"The Ghana government was compelled, by contract, to pay for over 50% of the cost of Akosombo's construction, but the country was allowed only 20% of the power generated."
Having been to Ghana and to Lake Volta & the Akosombo dam in particular, I'm somewhat torn:
- Yes, it has had a severe impact on the ecosystem, and also on agriculture.
- Yes, Ghana itself only gets about 20% of the power generated by the dam (or apparently a bit more in recent times).
- OTOH, the dam gives Ghana access to at least some power – much more in fact than what's available to any of its neighboring countries. I have heard people say that this is one of the major reasons for Ghana's relative economic & political stability.
Rick Wolter seems to be quite balanced. Read the last paragraph "Life’s Not Fair".
Problem is that some people read his story and thinks. "Oh, so teaching felons programming is a great way to reduce recidivism".
This kind of be-all-end-all solution always fails. Some years ago journalists in the US loved to tell coal miners that they should "learn to code" when the mines shut down due to Washington politics. How hard could it be?
When media corporations started laying off journalists in droves a few years later, the journalists did not find "Learn to code" suggestions useful or even funny.
A more general solution to reduce recidivism should probably consist of two initiatives:
1) Educate felons when they're in prison. It doesn't have to be programming. It can be a craft, something academic, programming (if they feel like it) or some other skill. Whatever.
2) Reform the prison system, so inmates are treated as humans. E.g. with private corporations running prisons in the US, they have a strong motivation to create "recurring guests". Contrast this with e.g. prisons in Scandinavia (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IepJqxRCZY) that have the lowest rates of recidivism.
We know how to reduce recidivism. It is not an easy "learn to code" exercise. But are the US willing to make the changes necessary to create meaningful impact on the rates of recidivism - or shall we continue to be fed "pull yourself up by the bootstraps! We found one guy who did it, and so can you!" stories?
God I fucking hate the response "learn to code!" to everything.
People seem to think everyone being a programmer is needed otherwise humanity will fall. Honestly it is one of the stupidest things I have heard.
Could more [good] programmers be a good thing? Sure, we can always do with more good programmers.
However the truth is we need more of many, many types of people. Teachers, personal care workers, doctors, nurses, etc.
Not everyone wants to be a programming. Not everyone can be a programmer.
Can I teach anyone to write Hello World or a simple number game in Python? Of course, same way I can teacher anyone to track their budget in a basic Excel file.
But I can't take anyone and teach them Excel to be a spreadsheet wizard for the finance department. Believe me I know this from first hand experience :)
What we need is an open, fair and free education system to encourage people of [almost] all ages to do what they are good at and enjoy. We put far too much positive spin on learning to code as if it is the answer to every god damn problem in the world.
Obviously not everyone wants to learn to code. I dont think anyone mistakenly believes that.The (possibly overused) advice to learn to code is prevalent because software is prevalent
Ill repeat what ive said elsewhere...It is a legit path to a rewarding job which is open to those without degrees and who might have felonies on record.
Since starting Underdog Devs Ive seen it over and over. With real commitment its very attainable. We have many success stories which seem like outliers, however they consistently happen.
This isn't something Ive read, its something we've done over and over with mentees. I get that youre tired of that trite bit of advice, but its happening for a lot of people. There are a lot of people who have had their entires life changed through that skill. Definitely not the solution for everyone, but it is the solution for some.
thank you for the kind words. I was really lucky to get another chance considering the severity of my mistakes. Helping others get their life on track seems the least I could do.
Nothing pays close to SWE without going into significant debt and losing years in training. Any rational economic actor will do nothing but software in current economy.
Hi Rick, nice to see you here I was not expecting the subject of the piece to be here so that is pretty cool.
> I dont think anyone mistakenly believes that
Unfortunately many people do. I volunteer here in [redacted] teaching mostly teens the basics of programming but it is open to all and I quite often have adults that have been convinced they should know how to code by the "learn to code!" messages that seem to be everywhere the past decade or so.
Many of these people get upset when they struggle beyond the basics which is probably 60-70% of people going by how many complete the course. I did wonder if perhaps I just suck as a teacher but comparing the numbers not just across those I work with but across the whole country the figure is the same. Just seems two thirds of people can't or don't have an interest to push passed the wall once they hit it.
> It is a legit path to a rewarding job which is open to those without degrees and who might have felonies on record.
I 100% agree with you here. After all I myself have been a professional programmer for near twenty years now and love it so much I give my time to others to help them see if they have the same love for programming as I do. I have taught dozens of people from ~11 years old up to mid-40s how to code that have gone on to have careers as developers.
> With real commitment its very attainable.
This is a big point. It takes commitment. Many people can't or won't commit. Sometimes it is that they can't do it for whatever reason but many times they don't commit because they never had that spark which is clear you did. To them programming was boring. They didn't find it interesting solving some "silly" syntax issue instead they found it frustrating and would rather do something else.
> There are a lot of people who have had their entires life changed through that skill.
And that is awesome. Like I said in my first post I am very happy to see more good programmers enter the market. We need them.
> Definitely not the solution for everyone, but it is the solution for some.
The point in my original reply was that in my experience the whole "learn to code!" thing is talked about as a solution for everyone. What frustrates me is there is so much invested into the learn to code "solution" that I see hardly any other options with the same kind of drive behind it.
Now I can't talk about prison education systems as I have no knowledge of them. But I do know UK and [redacted] schools and my personal opinion it is unfairly pushed over almost everything else. Why? I am not privy to the decisions made higher up but from how I see things it is because it is cheap.
Computers are cheap, resources are almost all free or close to free (YouTube is free, books are cheap, etc), the software needed is almost always free for education, etc. It can be done pretty much anywhere you have a power socket and it doesn't require special single purpose hardware. I know you know all this getting started with Python and OpenCourseWare after all.
Simply put the financial barrier for entry to learning to code is very near zero and that is super attractive to schools.
Anyway my first comment wasn't in any way an attack on people learning to code. I apologise if you felt that it was and hopefully this reply better explains why I feel the way I do.
I am glad that learning to code has had such a positive impact on your life and wish you success in the future :)
I agree with everything you say here. I was unaware that people have taken it so seriously as to feel compelled to learn to code. I agree with you, its being marketed everywhere.
And you are spot on about the other options (for employment) not being discussed. I think plumbing and HVAC (here in Florida HVAC techs are in constant demand) are reasonable options to pursue for many folks getting out but you dont see it discussed as much.
Obviously the allure of a high salary is one of the reasons people talk about coding more but the consistent demand for the less discussed skills should be factored in. Its damn near a sure bet you can find work if you learn HVAC or plumbing. In all transparency I only have seen and heard of the demand second hand, I dont know for certain. Ive never done either of those trades.
and no offense taken. Nonetheless thank you for explaining further.
I think you're forgetting we're talking about felons. I'm an underdog who is now a full-time software developer (thanks to the Underdogs & Rick ;) and trust me if I could be a doctor <insert career> that would take a felon I'd be happy to try. But here in America, it's not that easy. Especially when you have laws that flat out bar you. So though you might be right for your average citizen but once you get to our end it's not the same. Coding really is the best route for us felons. And thats from experiance.
> I think you're forgetting we're talking about felons.
Yes I made a mistake not clarifying I was talking in general about the push for learn to code programmes.
For people incarcerated I agree a learn to code programme makes a hell of a lot of sense however so do many other career options as Rick mentioned in his reply https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32705015
HVAC is a good job.. so is a roofer.. and all construction.. and i used to do that and i dont knock it at all it kept my family fed BUT those are not careers i could recommend folks like me to try (because they're probably already doing that lol) Im just one of those annoying folks who just have to tell everyone especially felons to at least try coding. Ive already felt the financial impact in my life and its not the same.This stuff is life changing;)
> People seem to think everyone being a programmer is needed otherwise humanity will fall.
Programming is truly fun for a very select group of people. (I count myself as one of those( But even then, as a job it is almost always miserable in some form.
I encourage people to check it out if its for them, I dont think they should be gaslit into becoming programmers.
Depends on the crime, I know a few doctors and nurses that have criminal records. But I accept your point.
However I was not talking about those with a criminal record. Like in the comment I was replying to where learn to code programmes were seen as the "solution" for coal miners whose mines were closed.
Is it an option? Of course. Is it the solution for all? Hardly but it is often treated as one so people can say "look we told you to learn to code and gave you access to a computer and resources but you didn't do it so it's not my fault you're jobless".
To me it just comes across as a cheap and lazy way to say they 'did something' and blame the individual when it didn't work out.
Just my opinion of course, you don't have to agree with it :)
I think of it as an analogy or general advise. It speaks to a changing world where mining skills have no value but digital skills do. Nobody can say what solution is right for every individual effected by these types of issues. But, the advise given is meant to be illustrative that this group of folks has worthless skills (no other mines to go to) and needs complete training for something more relevant in the current economy where there are many pockets of opportunity.
Teachers, doctors, nurses etc. can use code to simplify their jobs and make themselves more productive. Not everyone needs to be a professional coder, but being aware of what code is and how it works should absolutely be a basic skill. No different than reading or math.
I would be very curious how a doctor or nurse could use programming to improve their jobs. Aside from a conduit of fun brain teasers which may have some ancillary benefit...every doctor and nurse I know spends almost no time in front of a computer except for brief data entry. Actual real "medical" programming occurs by professional engineers in highly regulated environments (and for good reason).
Teachers I could possibly see but even then much of this has been optimized away. If you lower the bar of "learning to code" to learning excel I'd tend to agree with you. No reason to hack together a set of python scripts to grade papers, and the actual useful work of generating random test questions, etc has been automated away by software nearly every school uses.
The difference between reading, math, and programming is that reading and math are fundamental. Math teaches logical, methodical thinking. Reading teaches the ability to well...read. Programming on the other hand is a higher level abstraction of math. Mathematicians tend to become good programmers. To me, this would imply we simply need to teach more math. It's very simple to say "it should be a basic skill" but there are other, far more fundamental, skills we don't teach either. Why don't we teach machining or woodworking? For the average Joe these two would have infinitely more value both professionally and personally than learning how to fire up a terminal and write a basic python script.
The problem that "learn to code" has, and the problem your suggestion has, is that even getting someone to "get" how to code is non-trivial. Once you move beyond the formulaic "here's how to put these pieces together to make a website" suddenly everyone gets lost. I've seen this not only in people I've attempted to mentor, but also being an interviewer at a large tech company regularly seeing code camp graduates coming from fields like teaching, food, etc. These people miss the point of the exact thing you suggest: programming is a conduit for productivity in an underlying field and "learning to code" is a means to an end and not the goal.
There certainly are people "cut out to be programmers" and this societal shift to "everyone can be anything they want" has really disenfranchised a lot of people. We never want to talk about it because the idea life is fundamentally unfair is seen as taboo. But it is, and it is the reason code camps produce garbage in 80% of cases and the reason drop out rates in CS programs are so high. The high flying high school kid getting an $XXX,000 salary is an extreme edge cases promoted as a common case. The guy who automates half his job as a data entry clerk was probably fit for professional grade programming anyway. We are guilty of this perpetuation ourselves.
My cousin is a radiologist and I taught him a bit of python so he could create a GUI tool to help him write some reports. Apparently only about 5% of what he writes needs to be his own notes, the other 95% is boiler-plate that varies based on what his 5% is.
Before he used to have like 30 MS Word documents that acted as templates for his most common situations. He basically had a psuedocode workflow on sticky notes he already used that was really easy to turn into real python.
It's not a fabulous project or anything but he gets to spend a bit more time looking at each case, and also gets to go home sooner.
> Once you move beyond the formulaic "here's how to put these pieces together to make a website" suddenly everyone gets lost.
Maybe because “learn to code” really means “learn to make websites”?
I never learned how to make websites, never coded a line of JavaScript and have no idea what people who do those things are talking about with their frameworks and whatever but I know how to code so could probably figure it out fairly easily if I was motivated enough.
