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Teach kids to farm, not code.

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Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#111

Post by coldtea »

VexXtreme wrote: post #59
coldtea wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ok, this is a real low for HN. Are you actually saying that the only thing computing has done for the world is better porn delivery and better commerce? Wow. Do you have any idea how we managed to decode our genome so fast? Any idea that every science labs including maths have computers to test their hypothesis and solve their equations at such a huge scale and speed no human being could possibly dream to match? Ho…

So you're saying that computers and computer science didn't revolutionize the world? They just made people's lives "slightly easier"? What about free instant communication with people who live halfway around the world? What about massive knowledge bases like Wikipedia that never existed on this scale in the past? What about search engines that make every piece of knowledge available to humanity instantly available to…

>I really don't know if you're trolling or you're just being obtuse.

So, people "not getting it" are either obtuse or trolls? I'm over thirty -- not some teenager making internet pranks. As such, I don't troll. I say what I believe. Can you fathom that people can have different standards about what it takes to call something "world-changing"?

Take a Buddhist monk as an extreme example of a different viewpoint. He wouldn't raise an eyebrow for trivial stuff like "instant communication" over the intertubes. Especially knowing the triviality of the majority of such communication. Heck, such a figure would be even unperturbed about normal communication (speaking), preferring meditating silence instead.

Now, I'm not a Buddhist monk. But I'm not a starry-eye millennial optimist either, nor I consider any and every technological advance "progress" in the full sense of the word.

For example, you say:

>What about free instant communication with people who live halfway around the world? What about massive knowledge bases like Wikipedia that never existed on this scale in the past? What about search engines that make every piece of knowledge available to humanity instantly available to you? What about having access to all of that in a small device in your pocket?

Yes, what about all those things? Any real effect on my everyday life?

E.g Has the instant availability of "every piece of knowledge available to humanity" to us made as any more clever? For some, it even made us stupider:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-googl...

Even before "instant availability of everything", e.g even when availability was a problem itself, people knew that it wasn't about the availability but about the distinction. To put it in a little more archaic terms, that the important thing was wisdom, not information.

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#112

Post by lani »

>> Why are programmers granted such high status and wealth in our society for living in a self-created self-indulgent intellectual world of constant escapism

We know the specifics of the answer to this, I'd like to answer this in a general sort of way - in Alvin Toffer's 'Third wave' way of looking at the world, the integrators in a division-of-labour system are its rulers. Programmers give you tools to integrate. Remember, the key themes of the the second wave are :

"The Second Wave Society is industrial and based on mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media, mass recreation, mass entertainment, and weapons of mass destruction. You combine those things with standardization, centralization, concentration, and synchronization, and you wind up with a style of organization we call bureaucracy."

So you see , programmers are actually bureaucracy-engineers, creating the process and flow and channels for the industries of the world to play together

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#113

Post by guard-of-terra »

randomdata wrote: post #76
guard-of-terra wrote: post #8

In 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. A…

> Another problem is that farming doesn't seem very profitable even on the large / capital scale, because the barrier to entry is so low. For what it is worth, I make considerably more money per hour farming than I do programming, and I get paid quite well to be a programmer. With farming, however, the barrier to entry is actually quite high. That barrier being access to capital. It is the massive debt any normal per…

That's because you're a high-tech farmer, aren't you?

Profits - capital = slim margins. If you have some "free" capital then you're lucky.

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#114

Post by walkon »

aroberge wrote: post #102
edw519 wrote: post #78

I don't think we should encourage anyone to do anything. We should discourage them. Let me explain... I take my example from this traditional practice of Rabbis: never accept a convert until they have been turned away twice before. Make them make 3 attempts to show their determination. Why? Because Judaism is hard. If they're not committed, they'll either give up or do just enough to satisify the minimum requirements…

And that's how you keep women away from computing. Yes, let's continue the practice that have lead our industry to lack diversity.

Are you implying that the drive and burning desire described by edw is something women are incapable of feeling towards programming? Or that they need extra hand holding and encouragement to be able to succeed in this field?

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#115

Post by itslogic »

tomjen3 wrote: post #75
Heliosmaster wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why such a desperate trend to make everyone grow their own food again? Because people forgot in a hanfdul of years (that's what it is, compared to the span of human history) what was slowly learned over the course of centuries and millennia. And the result? That kids nowadays almost think that foods magically pops out from the shelf at the supermarket. Specialization (in the sense that nobody does everything, every…

Why does it matter where stuff comes from? I haven't the foggiest idea where my wood flooring came from, where my windows came from, or where my TV came from, nor my water, electricity, or the waste disposal guys who pick up my garbage. Yet for some reason it matters where my food comes from? Really, why?

