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<p>Well, let me ask you: how many people with smartphones are willing to relinquish them? How many people would willingly refrain from using the Internet? The empirical evidence seems quite clear that most people do indeed prefer the advancement of technology. </p>
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<p>Um, how’s that? Do you own this forum? If not, then pray tell, exactly what gives you the right to tell others what topics they’re allowed to discuss here? I don’t tell you what you’re allowed to discuss. </p>
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<p>Then by that Panglossian argument, no American ever has a right to agitate for any change about anything, right? After all, even the poorest American living in the vilest, most crime-ridden neighborhood still lives better than plenty of poor people in the Third World. So he should have no right to agitate to improve his lot? </p>
<p>More importantly, we as Americans should never be concerned about improving the state of the citizenry of the country, just because we are already a rich nation? Heck, why should Americans have ever implemented social reform ever in their history? Abolition of slavery, civil rights movement, women’s suffrage, legalization of unions, abolition of the military draft - why ever enact any of these reforms, for after all, Americans since the founding of the nation have always been rich relative to the rest of the world. Imagine telling women and minorities that they shouldn’t have been given equal rights because, even pre-reform, they were already better off than women and minorities in poorer countries and such reforms would surely entail risky downside potential for the nation.</p>
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<p>Sure, here’s a simple one: political lobbying. Engineers and scientists need to become more politically vocal and demand greater respect and support for sci/tech funding…and if they want to identify a source of revenue for that funding, might I point to that $700bn financial bailout as a starting point. I would ask why exactly does the Federal Reserve wield such extraordinary powers to provide oceans of liquidity at below-market rates to banks, but not for the funding of, say, tech startups? </p>
<p>Here’s another step: become a registered patent agent. Anybody with an ABET-accredited engineering degree is legally allowed to take the USPTO Bar exam and, upon passage, become a fully certified patent agent. You don’t need any work experience, and can attempt the exam literally right after you graduate. While patent agents are not able to provide legal opinions, they can provide opinions regarding patentability. They can then leverage the patent system to protect the inventions of themselves or their colleagues. Even if they never do, the fact that you are an registered patent agent will surely only improve your marketability and value as an engineer, particularly given the widespread patent litigation and negotiations that happen seemingly on a daily basis within the tech industry.</p>
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<p>So you’re entirely sanguine about the notion of Jeremy Lin aggressively negotiating for - and evidently receiving - a whopping increase in salary, despite the fact that he was already being paid far more than the average American (Lin was being paid the NBA minimum salary of $600k which is an order of magnitude greater than that of the average American), but the notion of engineers agitating for higher salary somehow fills you with dread regarding its downside potential? Why the difference? </p>
<p>Just like you argued that engineers who are already at the top of the pyramid (relative to the rest of the world) would be foolish to question his lot, by the same logic, maybe Lin should similarly be happy to take another minimum contract. After all, maybe there’s downside potential to the Houston Rockets overpaying and thereby damaging their future competitiveness. Or - from a socio-ethnic standpoint - maybe there’s a downside in having such a high-profile Chinese-American player perhaps underperform relative to his contract and thereby undermine the ability of Chinese-Americans of ever earning top sports contracts in the future. Heck, maybe he even reinforces the stereotype that ethnic Chinese people are nothing more than untrustworthy, money-grubbing schemers who are preternaturally motivated to fleece others. </p>
<p>Those are just some of the potential systemic downsides that I can see from the signing of Lin. But I doubt that Lin cares about any of that. Nor should he. He simply cares about improving his own station in life. Engineers should also be concerned primarily with improving their own stations in life.</p>