Should Coal Miners Learn To Code? (newsweek.com) 318
During a campaign event on Monday, U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden "suggested coal miners could simply learn to code to transition to 'jobs of the future,'" reports Newsweek:
"Anybody who can go down 300 to 3,000 feet in a mine, sure in hell can learn to program as well, but we don't think of it that way," he said... "Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program for God's sake..."
Many Twitter users criticized Biden's comments as reductive. "Telling people to find other work without a firm plan to help them succeed will never be popular," communications professional Frank Lutz wrote... Congressional candidate Brianna Wu tweeted that she was "glad to see the recognition that you don't need to be in your 20s to do this as a profession," but also called Biden's suggestion "tone-deaf and unhelpful."
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp notes the response this speech got from New York magazine's Sarah Jones: "Please Stop Telling Miners To Learn To Code." And in comments on the original submission, at least two Slashdot readers seemed to agree. "Not everyone can code and certainly not every coal miner or coal worker," wrote Slashdot reader I75BJC. "Vastly different skills."
Slashdot reader Iwastheone even shared a Fox News article in which rival presidential candidate Andrew Yang argued "Maybe Americans don't all want to learn how to code... Let them do the kind of work they actually want to do, instead of saying to a group of people that you all need to become coders."
But is there something elitist in thinking that coal miners couldn't learn to do what coders learned to do? It seems like an interesting question for discussion -- so leave your own thoughts in the comments.
Should coal miners be encouraged to learn to code?
Many Twitter users criticized Biden's comments as reductive. "Telling people to find other work without a firm plan to help them succeed will never be popular," communications professional Frank Lutz wrote... Congressional candidate Brianna Wu tweeted that she was "glad to see the recognition that you don't need to be in your 20s to do this as a profession," but also called Biden's suggestion "tone-deaf and unhelpful."
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp notes the response this speech got from New York magazine's Sarah Jones: "Please Stop Telling Miners To Learn To Code." And in comments on the original submission, at least two Slashdot readers seemed to agree. "Not everyone can code and certainly not every coal miner or coal worker," wrote Slashdot reader I75BJC. "Vastly different skills."
Slashdot reader Iwastheone even shared a Fox News article in which rival presidential candidate Andrew Yang argued "Maybe Americans don't all want to learn how to code... Let them do the kind of work they actually want to do, instead of saying to a group of people that you all need to become coders."
But is there something elitist in thinking that coal miners couldn't learn to do what coders learned to do? It seems like an interesting question for discussion -- so leave your own thoughts in the comments.
Should coal miners be encouraged to learn to code?
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Re:Cake (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty much. May as well say "anyone who can dig a ditch can become a rocket scientist"
Learning to code isn't that difficult. Learning to code well enough that someone will pay you to do it is a lot harder. And it's not just a matter of applying procedural knowledge, such as required for brain surgery, it's also a deeply creative and intellectual endeavor, which most people seem to have a lot of difficulty with.
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But the best strategy for these people is to move somewhere else.
Yeah. Everyone should just pack up and move. The people in Flint MI, the Hong Kong protestors, anyone who can’t stand Trump or their only choice of wired broadband provider - just pack up the truck and move to... well, it might as well be Fantasy Land, because that’s just as realistic as your suggestion.
Telling people they should just move without any consideration for the costs, difficulty, and separation from family/friends, is just as ignorant as telling coal miners they should learn to cod
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For a long time, Biden and his "journalist" buddies had fun shitting on what they perceived as lesser jobs being lost and people going unemployed in this day and age. Writing scathing articles and tweeting out how these dumb hicks just need to learn new skills to survive in this world.
Turns out they don't like hearing the same advice when their own jobs are put on the chopping block and they are faced with a choice of trying to make use of their PhD in Underwater Basket Weaving Journalism or a more "pract
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Telling that when the far-left journalists were all worried about losing their jobs last year, and the response was "just learn to code" it was treated as a targetted harassment campaign and got a lot of people banned from social media.
