31 Jan
2014
31 Jan
'14
10:38 a.m.
right on. i think the saying "it's not what you can do - it's what you can
get other people to do for you" applies with a twist - programming frees us by giving
us a way of giving instructions to machines that will tirelessly do our bidding. the
tedious tasks can be automated and you can be free to focus on the creative and subtle
parts. the earlier humans learn this, the more they will be able to accomplish within a
limited lifespan. who will program the programmers? what is the control structure of our
daily lives? did we write it ourselves?
in general i am opposed to the conversion of inherent rights to state-granted privileges
and the insertion of valves and regulators into systems that wind up just choking the flow
without performing any kind of useful regulating behavior. is this really about public
safety or is it a push-back against the democratization of education and an attempt to
reduce the competitiveness of these new approaches regardless of truth in advertising?
Jan 30, 2014 06:23:57 PM, di.franco(a)gmail.com wrote:
Outside of the narrow regulatory question, this reminds me of another relating to the
vocationalization of programming to supply commoditized labor to large corporations, which
is something I am uneasy around and which I think reflects a shifting power balance that
deserves to be opposed. Here is a line of criticism that I think is right on, running from
Seymour Papert to Bret Victor to this:
>On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 6:15 PM, GtwoG
PublicOhOne g2g-public01(a)att.net> wrote:
What this is about:
The bootcamps in question are charging in the
range of $15,000 for
10-week programs, and telling applicants
they're going to be able to get
job offers at companies such as Facebook,
Google, and Adobe.
(Personally I'd sooner work for NSA than
Google or Facebook.)
The existing ones are probably wholly legit.
But there is a large risk
of fraudsters offering these types of courses
with big promises, and
fleecing their students. There are many
examples of that in other areas
of vocational & technical training.
That's what the regulators are
freaked out about: big money for the courses,
and big promises of
high-paid employment.
There is nothing there to say that regulators
are concerned about FREE
courses that do NOT make claims of high-paid
employment upon
completion. Grassroots-based free stuff such as
what I imagine SR,
Noisebridge, et.al. are offering, are in NO risk
of being shut down or
subjected to fines.
A modest proposal: Free grassroots hacker
bootcamps should also teach
people about workers' issues: how to
organize a union without getting
fired, workers' rights re. wages & hours
laws, and so on. The idea that
coders, engineers, etc. are some kind of elite
that are "above" the
working class masses, is a hallucination
promoted by those who profit by
exploiting young & inexperienced workers.
We are the 21st century equivalent of
electricians, plumbers,
carpenters, masons, and mechanics: the new
skilled trades that are
building the new infrastructure. We should be
darn proud of continuing
a tradition that started with the steam engine,
indoor plumbing, and the
bicycle. But the interests of labor have never
been the same as the
interests of capital. Our smarts & skills
can potentially do as much
for the well-being of working people everywhere,
as they can for the
technologies we build.
-G.
======
On 14-01-30-Thu 4:51 PM, Hol Gaskill wrote:
> like it says on the tin:
>
http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/29/california-regulator-seeks-to-shut-down-l…
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"In “Meanwhile, at code.org”,
Bret
juxtaposes the ideals of Seymour Papert and the dreams of
entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Papert wanted to use programming
as a way to let children explore powerful ideas and let their
imagination run wild. The agenda of the political, wealthy, and powerful
is to build a new generation of worker bees to fuel their startups. One
sees code as a liberation, and the other as a vocation..."