I don't think it matters to the point you may be thinking. Global collapse where everyone has to grow their own food but as a programmer one of the natural instincts is to be curios and I would imagine you could be somewhat curious to understand where your food comes from. You may also not care at all which is OK.

My wife just the last few years started to grow some food in our backyard and at one point we had chickens, granted our family would not survive on the small crop we gathered or the few eggs we got but seeing our kids (and ourselves) learn what it takes to grow a tomato or a carrot is priceless. Seeing our kids wake up in the morning and take the time to check on the seed they planted or go out to the yard and get their own lettuce and cilantro for their sandwich is priceless. Have our kids see the chicks we bought into full grown chickens and learn where the eggs come is priceless.

We don't expect our kids to become farmers, heck we don't expect us to become a full farming family but it has been great to share moments as a family and learn in the process. It is ok for us to go out to a restaurant once in a while and for a moment not care where the food came from or where our leftovers will end up at.

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#116

Post by marknutter »

edw519 wrote: post #78

I don't think we should encourage anyone to do anything. We should discourage them. Let me explain... I take my example from this traditional practice of Rabbis: never accept a convert until they have been turned away twice before. Make them make 3 attempts to show their determination. Why? Because Judaism is hard. If they're not committed, they'll either give up or do just enough to satisify the minimum requirements…

We're talking about kids here, and I feel like you've turned this discussion into a personal rant against people who want to cash in on the popularity of programming without really putting in the effort. Discouraging kids is a terrible, terrible idea. If my daughter shows even the smallest interest in programming, I will encourage the heck out of that interest. Same goes for anything worthwhile she shows an interest in.

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#117

Post by tartley »

XorNot wrote: post #84
Heliosmaster wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why such a desperate trend to make everyone grow their own food again? Because people forgot in a hanfdul of years (that's what it is, compared to the span of human history) what was slowly learned over the course of centuries and millennia. And the result? That kids nowadays almost think that foods magically pops out from the shelf at the supermarket. Specialization (in the sense that nobody does everything, every…

"You never know". But guess what - the apocalypse is not coming. It didn't come in the 20s, 30s, 40s...you get the picture. There's never an apocalypse coming. And even if there were - you probably won't live through it. And if you do...then the better question is why didn't you stop it in the first place? Farming today has to be a large scale, highly studied and high-yielding enterprise. There's lots of room for imp…

Lots of civilisations have collapsed throughout all of history. Millions of people have starved to death as a result. What makes you think we're somehow immune?

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#118

Post by wazoox »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #109
wazoox wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malthus was exactly right, but he couldn't anticipate the coming industrial revolution and the explosion of energy availability through fossil fuels. There may be an equivalent revolution looming, but I can see no sign of it. For all purposes, Malthus could be right 200 years late. Most people seem to stick to "the system has worked for 350 years, so it must be able to go on indefinitely".

"There may be an equivalent revolution looming, but I can see no sign of it." Plenty of material here: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/index.html

Yes, I know of this one and it's precisely the sort of wishful thinking I was mentioning, particularly the sheer disregard of energy related problems (obviously, everything will be easy for ever if finding energy and getting rid of waste heat has some magical solution). You should study some posts from this for a contradictory POV:

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/

I particularly like the discussion between the "exponential economist and finite physicist":

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-...

Or see also "Galactic Scale Energy" for a quick use of math to kill J. McCarthy arguments:

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e...

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#119

Post by arthurrr »

nmridul wrote: post #79
tomjen3 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter where stuff comes from? I haven't the foggiest idea where my wood flooring came from, where my windows came from, or where my TV came from, nor my water, electricity, or the waste disposal guys who pick up my garbage. Yet for some reason it matters where my food comes from? Really, why?

Take it this way. While playing a computer game, my non-technical friends don't know how the game was written, how the buttons were designed, how the server is handling all those multiple players, or how the protocol handles all the communication. They don't try to see behind the scenes and so they just appreciate the game and nothing more. As a software engineer with whatever limited knowledge I have about those thi…

The more you understand, the more you realize that most people aren't very good at what they do. Not that they are bad at what they do, either. It just takes the magic away.

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#120

Post by aroberge »

walkon wrote: post #114
aroberge wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's how you keep women away from computing. Yes, let's continue the practice that have lead our industry to lack diversity.

Are you implying that the drive and burning desire described by edw is something women are incapable of feeling towards programming? Or that they need extra hand holding and encouragement to be able to succeed in this field?

No, not at all. I'm saying that the elistist attitude described by edw is what got the field in the situation that it is in. Dismissing these new initiatives is, in effect, saying that the status quo is acceptable.
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