mathematics in college. I learned to think about the world in abstract frameworks, in “isomorphisms” — things that are the same things, under some conditions. While that helps me understand concepts in a highly structured way, it gets in the way of actually building things. And building things is the cornerstone of capitalism — building economic value from an ingredient list of scarce resources — human capital, financial capital, social capital. Unfortunately for the thinkers in the world, financial value is given to those who execute, not those who merely theorize and pontificate. It took me a long time to understand that, as I was too proud and naïve. But after I understood that, my worldview changed for the better. That’s not to say that there is no value in advancing the boundaries of intellectualism. That’s to say that if you want wealth, being a thinker is not going to get you there.
What is not an engineering discipline
Math is not engineering. And Science is definitely not engineering. What do I mean by that? The primary goal of math is to understand concepts through a mathematical first principles, defined by axioms. The goal of science is conservatively collect a system of knowledge through hypothesis testing (aided by statistics and logic). The goal of engineering is very different.
So what is engineering?
The goal of engineering is building a thing. Whether that be a software product, an airplane, or a company. The work that goes into engineering, like process management, resource management, capital — all those things are secondary to the goal of building said thing. Money is the by-product of engineering under the right conditions, namely, capitalism.
And why is everything becoming an engineering discipline?
Because we are in a capitalistic game. Engineering is the current best framework to think about the world in a world formulated and run by capitalistic forces. There is a virtuous, capitalistic cycle of building a thing, generating capital, and using capital to build more things. The more efficient this process is, the faster the flywheel turns, and the faster progress is made in all human domains (admittedly, this is an oversimplification).
Math became an engineering discipline through data science. It is distributed in a capitalistic way through products that help turn data into money by companies like MathWorks, Tableau, and Alteryx.
Science became an engineering discipline through biotechnology. It is distributed in a capitalistic way through products like cancer medicine and medical devices to help treat diabetes by companies like Pfizer, Amgen, and Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
Business became an engineering discipline through the application of mathematical and scientific thinking to existing processes. Mainly because people realized that math and science are unusually effective frameworks to measure and optimize over the physical world.
I’m building a company in the intersection between design, data science, and HCI. Reach out to me at joseph@opendataframe.com
