What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code? • Hacker News Board

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#171

Post by robsinatra » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 6:57 PM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #133

Braggadocious wrote: post #112

I love how inmates get a better education and more support from tech companies than the adults who live in the bay area. The bay area has the worst income inequality of anywhere in any developed country. Bootcamps are a scam and cost tens of thousands of dollars and yet inmates, people convicted of severe crimes, are treated to free education. From a business standpoint this makes more sense because inmates have no b…

I'm a bit unclear on your perspective here. Are you saying teaching inmates is wrong because they've apparently lost their chance at success in life because of their "severe crimes"? Regardless of that perspective, here's a truth: most inmates will be released at some point. As a matter of fact, alot of the inequality you reference is a result of those with criminal backgrounds and the socioeconomic conditions that g…

I'm unclear whether you're OK with spending other people's money but not your own. The fund supporting this initiative accepts donations. Have you donated? Have you volunteered? No, you haven't and you won't.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#172

Post by Caleb_Smith » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

I have been teaching a Python course at my local jail M-F for over a year now, and something we have struggled with is finding potential internships or general employment for our students when they are released. We typically recommend our students to enter the local community college system, but we also have some students that are utterly brilliant and could succeed without a formal education.

Does anyone have any insight for how we should approach companies on their behalf? Is it more beneficial to teach web development (it seems like this is an easier way to break into the industry)?

I am also interested in hearing any opinions on how we should approach teaching in the setting where there is no internet access and the typical mathematics level is algebra.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#173

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 7:02 PM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #48

jtbayly wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> convince people to either not vote - or to vote against their personal best interests. I’ve seen this on HN several times, and it always cracks me up. The condescension isn't dripping. It’s running in torrents. You think the reason they won’t vote the way you want is because they don’t know what’s good for themselves. You might want to consider an alternate: they don’t want someone like you deciding what’s good for…

The opposite -- a presumption that people always vote in their own best interests -- is equally condescending because it's an expression that nobody can really believe. It's like everybody applauding and saying "good job" at the kindergarten music recital. In my view, evidence that people vote against their own interests is the massive industry that exists for the purpose of making that happen. The respectful middle…

> The opposite -- a presumption that people always vote in their own best interests -- is equally condescending because it's an expression that nobody can really believe.

It's hard to believe that every position of a candidate you vote for is in your interests because that's basically never the case.

Suppose I support the elimination of most federal programs and taxation (let the states do it) but I think that a federal carbon tax which is paid out as a dividend to the citizens is a great idea, because it's a national/global issue and pricing externalities is the legitimate purview of government. Who shall I vote for? I have never seen a single candidate proposing to do both of those things.

In a sense the only way for me not to vote against my interests is to stay home. At the same time, there are two candidates on the ballot that are very much not the same as one another. So it's not so much a matter of "voting against your own interests" as choosing which of your interests outweigh the others.

But assuming that anybody who makes a different choice than you is a fool is very condescending.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#174

Post by robsinatra » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 7:05 PM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #12

pytester wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why would we expect Slack or other tech companies to be helping random people with housing or social support? Yet they expect congratulations. Slack's selfish commercial interest is entirely aligned with hiring cheap developers, but, they put out a press release and the atlantic magazine took it up. I worked with a another charity that did a similar thing (not prisoners, but the underprivileged) and one of the compa…

In this particular case, I think it's worth it even it is self serving. The advent of cheap online background checks has added to the already difficult task of getting a job if you're a felon. Any publicity around hiring them helps normalize it as expected.

I'm waiting for the moral grandstanders to take to social media and try to publicly shame companies for refusing to hire their trained ex-cons

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#175

Post by pkaye » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 7:13 PM UTC

jayparth wrote: post #97

purple_ducks wrote: post #9

I'm all for the positivity but really?? > Access to an elite organization In what way is Slack elite? These writers need to tone done their hyperbole.

In what way is Slack not elite? Slack is within the top 10% of companies in the Bay Area by pretty much any metric you choose to rank companies by. By almost any measure, that's elite. Is Berkeley not an elite school, because it's less prestigious than Stanford?

> Slack is within the top 10% of companies in the Bay Area by pretty much any metric you choose to rank companies by.

What about profitability?