Maybe if they taught people how to use the language instead of how to glue together different bits of library code things would be different. Probably not a full CS curriculum but more than React in 30 days.
What if those journalists had instead come out and said that miners are not smart enough to code. They would have gotten even more hate probably by the very same people. So you lose either way.
Are journalists smart enough to code? More relevantly, are they smart enough to accurately inform the general public about the topics they cover? The commonality of Gel-Mann amnesia suggests otherwise.
How often do we see "learn to code" as a solution to jobs that have gone away for whatever reason? Over the past ~15 years I've seen it almost everywhere as literally the only advertised option for people whose profession has vanished.
All I am saying is I wish as much was invested into other re-training options as we've seen put into learn to code programmes.
I work with people in prison, or as they are commonly referred to within some circles, justice involved individuals.
The issue here is not skilling these people in trades, it’s really about working on mental health and the underlying reasons why they are in prison. Until those challenges are addressed, these people mostly will not succeed. Many have not experienced much of a « normal » family life or friendships that promote personal growth, or mentorship.
On top of that, when many are released they have nothing. So, imagine trying to stay employed for a week when you have nowhere to live (especially hard to rent a place also when you have a record[1].
Anyway, we might know how to reduce recidivism, but society sure doesn’t seem interested in taking the steps to invest what’s needed.
[1] I recently spoke in front of the Colorado Senate concerning Assembly Bill 99 which will auto-erase the records of non-violent offenders in the state with some outcomes being that they can more easily find employment and rent places to live.
There should be free transitionary housing on-prem on-site with the prison. You still get free housing and food and you’re not monitored / can come and go as you please. But it gives you a stable address and base of operations from which you build your new life. This isn’t halfway house which are dorms - you literally get your own space.
I also have wondered whether probation officers have a positive or negative impact overall on recidivism. It feels like forcing people to have an additional stress layer that can send them back to prison on top of everything else isn’t actually helpful.
> Colorado Senate concerning Assembly Bill 99 which will auto-erase the records of non-violent offenders
Being able to expunge records helps, but if you really want to help people with criminal records re-enter the workforce, you have to fix business liability insurance. Insurers often the ones forcing the issue in hiring practices by rate increase or by clauses that will not cover an ex-offender. A rate increase for a 200 employee company will cost what hiring 3-4 people costs, so everyone wants to help until they find out what the hidden costs are. In Indiana we fixed this, and it is much easier to hire people with records, and did more to help expunging records.
Removing records does not help much when asked "have you ever been convicted" and get caught telling less than the truth. The lie itself is often considered moral turpitude by the employer. Laws that make it ok to lie, never work as expected for anyone.
I'm sorry my message came a bit across like "Just copy Scandinavia, then everything will be great". Obviously that isn't the case. My point was that there's no easy solution to reduce recidivism, but if we need to start somewhere it might be better to look into incentives created by the current prison system than learning inmates to code.
That doesn't solve the whole cultural view on inmates, the social and psychological problems that placed a lot of them in the prison in the first place, etc. etc. etc.
my 2 cents .... its unnecessary. It often then just leads to me having to explain what that term means. I would much rather use formerly incarcerated. Its a fairly neutral term, imo. Its not loaded with negative connotations like terms such as convict.
Also the term "justice impacted" seems to strip us of all agency. I would like to retain at least a smidgen of autonomy in my decision making.
> Anyway, we might know how to reduce recidivism, but society sure doesn’t seem interested in taking the steps to invest what’s needed.
The current "justice" system is a huge jobs program all around, and it is predicated on a persistently large mass of criminals who scare the crap out of the public. If they go away, so do cops, lawyers, prison jobs, and all the ancillary positions which feed off them. Society needs to own up to this fact and figure out what to do with all those people, especially the ones who live in rural areas which are completely dependent on prisons. I really feel the economics are what keep mass incarceration going year after year, no matter how many stories get written about it, or how awful everyone agrees it is.
I agree with much of what you said. You've also missed the point if you are referring to the non-profit Underdog Devs, which helps the formerly incarcerated become developers, with your bootstraps comment.
If we could become software devs "by our own bootstraps" there would be no need for an Underdog Devs. Thats the point, support is needed.
