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What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

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Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#141

Post by jstewartmobile »

bdcravens wrote: post #139
jstewartmobile wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust has to be earned--even for non-felons. After the debt is paid, I think that puts the balance at zero. How many tech firms hire at zero--other than in situations like this limited-time virtue signaling / PR fodder opportunity?

> Trust has to be earned--even for non-felons Yet we hire kids straight out of college or a bootcamp and give them access to production data.

Straight out of college, not straight out of prison for being an accessory to somebody getting loaded with buckshot.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#142

Post by bdcravens »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #81

How would, " What happens after prisoners become accountants / lawyers / bankers... " sound? To me, it says that trust in our profession is interchangeable with that of trained felons. I'd rather not have technically proficient felons near passwords, credit card #s, and other personal information. Edit: I hate to sound like a Calvinist here, but you have to ask yourself how much a change in behavior is due to "rehabi…

This implies that a felon has a criminal mindset and is just looking to commit more crime.

I personally feel the world is safer with felons having access to code and PII (or working in financial roles) and a good salary than it is when they are released and are back in the cycle of desperation -> crime -> incarceration -> release.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#143

Post by bdcravens »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #141
bdcravens wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trust has to be earned--even for non-felons Yet we hire kids straight out of college or a bootcamp and give them access to production data.

Straight out of college, not straight out of prison for being an accessory to somebody getting loaded with buckshot.

That sounds nice and dramatic, but I don't see how a terrible choice someone made 10 years ago says anything about how trustworthy they are with regard to financial or personal information. It seems you're leaving out the assumption: once a criminal, always a criminal.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#144

Post by teucris »

sokoloff wrote: post #83
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>people can value something different than you (less government intervention, less restrictions on speech, lower taxes) for fundamental reasons different than yours // You're right, but in the election run-up people living on minimum wage, who complained we needed a change because of the rich getting too rich, also were convinced that Labour's tax increases were a devastating blow to them personally; tax increases th…

Even with perfect understanding, there are many people who believe along the lines of "the government which governs least governs best." Specifically, if you promised that every year you'd take 5% of the money of everyone richer than me, that I'd get a healthy slice of it, the rest would be spent on programs I approve of, and that there is no possible future in which that new tax would apply to me, I'd still vote aga…

In your hypothetical, what if the 5% tax was presented (with significant evidence) as a way to correct for market distortions that, if left unchecked, would be exploited by those at the top, politically and financially? Would you still want the government to not interfere?

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#145

Post by ufov2 »

burfog wrote: post #93
harimau777 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that a better solution is possible in America's current political climate. As I see it there are basically three approaches that a progressive could take in a policy debate: - Persuasion: I think that you are mistaken as to what is in your best interest, here's why my approach would benefit you more. - Negotiation: Here's how we can work together to find a solution that meets both of our interests. - Zer…

About that "promoting polarization", it takes two to polarize. You too have the option to cave. You are free to end the polarization at any moment. Demonizing the other size is impressively the other way. It's happening whenever you see people flinging words like racist, sexist, fascist, and nazi.

Wrong: demonization is obviously one-sided. Because it alone can drive polarization, polarization is not "two-sided".

Moreover, there is a difference in calling spade a spade, and hate speech.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#146

Post by pas »

travisoneill1 wrote: post #65
Zarath wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The democratic party still hasn't learned from their mistakes of the last election unfortunately.

The condescension isn't really coming from the democratic party. Mostly it's from their allies in the press. The democratic party probably knows what the problem is, but doesn't really know how to deal with it.

Maybe the assumption that its condescending is the problem? Someone some time ago figured out that calling evidence based arguments condescending, and for some reason it stuck.

Maybe because those arguments are not perfect. After all they are messy, based on the complex reality filtered through the ugliness of statistics and bounded rational arguments.

... and The Ugly Orange's tweets and one-liners are gospel, but anything that starts with data is condescending.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#147

Post by koboll »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #5
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…

Government is to govern. Government in most countries is driven by democratic mandates. Democratic mandates are set by influencers. The US’ key influencers are largely regressive and dishonest - and convince people to either not vote - or to vote against their personal best interests[1]. The US government does not currently have a democratic mandate to operate as the social welfare state. Consequently hundreds of tho…

>it's still possible to _objectively_ say that many people vote for ideological or sentimental reasons that appeal to them (which is part of democracy!) with - or without - having done (for example) a spreadsheet comparisons of how each candidate's manifesto politics would affect their cost of living, quality of living, economic expectations, and so on.

I disagree. I'd wager most voters do perform such an analysis, albeit in their heads.

People generally vote for Republicans because they want lower taxes. People generally vote for Democrats because they want better-funded government services. Most voting is really that simple -- people want their lives to cost less, and they vote for the party they think is more likely to deliver that. The ideological trappings are largely post-hoc justifications for why this self-interest is virtuous.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#148

Post by gaogao »

danso wrote: post #98

> * Drew McGahey, the engineering manager at Slack for all three apprentices, was initially struck by their ability to solve what he called “blank-canvas problems”—those that don’t have prescribed solutions. “Thinking back to their experience, it makes a lot of sense,” he said. “They all learned how to code in an environment where they didn’t have access to the internet. They’ve got drive.”* Anyone familiar with cont…

Open-ended design/architecture problems.

For backend, a classic one is how do you design a basic twitter clone that can handle a tweet by a popular person going to their millions of followers.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#149

Post by skrebbel »

faceplanted wrote: post #115
rayiner wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your logical error is assuming that it’s so obvious what “vot[ing] against [one’s] own interests” means. Maybe a stable free market government with a strong cultural and religious framework is in everyone’s interest, and the “massive industry” exists to convince people of that fact?

This was like the archetype of a partisan argument. You two managed to go through why the sides don't like each other's worldview or the way it's expressed, and then stopped the second it came to discussing any real world issues. And I mean both of you as well, you could've given examples and data about why your system might be in anyone's interest but you didn't and it would've been the perfect time for him to reply…

> You two

Who two? Every next comment was written by a different person.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#150

Post by shawndrost »

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…

Hi. I was a cofounder at Hack Reactor, an SF-based coding bootcamp that also provided the first set of curriculum and instructors for The Last Mile. I personally taught many bootcamp students in SF as well as inmates in San Quentin. Everything you're saying about bootcamps and the motives of people running programs like The Last Mile is total malarkey FYI.
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