I guess "journalists" shouldn't have to learn to code. Because otherwise who would tell everyone else to learn to code? Either that or they recognise how heartless it is to express this sentiment to someone losing their livelyhood, but only care about themselves.
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It's the pretentious implication that 53 year olds with families and bills can just pick up a new skill and the previous two or three decades of work experience just be tossed aside to make way for the future.
I don't think many people mean it as "just do something else."
People generally want us to invest in training and support programs to make it easier to change careers. Most jobs become obsolete some day, either because they aren't needed anymore, or the specific skills have changed significantly. You c
They are both being disingenuous (Score:3)
Yang said "Let them do the kind of work they actually want to do"
This makes idiots and kids feel good, because only they believe that an economy can remain functional if everyone gets to do the kind of work they want to do. That is utopian nonsense. There is a huge pile of work that needs doing, but that nobody wants to do. But SOMEBODY's got to do it! So, money motivates. Also, there is limited demand for the work that is very popular. We can't ALL be famous movie actors (or what-have-you). So what
Re:They are both being disingenuous (Score:4, Interesting)
Well if you check out social media, they are not buying into the whole teach miners to code bullshit. Mainly it is a big old circle jerk, between the corporate controlled government and corporate controlled main stream media. They say the shittiest things, tell you that is what everyone believes and silence all opposition. Social media put a great big old hole in that lie, when people started discussing with each other what they really believed. Hence the move by sick and evil tech firms, like Facebook, Google, M$ (the current order of tech evil) and they are working to suppress public speech to favour corporate propaganda whilst no destroying their business because people will move on.
Only a tiny minority are good at coding and you just have to sit through computers 101 in university to see how bad the majority of them are at coding. I got a distinction without any effort and most struggled, a few others found it real easy and I ain't that good at code. So yeah the majority of university students in computing 101 are really bad at coding, let alone coal miners.
Yes. (Score:5, Funny)
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When I was young I worked at a plywood mill for a few years, until it shut down. They blamed it on NAFTA, and those darn Canadians. This qualified the workers for up to two years of free retraining, often conducted at a Community College.
There was one guy, in his 60s, who was taking a two year program to learn how to give telephone tech support. He'd been a forklift driver for 35 years. He started work at that mill right out of high school. About a year into his retraining I saw him at the college, and he t
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the 60 year old learning programming makes for a great feel-good story. But, are these people actually going to find work after retraining? Maybe a small percentage of them. Most probably won't.
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Almost nobody starting their education that late is going to be able to complete the math needed to even get into an engineering program, but they'll have no trouble as an Application Specialist. Nobody cares how old you are, they had telephones in the olden days. Telephones are older than Lassie.
Most of the supposed "ageism" is a matter of inflated pay. It is more "experience-ism," in that there is a shortage of technical jobs that benefit from more than 5 or 10 years of work experience, so if you expect s
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Re:Yes. (Score:5, Funny)
He probably wrote a "Hello World" program once, and so has a firm grasp of the scope and difficulty of the occupation. It's not like it's something really intellectually demanding like politics.
Code requires an IQ of about 120 (Score:2, Informative)
IQ-80: Largely unemployable [other than as now-antiquated agricultural implements]
IQ-85: Work with shovels, paint brushes, lumber hauling, etc
IQ-90: POSSIBLY can be entrusted with a deadly tool such as a lawn mower
IQ-95: Work as a short-order cook
IQ-100: Work as a receptionist
IQ-105: Work as a secretary or clerk or carpenter [or, classically, as a cashier]
IQ-110: Work as a plumber
IQ-115: Work as an electrician
IQ-120: The classical barrier for entry to college, and the bare min
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is this modded down? This is informative, interesting, and true as far as any generalization about jobs goes.
The US army won't recruit people with an 80 IQ (I think they legally cant) because the amount of supervised repetition it takes to learn a new task exceeds even the army's patience with drill.
The sad fact is, the list above also serves as a list of jobs likely to be lost to automation, or already lost. When's the last time you saw someone with a shovel during the excavation portion of building
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It was modded down because it assumes that IQ is fixed.
Most of the evidence suggests that even people with a fairly low IQ can improve dramatically given the right help. Problem is that help isn't available.
Telling people to lean to code is one thing, but it's anyone actually going to help them have the opportunity to spend a year or two studying it full time?
Commenting requires an IQ greater than yours (Score:3)
This brief comment is the most ignorant, condescending, and broadly offensive drivel I've had the misfortune of reading in a long time.
People go into the careers they do for a very wide range of reasons, with their IQ being near the absolute bottom of the list. Education, family dynamics, financial considerations, local job prospects, advice (good or bad) from family and friends, connections, chance opportunities... all play significant roles in what job an individual ends up taking.
To an outside observer,
politicians (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone who can open their mouth 300 to 3000 times a minute can be a politician.
Biden wants miners to become programmers so that they don't realize just how easy it is to spout nonsense and become the front runner for the DNC.
Re:Trump promised to save their jobs and won (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupid is doing the same horrible job your ancestors did despite free public education and easy mobility. I realize it might be extremely difficult to move away from those closely tied (inbred) relatives.
That entire pair of statements is why blue collar workers rightly look at democrats, liberals and progressives with such disdain, contempt, and disgust.
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BTW, Biden has no clue what programming is.
Programming, that's what your grandson does to get the VCR to stop flashing 12:00.
He's too old to understand "Do you speak it?!" [programmin...fucker.com]
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4.6x, not 46x (and it's actually closer to 3.7x). Electoral votes are allocated by state, not by county - with states varying between about 140,000 and 520,000 people per electoral vote(http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2012/11/presidential_election_a_map_showing_the_vote_power_of_all_50_states.html).
If you're in a rural state your presidential vote can be worth as much as 3.7x as much as someone in a more populous state - but it doesn't matter whether you personally live in a
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A republic is one of many forms of Democracy.
More to the point - the federal government represents the states as well as the people - and that's reflected in both the population-independent Senate, and the electoral college.
What is this? (Score:2)
We've got a story related to technology, links to other articles related to it, as well as summary that includes commentary from site users and other takes on the issue in question.
Who are you and what have you done with the real Slashdot editors?
It's just a spelling mistake (Score:5, Interesting)
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The problem with mining is that is essentially a zero skill job with zero applicability to other fields. It is dangerous, which is why the pay is good for a zero skill job. This good pay leads to a situation where we have generations of people whose culture does not value education of any sort, which is why teaching miners to code seems so silly. According to teachers I have spoken with, students still just waste their time in school, waiting to drop out at 18 and
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"Mining is a zero skill job" Said the person who hasn't ever been within a hundred miles of a working mine.
"Miners have a culture which does not value education" Said the person who has never met a miner.
Teaching miners to code doesn't seem silly because miners don't value education. It seems silly because not everyone can learn to code well enough to make money from it. And 50 year old people of any profession are going to have a hard time learning a completely new skillset in a field they have no experien
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That however does not mean that those skills translate well into other fields.
Also beware of survivor bias here. Ask yourself: how many people actually made it that far? And for what reasons? How many failed in the process of making it that far? And for what reasons? And how does that relate to the entirety of employed workers?
For example my father has been a factory worke
If anyone can code. (Score:2)
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It's not backwards, those things are based on supply and demand. In any event, companies only want to pay the minimum amount at which they know the work will get done properly.
Low-skill physical labor jobs pay lowly because just about anyone *can* do them. If you hire weak people, you just need more of them. So you just offer low pay then pick the strongest people who apply.
Heâ(TM)s right, though (Score:2)
Miners need to find other jobs.
Bidenâ(TM)s mistake was to suggest they learn to code. What he really meant to say is that they should learn to flip burgers or sweep asphalt.
I hate sound bites (Score:3)
But no one wants to think, they want politicians to be on their side, or vilify them to serve a purpose. Give them short sound bites to reiterate at parties so they can sound like they actually bothered to learn an issue.
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Right. The intent is to portray coding as a skill applicable to the future unlike coal mining. The future isn't static and those who stick with the past will become redundant eventually so it pays to look ahead. There are lots of creative endeavors that don't involve coding but that will be useful in the future.
Of course in these times there's no shortage of writers, politicians and news/opinion journalists who will seize on this as another thing to be outraged about.
It doesn't matter what the intent is (Score:2)
Biden is not an idiot. He know you can't retrain people for jobs that don't exist. This is disgustingly disingenuous. Worse, it's what Hilary Clinton campaigned on, and we all know how that ended.
If this is all the old man's got he needs to drop out now before he hands Trump the
Re:I hate sound bites (Score:4, Insightful)
And it's certainly elitist to suggest that a group cannot learn to code.
Then I am an elitist.
I think that most people - regardless of background - can't learn to code. They can be taught how to google for their problem. Taught how to copy code snippets they find on StackOverflow. Taught how to modify existing code for a different, but similar, scenario. However, they still won't know how to actually code. Why? Because understanding code requires understanding abstract concepts, and not everyone is able to do that.
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Even just the strictness of the syntax is impossibly difficult for at least half the population.
Re: I hate sound bites (Score:2)
âoeWriting softwareâ is like âoepainting.â There are extremely rare and highly talented individuals who paint masterpieces, and there are people with no skills or experience at all who cover surfaces by the bucket â" and a huge range in between.
Lumping all coders together is as ignorant as lumping all painters together.
Depends (Score:5, Insightful)
Do the coal miners want to learn to code and are interested in computers? If so, then, yes absolutely they should learn to code.
If the coal miners see learning to code as easy ticket to money and have no interest in coding other than that, then, God no, please do not learn to code.
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I think the point is Coding is one of those Solid Middle-Class Jobs. The problem with Coal Miners is for many it was a good-paying career which they had based their lives around, and often was a job that was their family identity for generations. I think coding is just an example. But there are jobs out there which they can take that can align with their skills.
But Politicians really seem to not really understand us coders. As none of us actually call ourselves coders, and if I called anyone on my team a
train != job (Score:3)
Speaking as someone who had trouble finding a job with a BS and little experience, education does not automatically lead to a job. And "learn to code" doesn't even include things like classes on AI. Also, a well rounded education is more valued than just a certification.
In the 1990s it did (Score:2)
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No they really didn't in the 90's. What happened was most people got into jobs that were 'similar enough' that they could learn and adapt. If I told you to go diagnose a 1010J [wikipedia.org], find out why the turbocharger is stalling with nominal flow, and get it done right after 8 weeks of training you'd be fucked. That's something you should be able to figure out after 4 years on the job though. This is basically what happened to a lot of blue collar workers after getting fucked by things like NAFTA.
Wrong Question (Score:2)
Not all people can code well nor have the time to develop their skills. By the same token, not all coal miners can code well nor have the time to develop their skills. Should all coal miners be encouraged to consider coding as a career? Absolutely. Should they be helped in doing so? Absolutely. Is it a solution for every single one of them? Probably not.
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Actually, not many people can learn to code well, it is a specialist talent. Dedication and will do not help at all if you do not have that talent. There is no reason to assume that coal-miners have more people with the respective talent among them, hence this is not an option for almost all of them. Incidentally, coding is one of those things that also require a decade or so of experience (much more if you start it when older) to become good at and that is _with_ the respective talent.
Always code? (Score:3)
It's almost always someone suggesting computer programming as an alternative, not something that's actually in demand. For example, coal miners could easily go into a trade other than coding, or perhaps another profession.