Overall I agree with you though, learning to code is not some panacea to cure recidivism. It is however a legit path to a rewarding job which is open to those without degrees and who might have felonies on record.
Since starting Underdog Devs Ive seen it over and over. With real commitment its very attainable. We have many success stories which seem like outliers, however they consistently happen.
This kind of be-all-end-all solution always fails. Some years ago journalists in the US loved to tell coal miners that they should "learn to code" when the mines shut down due to Washington politics. How hard could it be?
Did this even happen? I cannot find any articles in which miners were told to learn to code. I think instead those miners were offered vocational training, which included coding. This was in 2017.
"During a rally yesterday, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden spoke to a crowd in Derry, N.H., a town that many miners call home. He acknowledged the economic setbacks and job insecurity that coal miners face these days, and gave them some advice: learn to code."
Didn't even know Joe Biden did it, but Hillary Clinton did it too and it's what spawned the "#learn2code" hashtag on Twitter. It just got nastier from there.
coincidentally at Underdog Devs we took in some of the students from that failed project. It was called Mined Mines. A few still made it later and became software devs, but the majority didnt work out.
Regarding #2 - while I am all for reforming the US prison system, a direct comparison of US (prison) failure with Scandinavian (prison) success is unfair. It also risks creating misguided reforms, without properly understanding and addressing the social, economic, historical and geographical gaps between the two countries.
It is two different countries and very different cultures. Just modeling US prisons on Scandinavian ones is not a solution. I could even imagine it making things worse in the short-term (a banal example would be "so the prisoners in Norwegian prisons have access to knives in the kitchen they roam freely, let's try that in San Quentin"...)
But I think we could start looking at the incentives the American prison system creates while also addressing the social issues that seems to be the root of a lot of the challenges. It is not easy and I can imagine it taking a century to solve unfortunately.
I don't think there was a suggestion to model prisons in the U.S. after others in Scandanavia, only a comparison to point out that if others have found a solution to recidivism that works in their society, we should be able to find one that works in ours.
"I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, 'wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?'
So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
> are the US willing to make the changes necessary to create meaningful impact on the rates of recidivism - or shall we continue to be fed "pull yourself up by the bootstraps! We found one guy who did it, and so can you!" stories?
I think what the US first needs is a general cultural shift towards crime and criminals. I don't want to generalize too much, but the general attitude is that criminals are barely human monsters, and that every bad thing that happens for the rest of your life is "don't do the crime then!!!111" You know, stuff like this.[1] And don't even get me started on things like "At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt" from last week.[2]
Funny how such an allegedly Christian nation doesn't seem to understand forgiveness. Guess I didn't read the Bible right shrug.
Things are changing, slowly, but there's still a long road ahead.
That's dangerous. I know people who went to prison.
We want educated ex-felons, what you might get is educated felons.
>> We know how to reduce recidivism
Do we? Again, I know criminals. They're hard core. A guy says he's gonna shoot up meth every day until he dies, he's going to finance that any way he needs to, what is the known way to reduce that recidivism?
I legitimately can't tell if this post was written facetiously, what's your alternative? because the alternative of giving them no education is almost a sure fire guarantee that they'll be ill-equipped to be able to get a job with the potential to become a productive member of society.
He's not advocating that we teach lock picking 101 for chr##-sake.
But it's OK because you "know criminals" so naturally that extrapolates to all criminals in perpetuity throughout the universe.
>> the alternative of giving them no education is almost a sure fire guarantee that they'll be ill-equipped to be able to get a job with the potential to become a productive member of society
These are my friends that I'm talking about. They don't want to be, will never be, and never could be if they wanted to, productive members of society.
What's your alternative?
I can sure fire guarantee you that they'll be ill-equipped to be able to get a job with the potential to become a productive member of society, no matter what happens.
So what happens to them?
Seriously, you're making me defend meth addicts. Christ.
>> These are my friends that I'm talking about. They don't want to be, will never be, and never could be if they wanted to, productive members of society.
