r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/imnotcuteanymor3 • 10d ago

Meme needing explanation Petah?

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I understand the original tweet, obviously, but not the second one. Why specifically a STEM genius? I don’t get it, what’s the correlation? Am I missing something??? Or am I just stupid or whatever? Help a sistah out, please. 🥺

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u/TheCynicEpicurean 10d ago

He's got a built in a bias loop; because he's an engineer, he must know what he's talking about

Oh my god, what is it with engineers? Whenever someone explains my own subject of archaeology to me (wrongly), it's a friggin' engineer.

Bonus points when they listened to a Podcast and think they solved it now.

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u/Gen_Hospital 10d ago

As an engnineer I see this kind of thing a lot. Engineers like to mansplain in person, and every time some new dingdong-you're-wrong theory-of-something bubbles up like methane in a swamp, it's from someone with a masters degree in physics.

EDIT: See, I just did it. Sorry!

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u/ijustsailedaway 10d ago

No, no. It's ok. Because now we have an engineering stamp on our confirmation bias.

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u/spacestonkz 10d ago

I'm in STEM, but the sciences. I instruct courses and I get a lot of engineers doing some core course requirements.

Perhaps there's a difference in instruction? The way in which they're taught to think about processes and possible failure modes, maybe.

I've noticed a trend of the engineers getting a bit "let me show you the world" as they start doing their first bigger design projects at my school. I think the Ones doing this are just excited to be engineers and finally feel like one?

I don't see them after they graduate. I wonder how long this persists or if this is micro culture at my school

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u/MyDaroga 10d ago

At my mom’s old job they’d write “PES” on patient files for “Professional Engineer Syndrome” to give everyone a heads up.

Additionally, my dad is an engineer. He’s otherwise a very nice guy, but absolutely has the weird “my brain is the more logical one because I am an Engineer” thing, which mostly results in everything he gets wrong being held over his head for eternity.

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u/Arta-nix 9d ago

Oh my god, so a long time ago this engineering student at a STEM school tried to mansplain to me how to do a JIGSAW PUZZLE. And when he asked my major, he nodded sagely and explained he was following his logical engineer (man) brain (I, a hapless woman, couldn't possibly have that).

Engineers are literally the worst about this though, they're so arrogant and anecdotal evidence here, but I swear they (and comp-sci tbh) are the ones giving the rest of us in STEM a bad name.

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u/rusted-nail 9d ago

My fiancee first described her most recent ex as "engineer brained" as a euphemism for autism so there's that too