It's somehow like everyone thinks it's easy to become a computer programmer, and that people entering the field don't have to deal with things such as messy spaghetti code.
It's also the same reason everyone isn't an artist, poet, etc. People do not have automatic potential to be an expert in everything.
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Yeah, most of the code has already been written.
If they move to Oregon they can make $12/hr as a dishwasher, no experience necessary, but they have to be willing to be a prep cook part of the time.
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"Not even wrong" (Score:5, Insightful)
1. "Learning to code" is not the same thing as "being an experienced writer of code". It's not even about having a degree, it's about having a few million lines of code under your belt.
2. Entry level code writing jobs are massively vulnerable to low-cost-center contract outsourcing and the advancing flame-front of automation. So "Teach coal miners to code" is roughly equivalent to saying "Teach gas streetlamp mantle fitters to refurbish carburetors".
3. For reasons that aren't immediately evident, but seem to belong to the same school of thought that prefixed "cyber-" on everything in the 90s and "e-" or "i-" on everything in the 00s, this generically stated "coding" activity is regarded as the universal panacea for the elimination of any kind of occupation. Quite apart from anything else, who is buying all this software that so desperately needs to be written?
Meme time (Score:4, Funny)
I'm looking forward to when Biden either drops out or loses to Trump. The "Maybe you should learn the code" memes will be great.
I doubt it. (Score:3)
I have seen similar sentiments expressed by other politicians in regards to out-dated / low demand industry roles/skill sets being retrained in to the technology sector, thereby revealing the politicians total ignorance of the subject area. Whilst I am sure that some of them could learn to code for fun / personal tasks, that is a far cry from them being able to achieve the standards required to be paid as a programmer.
The vast majority of career politicians, from all sides of the political spectrum, are out of touch with the real world.
Given coal miners union activity (Score:2)
That the last place they'd be welcomed is the low-paying, insecure world of low end programming.
Most of them would be far better off in jobs that offered large amounts of (tax free) money for moderate physical risk, like drug dealing or manufacturing.
Or they could start up some artisanal distilleries or breweries.
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Sure, denigrate the nerds (Score:2)
Many of us have long believed . . . (Score:2)
At what level? (Score:3, Informative)
Pretty much anyone can learn to code. Only a minority of people can actually program computers competently.
It's the difference between learning to swing a bat, and hitting a Major League pitcher's fastball. The first isn't very hard, the second is only possible if you have a certain amount of innate talent.
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Pretty much anyone can learn to code.
I disagree. The easy, entry-level computer science classes have outrageous attrition rates. That's because people go into the classes thinking they can code and find out that it's actually difficult to understand. Many people simply can't think through the logical, step-by-step nature of programming. Those are the people who think they can do it and actually take the time and effort to enroll. There's a larger group of people who know better than to try taking those classes and don't even bother.
They need there UNION health care not 1099 work (Score:2)
They need there UNION health care not 1099 work that under trumps plan may be loaded with high cost plans that don't cover preex
Well, a coal miner can lear to code... (Score:2)
Politicians (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Except that doesn't fit on a bumper sticker or make a good sound bite/click bait. For a good example, see Hillary Clinton on coal. All anyone remembers is "Because weâ(TM)re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business..."
A poorly phased sentence taken out of context. The context being her putting together a detailed proposal for a $30 billion aid package to ailing coal communities was one of the very first moves her campaign made on policy. This was written up in detail and av
Are coal miners people? (Score:2)
Maybe they should learn, but that's not the important question. Rather ask: is it okay to take away someone's ability to earn a living and then dismiss their hardships? Coal miners are not criminals. Why are you punishing them like they are? Why the heartless disregard?
And while any individual is free to be jerk to others in a free society, government policies are supposed to treat people equally and benefit people, not disrespect and disregard and outright harm one group because they are out of fashion
Stupid remark similar to ... (Score:2)
... "If we can go to the Moon then ..." wherein skill sets simply don't meet.