So right, we should’ve nipped it in the butt and cut them out of preschool. ;)
In the repair industry, technician is reserved for folks that can properly diagnose and make any and all repairs.
A mechanic is someone who can throw parts at a car but isn’t likely to be able to perform in-depth diagnostics or advanced repairs especially on newer cars with complex electrical systems.
A mechanic in Alabama should expect to earn $50k-$60k while a tech is closer to $110k or so.
I know at least 9 guys in my county who never finished high school and couldn’t compose a proper sentence if their lives depended on it yet they earn $150k+ per year repairing automobiles.
Google has a bad reputation when it comes to intra-company coordination and cooperation.
So, aside from what others have replied, what would be the purpose of hiring 1-10 thousand support people that would have no ability to actually help the customer contacting them?
"Have you tried turning it off and on again?" would be the only response they could offer.
Everybody are creating their own bubbles. People (rightfully) complain that social media reinforces peoples existing beliefs, yet, most people prefer to chat with colleagues they agree with and seldom cold calls the colleagues they disagree with the most.
When working in the office you may overhear some discussion. You may not agree with some decision, but you might have heard the talk leading up to it. You may even meet somebody you disagree with at the coffee machine and have an informal chat that changes the direction somewhat.
When everybody is working from home, a team of twelve might form 2-3 cliques and some lone riders. Finding common ground is harder, when it must happen in a formal online-meeting on Thursday at 2pm. and not while chatting over lunch or whatever. The boss loves it, because he can divide and conquer the previous "team mates".
> As someone who got their start in tech with a low-code environment (ServiceNow reporting) I have found the true value of low code is the ability for business/ops teams to create tools that serve their needs without waiting on a team of "real" developers to make time for them.
This is because a lot of so-called "real developers" nowadays think their job is to keep up with the latest fads and finding ways of chopping the business needs in a way so they fit better to the popular framework of the day.
Business quickly grow tired of hearing "that's not possible" when what the developer actually means "what you want to do is against the architecture of the framework I've decided we must use". If the business insist, the developer spends a lot of time fighting the framework.
Now, from a job market perspective, it is entirely understandable that the developer prefers to do RDD - resume driven development.
But it also makes it fully understandable that the business people wants to find ways of solving their needs, that do not include waiting on the "real developers". Hence the Excel and Access monstrosities present in every org.
Jordan Peterson (I know, I know...) made an interesting remark in one of his lectures recorded long before he became famous:
"Once you make about $60,000 a year for your family, but let's say for you personally, additional income makes zero has zero impact on your quality of life."
Smart people will on average probably be better of financially, but that doesn't transfer directly to happiness.
A characteristic of "smart people" is the ability to identify and solve problems across a range of domains. That works well when the problem is some programming task, drawing a new house, gathering data for a report you write or whatever.
But what if you identify problems you cannot solve? E.g. a smart person might realize, that the "American democracy" is fundamentally broken, but there's no way to solve this (vote all you want, the top of both parties gets their way anyway, so unless you're 100% aligned with Pelosi or Trump you're shafted). A smart person will identify the challenges their children have and will try to solve it by choosing the right school, but will fret forever that it wasn't the right choice.
A not-so-smart person will believe, that as long as his party wins the next election everything will be better. A not-so-smart person will send their children to the default school for the district where they live.
So a smart person will every day identify problems there are out of their realm to solve. They know their actions only have very limited - and perhaps even detrimental - impact on solving these things. All the while the not-so-smart people goes with the flow, doesn't worry too much, because they don't realize there was a problem to begin with.
(I'm doing "averages" here. Of course a not-so-smart and poor person might be acutely aware of their dire financial situation which reflects negatively on their happiness, but at least they're being told they have the power to change that)
I'm not sure, it anecdotally appears to me that not-so-smart people tend to get angrier over political problems, for example, and just problems in general.
Have a read about the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akosombo_Dam
Then watch this documentary on the devastating effects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora%27s_Box_(British_TV_se...
As Wikipedia says about the dam:
"The Ghana government was compelled, by contract, to pay for over 50% of the cost of Akosombo's construction, but the country was allowed only 20% of the power generated."