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Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

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Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#81

Post by Pica_soO »

Always be suspicious when one solution promises to fix all the problems? It might not be a true Scotsman.

Now how do i get rid of the piling up remainders of this ugly feeling of social responsibility? The poor only got to blame themselves for not being ruthless enough? No, that sounds like encouraging crime.

The poor only got to blame themselves for not reading enough? No.

The poor only go themselves to blame, because they where born to the wrong parents? Now it sounds heartless.

And that is what all this about. Finding ab-solvent to inhale for a ugly problem to go away. Everything is allowed as long as it doesn't touch core dogmas and allows to shirk responsibility.

The poor only got to blame themselves, because they loose so much energy by thermodynamics. Half there food goes up in heat. Hah, that's it, we should educate them to wear five layers of sweaters in the summer- and if they don't do it- they only got to blame themselves. Those unruly holy poor, who put my own existence to a metric i don't like.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#82

Post by emblem21 »

TIL HN thinks the complexities of the future can be unraveled and brought to bare in a predictable, progressive manner if we just strictly adhere to the established frameworks determined by our immediate ancestors.

Poverty, that is, the lack of power, is not something you fix. It's not something you augment, either. Power is a gas and ego is the vacuum. The bigger your ego, the more gas you can carry. However, not all gas is equal, and not all ego has spherical perfection.

The paradox is that power requires subservience. The greater the capacity of power, the greater the potential for subservience. Knowledge is not power. Power is power. Everything else is the attempt at accumulating power.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#84

Post by majewsky »

LordKano wrote: post #20
Chinjut wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(And, yes: education can of course grant skills which are genuinely required for certain jobs. This being Hacker News, I suppose we'll hear that everyone should learn to code. I'm all for everyone getting to do whatever they wish to do, and if that wish is learning to code, so be it. But I suspect, if everyone did suddenly learn to code, we'd find that coding would, with corresponding suddenness, cease to be a ticket…

I hate the idea that some people seem to hold that teaching everyone to code will fix the world's problems. It won't. People who want to code, should learn to code. Some people should learn to weld. Some people should learn to drive a commercial truck. Some people should learn to cook. Some people should learn to landscape. Some people should learn to fix automobiles and son on and so forth. We have a society that ne…

> Some people should learn to drive a commercial truck.

Many current jobs may be subject to being automated away. I would certainly not recommend any future worker to set themselves up for a career in truck driving, because this job is likely gone in, let's say, 20 years.

The "everyone should learn to code" crowd maybe recognizes that programming is one of the skills that is very hard to automate, so every new coder of today might still get through a whole career of coding.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#85

Post by Kurtz79 »

dagw wrote: post #59
LordKano wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate the idea that some people seem to hold that teaching everyone to code will fix the world's problems. It won't. People who want to code, should learn to code. Some people should learn to weld. Some people should learn to drive a commercial truck. Some people should learn to cook. Some people should learn to landscape. Some people should learn to fix automobiles and son on and so forth. We have a society that ne…

Some people should learn to weld. Some people should learn to drive a commercial truck. Some people should learn to cook. Some people should learn to landscape. Some people should learn to fix automobiles and son on and so forth. Absolutely, and if all those people also knew how to code, they could find ways to apply the skill to their jobs to make them more efficient. People shouldn't learn to code so that they can…

Please give some example how knowledge of programming would help a truck driver, a cook or a welder to be more efficient in their jobs.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#86

Post by UK-AL »

rayiner wrote: post #14

It's worthwhile to consider where the point of diminishing returns is with education. I'd argue that we are well past it. There is not really that much work even in the modern economy that requires more than a 10th grade general education. We know that because in countries like Germany it is quite common for someone to exit the formal schooling system at 16 and still get a white collar job.

They don't quit education 16, they enter apprenticeships which is really an extension of the schooling system in germany.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#87

Post by mh-cx »

The article misses an important point: It does not explain what definition of poverty all this is based on. There are some definitions like "people having less than 60% of the average real income". But's that's a very relative: If the average income is rising over the years, people defined now as "poor" may live at the same standard as the average in 1991. If that's the case I would not neccessarily consider them "poor".

So I think it would be interesting to do the same statisical breakdown but in regard to the absolute standard of living.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#88

Post by tremon »

Chinjut wrote: post #15
Chinjut wrote: post #11

Well, yeah. Education increases individual income primarily through competitive advantage in the job market, right? But, also, the function of education in the job market is largely just as a certification arms race, right? Just a ritual we go through to compete for jobs that don’t actually make any use of or require our advanced educations, in most cases. So educating us all doesn’t produce many benefits, because th…

(And, yes: education can of course grant skills which are genuinely required for certain jobs. This being Hacker News, I suppose we'll hear that everyone should learn to code. I'm all for everyone getting to do whatever they wish to do, and if that wish is learning to code, so be it. But I suspect, if everyone did suddenly learn to code, we'd find that coding would, with corresponding suddenness, cease to be a ticket…

I did not learn to code from any formal education though. By the time I had my first programming class (at university), I had already been writing code for nearly ten years (Basic, C++ and i386 assembly).

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#89

Post by dragandj »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #85
dagw wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people should learn to weld. Some people should learn to drive a commercial truck. Some people should learn to cook. Some people should learn to landscape. Some people should learn to fix automobiles and son on and so forth. Absolutely, and if all those people also knew how to code, they could find ways to apply the skill to their jobs to make them more efficient. People shouldn't learn to code so that they can…

Please give some example how knowledge of programming would help a truck driver, a cook or a welder to be more efficient in their jobs.

All these professions are (going to be) gradually replaced by automation/robots. Learning to code might put them in "robot manager/operator" instead of "they took our jobs" crowd.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#90

Post by dagw »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #85
dagw wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people should learn to weld. Some people should learn to drive a commercial truck. Some people should learn to cook. Some people should learn to landscape. Some people should learn to fix automobiles and son on and so forth. Absolutely, and if all those people also knew how to code, they could find ways to apply the skill to their jobs to make them more efficient. People shouldn't learn to code so that they can…

Please give some example how knowledge of programming would help a truck driver, a cook or a welder to be more efficient in their jobs.

Honestly not really sure, having never worked in any of those jobs and have no idea what those jobs will look like 20 years from now. However let me speculate:

Many people believe that truck drivers will be become more and more replaced with autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles. Understanding the underlying software will no doubt make it easier to be in charge of a software controlled semi-autonomous truck convoy. Also for all I know truck drivers on places like docks, mines and factories won't be sitting in their trucks for much longer. They'll be controlling everything via computers from a remote command post. Also from what I seen trucking seems to involve a lot of complex routing and optimization problems, I'm guessing that as simply driving becomes less and less part of the job, those aspects will become more and more part of the job.

I know fuck all about welding. I do however know some programmers who work for a company that makes industrial welders and apparently there's some pretty complex software running those welders. Perhaps being able to field program your welder is/will be a thing? Also perhaps welding things directly will become less and less common and people will be sending computer controlled drones to do the welding instead.

Anyway it's not for me to sit on the outside and try to guess how programming can make people more efficient at their jobs. I truly believe that if someone with experience and domain knowledge also knows how to do some simple programming they'll be able to see all kinds of tiny improvements and automatstation they can implement. Improvements that both an outsider programmer and an insider non-programmer would completely overlook. And even if they aren't always skilled enough to implement those improvements, they'll be much better equipped to know what can be done and what to ask for.

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