Engineers are pragmatists, like tinkers except that they can trade with an industrial base, and have access to more books. They basically don’t do anything from first principles, and don’t actually do whole-system maintenance.
it seems to me that “engineering culture” is something like “don’t worry about the rules, just do whatever works.” Think “bodging”. This contrasts with the rule of law culture, which is something like “in conflicts between doing what works and following the rules, always follow the rules.”
What do you mean by an engineering culture, and how is it distinct from the “rule of law” culture you described earlier?
Based on this quote:
it seems to me that “engineering culture” is something like “don’t worry about the rules, just do whatever works.” Think “bodging”. This contrasts with the rule of law culture, which is something like “in conflicts between doing what works and following the rules, always follow the rules.”
Maybe more precisely, don’t worry about elegant, rationalized rules.