Coders do not use shoulder and shovel to get the job down.
Joey should know better.
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If we can go to the moon, then we can choose another goal to devote our national, or international, resources towards and commit to having a career available to qualified people.
It's not stupid, and it dies not imply the skills will carry over. We didn't know how to get to the moon, we had to invent it.
It's certainly stupid if used flippantly as in we should be able to cure cancer TODAY. But if we have a commitment and a deadline, anything should be possible.
Coal miners should.. (Score:2)
Coal miners should work in a field that is fulfilling for them. Coal also isn't the only thing that can be mined. Their skills can probably be used for other mining jobs.
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On average it takes 25 years to open a new mine. There's capped mines, and the like, but that also isn't an option for many people since you can still be talking a decade from the initial statement to re-open to getting crews in on equipment to do testing, recheck supports, ties, etc. And, if you cross state or provincial lines there's a good chance you'll have to drop thousands of dollars for various certifications even if you're in good standing in your home state too.
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Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go!
The only reason any of them are coal miners is because they lived near the coal mines, not because it was fulfilling.
They need jobs that they can do from their village. Like phone support, or processing paperwork.
That's what they find fulfilling. Living in their village, and being able to feed their families. That is basically their entire set of concerns in life, these are simple people.
Once prepared, yes (Score:2)
Forgetting about age-ism in IT industry (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Some could (Score:2)
I'm sure some coal miners could learn to code. Just like I'm sure some tiny percent of college kids who have never done physical work could toughen up and survive a day or two in a coal mine. It doesn't make it likely though.
Lots of good jobs that are not high tech (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we need to get out of the mind set that high tech and academic jobs are somehow "better" than trades. Its a deeply elitist sort of thinking.
I'm a career physicist. The guy who repairs my airplane can afford a much better plane than I can . The general contractor who built my house can afford a much better house than I can.
There are very good, very skilled trade jobs. They are not "worse" than high tech jobs. Sure some trade jobs are low level and pay poorly for lots of hard work, but there are a lot of software jobs that fit in that same category.
Some coal miners may have talents that run to coding, so great, they can go that way. Others may have other skills and should develop those skills.
What's with coding? (Score:2)
What's the matter now with coding? Why nobody suggest that everybody should learn medicine, or law, where there are also big job opportunities?
Somehow it seems that the idea has come from somewhere that coding is really easy to do, and the good salaries are just a couple of weeks' of studying distant. Well, I cannot say about medicine, but I know about law, and it's not so difficult, at least to reach the level most lawyers inhabit, of knowing a bit about a small part of something and mostly nothing about t
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They think it's just a trade like plumbing or carpentry or something, but for computers, rather than a discipline like law, science or mathematics. Imagine that you suggested that all coal miners should "become accountants" instead. The fallacy would be obvious. But coding isn't any less demanding of abstract thinking than accountancy.
Colossal Cave Adventure (Score:2)
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
and
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all different.
are clearly references to stepping through code in a symbolic debugger (or equivalent mental walk-through of reading source code). Colossal Cave Adventure was written originally to build up some of the detail-oriented skillsets needed for computer programming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Sure (Score:2)
I'd want my apps programmed by Boyd Crowder and Dewey Crowe.
What could possibly go wrong?
This should've be career ending for Biden (Score:3, Interesting)
Not a peep about Biden's attacks on Social Security [youtu.be] or his questionable history with mega corporations. [youtu.be]
They're doing the same thing for Klobuchar [youtu.be] and Buttigieg too [youtu.be]. Basically anything to stop the left wing (Sanders/Warren). Anything to keep the gravy train that is private health insurance going.
Mark my words, Biden is unelectable [youtu.be]. He's Hilary 2.0 and will lose for the exact same reason. Not because he didn't "inspire" or because the Bernie Bros stayed home, but because the independents & the kiddies aren't going to wait in line 3 hours in the November cold to vote for Republican Lite.
