Re: [sudo-discuss] "learn to code" events subject to full-WTF scale crackdown...any ideas?

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: