Engineering, accounting, and other +regulated+ fields use social engineering to solve the problem of how to be paid handsomely. What they have done is convince society that there should only be a limited number of engineers and accountants, those that are highly trained and have passed rigorous examinations. The imbalance of supply and demand takes care of the rest.
In those two fields, you can see that when supply is unfettered, compensation does fall. For example, accountants in Canada make fairly good money, but unlicensed "tax preparers" do not.
I'm not sure if you are just trying to make a supplemental point, but this isn't really where I was going.
Either my cell phone drops its signal, or it doesn't. Either my books balance and my checks clear, or they don't. In engineering and accounting, there are absolute and obvious measures of success.
When it comes to UI design, who decides when the design is successful? My boss? He approved the Pontiac Aztek. Lord help us all.
Allow me to chime in,
UI design is as methodical as engineering and accounting. There are quantitative and qualitative methods to build and evaluate interfaces. Maybe you are referring to aesthetics, but that's only a fraction of what an interface is...
There may be metrics available, but it's an inherently fuzzy proposition to say a design 'works' or 'doesn't work'. For developers, once features are pinned down, there are much clearer criteria for success--a feature either works as described without errors or it doesn't. Most of the subjectivity that developers deal with is actually related to design.
On the extreme end, you can say a design definitely doesn't work if a large percentage of users can't accomplish their goals or get frustrated in trying, but you can easily run into situations where half your users love a feature and will be frustrated without it, and half hate it and will have fits if you don't change it. Of course, these are the kinds of issues UI designers are paid to resolve, but there will rarely-to-never be total agreement between a designer, a client, and the client's customers on which aspects of a design work and which don't. Not so in development.
Engineering, accounting, and other +regulated+ fields use social engineering to solve the problem of how to be paid handsomely. What they have done is convince society that there should only be a limited number of engineers and accountants, those that are highly trained and have passed rigorous examinations.
Yes, they've made an argument to society. And that argument is not entirely empty or "social engineering". With engineers, the argument is that the cost of, say, a bridge failure, is borne by not just the bridge builders but the people who might be driving on the bridge at the time of failure.
Thus society, and not just the individual paying for the work, has an interest in requiring that certain work is done competently.
It seems like a reasonable - it may be applied wrong -headedly or corruptly in places but for limited areas it seems entirely reasonable.
You could answer that argument but when you just label the argument "social engineer" it more like your engaging in this yourself by dismissing the argument without engaging it.
Politicians manipulate people's behaviour by appealing to their perceived best interest. So do companies marketing products. So do the Society of Engineers and the College of Physicians. Come to think of it, so do unions.
Is there any "reasonableness" to their position? You can decide for yourself. If you don't like the expression "social engineering," I'm perfectly happy with "Engineers manipulate public behaviour to solve the problem of how to be paid handsomely."
Whether that manipulation is in society's best interests is another argument, and yes I am avoiding it.*
* "Avoiding it" does not mean that I disagree with your point.
"Social engineering" and "manipulation" are terms for influence with a negative connotation. So I don't think you are entirely avoiding the question whether this influencing is valid. Moreover, you are making the presupposition that the end-goal is higher pay. That might be one goal but its quite possible engineers actually believe that regulation serves the public good. We could discuss this too but "meta-conversation" is mostly about avoiding the sneaking-in of positions without support.
If a person were to say "engineers do an excellent job of educating the public concerning the need for their services to be regulated", well then the statement would skewed the other way - "Educate" is term with positive connotations.
Perhaps "engineer have pushed for the regulation of their field" would be close to neutral...
I appreciate what you are trying to say, but one part of what you are saying jars. You are saying that phrases like "manipulate" have a negative connotation, and you also say that this is linked to whether the influence is "valid."
I don't know that the two are coupled in this manner. If I observe a politician making an election promise, is it only "manipulation" if he has no intention of attempting to fulfil his promise? What if he promises something and follows through with it? Is it manipulation if he personally doesn't care about the issue but is only doing it to get elected? What if he cares about some other issue, but promotes this issue to get elected so he can pursue another agenda he believes in?
I think the "validity" of influence is a very murky point to debate. There's what a politician believes, what a politician believes you believe, what they believe you might believe if told they believe it... Ultimately I find it easier to use the word "manipulate" to describe what happens when one person attempts to influence the behaviour of another for their own ends, whether I agree or disagree with those ends.
Getting away from politicians and back to regulated professions, Chiropractors and Doctors are both regulated professions. They seem to hate each other's practices. I believe each is sincere in arguing against the other, and I have a personal belief about the efficacy of one vs. the other, but I would also describe them both as attempting to manipulate public opinion about the other's profession.
I wouldn't say that one is manipulative and the other isn't purely because of my belief that one is right and that the other is wrong.
I totally agree with your reasoning although I'd say it only applies to regulated professions (accounting, construction engineering, etc.). Computer/software engineering isn't regulated.
As a point of clarification, raganwald is from Canada where software engineering is regulated (though you don't need to be a software engineer to develop software professionally).
I'm not sure how it is for other engineering professions, but for software engineers we have a similar competition but instead of people willing to work for free it's people willing to work for peanuts out of India.
In those two fields, you can see that when supply is unfettered, compensation does fall. For example, accountants in Canada make fairly good money, but unlicensed "tax preparers" do not.