Teach kids to farm, not code.
kimburgess.info
Teach kids to farm, not code.
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Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.
#2This article presents a nuanced point, and I agree with it.
My response to this quote by Steve Burgess (not the author): "Why are programmers granted such high status and wealth in our society for living in a self-created self-indulgant intellectual world of constant escapism- and yet farmers are regarded with such distain when they operate on the most important boundary between society and the biosphere?"
... would have been: I disagree with your premise. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMpZ0TGjbWE (God Made a Farmer) and see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGJX6t3IAlk (GoDaddy Bar Refaeli Super Bowl Commercial).
Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.
#3"Why are [...] farmers are regarded with such distain [...]?"
They are? I haven't seen people feel that way, so I'm kind of surprised to read this. Some references to evidence that supports this claim might be useful.
Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.
#4"Why are [...] farmers are regarded with such distain [...]?" They are? I haven't seen people feel that way, so I'm kind of surprised to read this. Some references to evidence that supports this claim might be useful.
Same with "Why are programmers granted such high status...". I was not aware that programmers had a particularly high social status.
Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.
#5The big point is actually that currently we (as in, the whole world) have far more farmers than we need (especially in the developing countries) and less coders than we need. And in the future, automation and coders will ensure that we will need even less farmers.
How much population do we really need to tend all global arable land using modern methods machinery? Currently in developed countries it's somewhere near 2%, depending on the local crops used; in time it may be 1% as more and more things can now be done by machines. Countries such as India and China currently have hundreds of millions of farmers; but the same result can be produced by half or less people with farming methods currently used in USA/EU. Right now a lot of modern grain farm work consists of driving equipment around all your fields - and self-driving tractors will eliminate even that remainder "manual" work.
Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.
#6Yes, farming is hard, very hard
Most here don't appreciate how hard it is (especially if you're inexperienced)
Do people still grow beans using a cotton in a cup? Do they still teach that at schools? That's basically the 'hello world' of farming
Of course, depends on what you are doing, type of plants, inside a greenhouse or in an open field, the scale of it etc. Not to mention raising animals. That's very hard as well
It's unsurprising that it's getting ever more 'industry like'. You take a lot of people and specialize in only a few crops, so you can have profits that work out. Machines are expensive, fertilizer, soil analysis, etc, etc
And then there's a climate issue, too much rain, too cold, too warm and you miss the mark.
Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.
#7"This thing #{X} that I am inexperienced at is much harder than this thing #{Y} I spent years doing because I am experienced at #{Y} and have some idea how to do it and thus it feels comfortable.
Why, I am going to go so far as to talk down everybody who still does #{Y}, partly because I'm somewhat burnt out on it, and partly because my comparative experience makes me feel like it's easy compared to #{X}."
Where:-
* X, Y are very broad fields in which there is a whole range of tasks which span from the very simple to the insanely difficult,
* X, Y both revolutionised the world at different points in human history, X before Y.
Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.
#8In competitive environments, low-tech occupations tend to lose as a group.
Take any mass farming. Tea collectors, for example, I believe they're paid so little they are in constant poverty. Why are they paid that way? They collect all the tea people around the world drink. Paying them the increase of the cost of a tea bag by 1 cent will make them comparatively rich. Why isn't it done? They have no bargaining power. Anyone can collect tea badly enough, this is true for most agricultural labour. It is physically hard but you can teach it in half an our. So they can always be easily replaced either with local population or with some illegal immigrants.
In the developed world, a lot of people just pass documents around and make phone calls. It's the sophistication of zooplankton and physically much less demanding than agricultural jobs, but you can't quite teach it to anyone in the world in half an hour - you need locals for this (they connect to other people and need to fit culturally) and they need some even very basic skills. So they get paid with actual money you can buy things with.
Take coders. Training a coder is not easy and it even requires some aptitude. Thus, even mediocre coders can often command their rules to their employers. And great coders are true citizens of the world, employable anywhere on their terms.
So, to make farming cool we have to make it high-tech. Another problem is that farming doesn't seem very profitable even on the large / capital scale, because the barrier to entry is so low.
Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.
#9> but it is far far more important that all human beings >learn to interact with the natural environment and >understand the basics of food, water and shelter.”
This part is my biggest take away from the post. that learn to interact with the natural environment and figure out how to create(nay, refactor/engineer/discover a better word here??) food/water/shelter from it is a hard,important and makes for a more interesting* educational goal than solving math problems or puzzles.
*-- I said interesting, but i would bet that it's probably better in terms of creating a (net total) productive society(x years of education later)
Disclaimer: I hadn't heard of code.org before now and i live in India.
Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.
#10This article presents a nuanced point, and I agree with it. My response to this quote by Steve Burgess (not the author): "Why are programmers granted such high status and wealth in our society for living in a self-created self-indulgant intellectual world of constant escapism- and yet farmers are regarded with such distain when they operate on the most important boundary between society and the biosphere?" ... would…
Farmers have historically played with the fears of mankind and have lobbying power that rivals big tobacco in many countries.
"More moneyz for the farmers or everyone will starve to death."
They also tend to use somewhat stereotypical stuff depicting themselves as heroes that feed the homeland which just rubs me the wrong way.
Add the "leave this farmland empty and make more money than actually farming on it" government handout abuse (+ all sorts of economic meddling that makes very little sense) and you pretty much get the mixture of why I don't grant farmers a high status by default.
Big industry farming is also fairly disgusting. I'm not really an animal rights type of guy and more of the "whatever humans eat animals such is life" kind of school but what is happening in industry farming makes me pretty sick.
[I'm obviously aggregating over all farmers here but by and large I wouldn't start out assuming a farmer was noble]
Edit: that's obviously way off topic. My answer to the OP would be...teach kids to enjoy learning and exploring and not some specific craft. The rest will follow automatically.
Programming as a craft works well because it tends to force you to learn and explore as a side effect (same for anything scientific really)