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It's exactly why Hilary didn't get elected.
It was a dumb thing to say, but it will have little to no impact on the election, should he win the nomination. Let's be honest here. Were coal miners really going to vote Democratic, even without this comment? There's no future in the coal industry. It's a highly polluting, finite resource. To save their jobs so they don't have to learn to do something else, like code, they're going to vote for Trump to postpone the inevitable a while longer. Those votes aren't lost for the Democrats, nor were the
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The DNC hates Bernie because he won't take corporate cash. He isn't one of "them" and watch how they will sabotage him again. I'm a social liberal and fiscal conservative but also have a lot of respect for Bernie. He seems to genuinely want to help and not push his own agenda or that of the party.
Uncle Joe Biden has and is (Score:3, Insightful)
I also wonder who will be running the country IF Joe gets elected. I know it will not be him.
mmmm The unelected Deep State and bureaucrats just like they want. That is why they hate Trump so bad.
Washington does not like any outsiders asking any questions. The peasants must stay silent and in their slums.
Just my 2 cents
In theory, yes. In practice, no. (Score:2)
A unemployed coal miner can learn to code as readily as an unemployed Buzzfeed [www.therebel.media] "journalist." In theory, given sufficient desire to learn, anybody can learn coding and take up a new career in software development. But the reality is that for 95% of people who aren't techies at heart, it's just too big of a leap for them to make. Having a poorly educated miner or liberal-arts educated journalist make the mindset shift to logic, structure, and technical creativity is asking a lot. Sure, there's the 5% who have
it dont take a lot of brains (Score:2)
something to think about
If they want to (Score:2)
They should be encouraged to learn to code, IF THEY WANT TO. Or maybe to take up any number of other career paths. Provide them with the resources they need to pursue their own futures. For some, they may learn to code. Others may pursue fields where their existing skills are more applicable, like construction. Not everyone has to learn to code, but everyone should be afforded the opportunity to succeed.
So yes, let them code if they want. But also, let them operate heavy machinery if they want, let the
Not the only choice (Score:2)
It's absurd to think that the personal makeup and training of a coal miner and a coder are interchangeable. There are entirely different education levels and focus. I think I'm preaching to the choir here... enough said.
There are so many other opportunities to explore. There's a lot of infrastructure to build and repair. The Appalachians, for example, are prime country for wind turbines, a wide range of them and not just the giant three-bladed horizontal ones people think of first. For example, vertic
Boeing needs you for the next plane sofware... (Score:2)
Joke aside... No not everyone can code like not everyone can be a carpenter, a doctor, a plumber, a lawyer, a [insert any profession here]... People think coding can be learned as easily as learning how to boil a cup of hot water! This is not elitist to say this!
I work with people with all the education required for coding (they studied in this field because they have _interest_ in it) and they produce garbage/unmaintainable/buggy/... code like they did on their first homework at university/college. This is
And Joe Biden... (Score:2)
Hate speech? (Score:3, Informative)
Wasn't it considered hate speech and a cause for banning when right leaning trolls told laid off journalists to "learn to code"?
Re: (Score:2)
That of course was after decades of journalists telling blue collar workers who lost their jobs to "learn to code." Suddenly when the elites and journos started getting it flung back in their face, it was a problem.
Re: (Score:2)
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It will get you suspended on twitter [twitter.com] anyhow.
Hey dems (Score:2)
Please nominate this guy. Pretty please.
No more that the following: (Score:3)
It is not that easy ... Older workers struggle (Score:2)
Jobs vs. Votes (Score:2)
Maybe (Score:2)
Coal miners have a particular skillset in general. Coding is not generally in that skillset.
Some folks have suggested new careers in other energy industries. That isn't too bad an idea. There are also other mining occupations they might find careers in.