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#176

Post by dang » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 7:18 PM UTC

Braggadocious wrote: post #112

I love how inmates get a better education and more support from tech companies than the adults who live in the bay area. The bay area has the worst income inequality of anywhere in any developed country. Bootcamps are a scam and cost tens of thousands of dollars and yet inmates, people convicted of severe crimes, are treated to free education. From a business standpoint this makes more sense because inmates have no b…

Would you please stop taking HN threads into flamewar?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#177

Post by tasty_freeze » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 7:19 PM UTC

Braggadocious wrote: post #163

bdcravens wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit unclear on your perspective here. Are you saying teaching inmates is wrong because they've apparently lost their chance at success in life because of their "severe crimes"? Regardless of that perspective, here's a truth: most inmates will be released at some point. As a matter of fact, alot of the inequality you reference is a result of those with criminal backgrounds and the socioeconomic conditions that g…

The entire point of prison is to remove them from society. Why are we spending more resources on prisoners than people who've never commited a crime?

> The entire point of prison is to remove them from society.

That is the immediate effect, for sure. But that isn't the issue.

Unless someone is convicted for life without parole, or a death penalty, then they likely will be released into the general population at some point.

Do you want them to have skills that might allow them to support themselves, or do you think a near term investment in education might be cheaper for society and more humane than releasing them with a situation where they have fewer opportunities to make a living?

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#178

Post by dang » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 7:20 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #2

> We need to applaud companies like Slack, but know that the nitty-gritty of human services—housing, health care, social support—which lots of nonprofits and public institutions are working on, the private sector has largely turned away from.” I mean, yeah? Those things sound like they’re precisely the kind of stuff that’s the domain of non-profits and the government. Why would we expect Slack or other tech companies…

Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. Those blow up into generic ideological flamewars, which are always the same and always less interesting than the specific discussion that they destroy by burning as kindling.

With your comment, you provoked a flamewar that degenerated straight to bon mots like "Government is to govern.", "I’ve seen this on HN several times, and it always cracks me up. The condescension isn't dripping. It’s running in torrents." and "American Christians say that Jesus Christ is the only true way and that Islam is a false path". It swelled to over a hundred comments, completely dominating the page. Worse, it was sitting at the top when I saw it, crowding out all the discussion that curious readers and commenters are here for. That's not cool; that's the way a community like this destroys itself.

Tire fires like this are why the site guidelines explicitly ask: "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#179

Post by bdcravens » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 7:28 PM UTC

robsinatra wrote: post #171

bdcravens wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit unclear on your perspective here. Are you saying teaching inmates is wrong because they've apparently lost their chance at success in life because of their "severe crimes"? Regardless of that perspective, here's a truth: most inmates will be released at some point. As a matter of fact, alot of the inequality you reference is a result of those with criminal backgrounds and the socioeconomic conditions that g…

I'm unclear whether you're OK with spending other people's money but not your own. The fund supporting this initiative accepts donations. Have you donated? Have you volunteered? No, you haven't and you won't.

Why do you say that? I have supported educational efforts in prison, but not this specific one. I have personally hired at least 3 people who have been in prison.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#180

Post by joenot443 » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 7:29 PM UTC

livueta wrote: post #6

kkwak wrote: post #3

Programming generally provides people with a lot of power. Either in access to data or obviously code. In that, there is a lot of trust requested and given. I know lots of enterprises add a lot of "scans" and "checks" and limit things to much complaints to remove the "we trust you" from the equation, but still you can't scan for everything. The open question is how much trust do you want to give? Of course, 2nd, 3rd,…

I feel like if any one person can seriously subvert something, you've already lost. Maybe that's just my perspective from working at international enormous tech corp X, but we've already basically got that problem in the form of employees hailing from repressive states (yeah, Australia, that's you now too) where everything needs cross-signing anyway. All in all, I'd probably be more concerned about foreign nationals…

I definitely agree with you in spirit, but I feel like in most organizations, there's still lots of easy potential for one person to seriously subvert things.

I think a baseline level of trust is an absolute requirement, regardless of how well implemented your organizational access security is.

I would say that any company source code, by definition, is a company secret, and there will always exist an easy means for an employee to leak or compromise that secret.