Dear Ken Sorry to have taken so long to reply to this. I haven't been able to read any of the contributions for a week.
I have to say that I don't recognise myself, or the IEE's guide on EMC and Functional Safety or the 30+ respected and senior engineers who contributed to it, or the IEE itself, in any way whatsoever in your descriptions below. Have you read the IEEE's Ethical Policy? (That's the IEEE not the IEE). What do you think of it? Regards, Keith Armstrong PS: I will not be able to reply to postings in this thread for about another week. In a message dated 07/01/02 02:37:17 GMT Standard Time, ken.ja...@emccompliance.com writes: > Subj:Re: EMC-related safety issues > Date:07/01/02 02:37:17 GMT Standard Time > From: ken.ja...@emccompliance.com (Ken Javor) > To: cherryclo...@aol.com, j...@jmwa.demon.co.uk > CC: emc-p...@majordomo.ieee.org > > The question of ethics or morality is at the heart of this discussion which > makes it much more important than technical discussions about > electromagnetism, which is the ONLY reason I have pursued this so far. I > was critical of the IEE safety guide on MORAL grounds. It is part of the > morality which says that businessmen or producers are considered guilty > until proven innocent because of what they are - profit-making producers. > That it is immoral to make a profit and anyone doing so is taking advantage > of someone else. This is not the morality which built the USA into the > world's wealthiest nation, but it is the morality which will reduce us to > the most impecunious. The strict Muslim countries that have been in the > news of late forbid loaning of money at interest, because the Koran forbids > usury. It is no accident that these countries all belong to the third > world. Progress depends on the ability to raise capital. The most > efficient way to do that is for people who have profited from past ventures > to invest those profits in new ventures. That is what banks facilitate. > If there are no profits, then there is no money to borrow and to start a > venture and progress stops or becomes agonizingly slow. A policy which > says that producers are liable for unlimited damages without needing to > show defect or negligence is on a moral level with the prohibition of > lending money at interest. We have to decide if we wish to live in a > civilized world or not. That is a question of moral significance. > > The idea that businessmen are immoral greedy people who give no thought to > the quality of their products is an ugly lie spread by enemies of > capitalism. A little thought will show that businessmen who operate like > this do not stay in business long because their products get a bad > reputation. Certainly you can find examples of bad or ignorant behavior. > Does this justify policies which assume all businessmen are evil and that > they must be reined in by pure-hearted regulators? What makes the > regulators pure-hearted? That they don't make profit, but siphon profits > away? What is the cost of the regulation relative to the benefit? What > marvelous inventions didn't occur because the seed money necessary to > initiate a development wasn't there? > > When engineers make false claims that unintentional RE from ITE can cause > safety-critical circuits to fail catastrophically, we engage in another > moral transgression. We attempt to get a short term gain at the cost of > long term loss. The short term gain is to make ourselves and our > profession look more important. But the long term loss is that of the > little boy who cried wolf. After a long enough period of false alarms, we > will lose the respect and ear of management and if we must raise a REAL > issue, it will fall on deaf ears. I have no way of knowing, but I wonder > how many unfulfilled warnings the managers who OK'd the launch of 51L > (Challenger) had listened to prior to making their fateful decision. > >