I say the last (other mining occupations) because many of my relatives were miners - some in coal, some in limestone. While they know it is dirty and dangerous work, it holds an powerful attraction for them.
Here's the big issue. You ha
Most would fail (Score:5, Insightful)
Most who tried would probably fail. Programming well requires a certain way of thinking
"Learn to weld" would be better advice, with a greater chance of success
Sad Joke (Score:3)
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"Let them do the kind of work they actually want to do, instead of saying to a group of people that you all need to become coders."
That's equally stupid. They want to be miners. They can't. They would have to move elsewhere and take someone else's job. Yang really sees things at a high level and thinks it's gonna work out, but doesn't get into the details enough.
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I agree.
We had similar statements when we finally admitted how bad tobacco is. People said they should switch their crops to something like peanuts.
With all the Right Wing talk about the free market, Coal is a declining product line they are cheaper and cleaner alternatives out there. In short, if you have 20 or more years in your career, I would probably focus out of coal and move to a sector more in line with expected future growth.
The real problem isn't the decline of the coal market, but the lack of hi
Re:Move the fuck on (Score:5, Informative)
As one of those former country bumpkins who did move the fuck on and did several things of value in the 21st century, I both agree with you, and need to say, "Fuck You, you out-of-touch asshole."
I had the advantage of smart parents who pushed my siblings and I to excel. Who realized that what they had wouldn't be there for us, and that we needed to do something different. I had parents who were poor country bumpkins, but who scraped enough together to send 3 kids to college, along with a lot of scholarships and loans. Parents who gave us the ability to spread our wings and fly, and go on to get 4 masters degrees and a PhD between the 3 of us.
A whole fuckton of people don't have that springboard. My siblings and I had the luxury of being born in a small town that was slowly drying up, but which wasn't solely dependent on one industry. In coal towns, that's not the case.
In the town I grew up in the machine shop closed, then a gas station closed, then the little college closed, then the pizza place closed, then the deli closed, the pharmacy closed, the bank closed, and now everyone who wants to bank drives a town over and does their shopping. Grocery store will go next, if I'm a betting man. It doesn't matter what skills people gain in that environment. There needs to be a critical mass to make an economy function, and as soon as people have to leave to get basic services, more money starts leaving a community than is going in, which speeds up the decline.
In coal towns, you could have a bustling economy where houses are worth $200k each, and represent a large percent of a family's net worth. The coal mine goes out of business, and there's nothing else bringing money into the town. If you want to move on, you lose $200k because there's nobody to buy your house. You might have been fiscally responsible and have paid off your mortgage 15 years early, and in the end, it's just an anchor.
So now, no skills, a $200k hit to your net worth, you need to move somewhere away from friends and family and try to rebuild a life. With no skills.
Sure, you can say, "You should have seen the writing on the wall 20 years ago", but that ignores the fact that for some folks, they've made $50k/year in unskilled labor for the last 20 years. That's not possible in most of the US, so it's pretty crazy to think someone would give that up. "But that's like $1m they made!" Yes. And a chunk is in the pension fund that the company gutted and lost in bankruptcy, and a chunk was spent on living life. Boats, cars, trucks, vacations, etc. When people are doing well they spend their money. When a job looks like you can retire there, you don't create a $500k emergency fund just in case.
"Learn to code" is just tone-deaf. The bigger issue is that entire communities are economically devastated, and they are just not sustainable. Even if you learn to code, Facebook isn't going to hire you to work remotely. When the hundreds of $50k/year jobs that kept a region economically stable dry up, it doesn't matter what vocational work you do with the people living there. That area is going to contract, and may entirely disappear. Unless a similar amount of money is being injected into the area, it's going to die fast.
That leaves us in the very politically unsavory position of needing to encourage people to move to where the jobs ares, or finding ways to subsidize jobs in places they were lost. One destroys communities, the other is socialism. "Learn to code" or learn any useful skill isn't even part of the equation.