6 ms·

>Currently (...) Way to start with a false premise. The meme died out by now[1]. > The phrase “Learn to Code” was initially posted on Twitter after the layoff

• pxc 8y ago
  > the subject was referenced [3] by numerous newspapers and other media outlets back when the economy was tanking, as a helpful suggestion to laid off workers - miners, autoworkers, and so on. lol nope. None of the articles I've seen on the subject were framed as or constituted advice to working class people in any way. In fact, neither do none of the articles you cite. The first article, from Gigaom, is reporting on a statement by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg— news about statements made by a public figure. This is what started the whole meme of considering learning to code as a way of finding work in the context of the decline of other sectors. The second piece is an article about how _everyone_ should learn to code, a common and totally distinct meme that goes around HN quite often. It refers to teaching a new generation of blue collar workers to code via the public school system for the purpose of creating a new layer of coders-as-tradesmen to fill unmet demand for developers in the job market. Again, not about telling working class people in industries under threat to just ‘learn to code’ to solve their problems. The third piece is reporting on a group of coal miners who literally did teach themselves to code and founded a web development consultancy that seeks to retrain and employ people who were not previously tech workers. It addresses the Michael Bloomberg comments in the headline, and examines whether the existence of such a company proves his condescending statement ‘you can't teach a coal miner to code’ is true (it's not). Like all the other pieces, it does not suggest in the slightest that ‘learn to code’ is a universal solution for workers whose jobs are under threat in a changing economy. In fact, the tone of the article sides _with_ the former coal miners it profiles, against the condescension of Bloomberg: > Rusty Justice thought he might know miners a little better than some fancy tycoon in New York did. [...] It was time to go and prove Bloomberg wrong. and at the same time stresses the precarity of the former coal miners striking out on this path, and the uncertainty they themselves express about the long-term viability of the venture they've only just started, and frames scaling this effort up even to a handful more coders as a significant (if surmountable) challenge: > What they’re building in its place is all so fragile and new. Parrish is worried even about the effect of U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez coming to shake the coders’ hands, or reporters like me coming to do stories. “We just don’t want all the notoriety to give the false illusion that we developed all the skills.” > Rusty is less cautious, and thinks they just need to keep digging, keep plowing, keep seeding. The coders are getting it — they’re building websites, closing contracts. “They believe they can do it. That’s the magic.” > Now the challenge is one that’s very typical to startups: how to scale. The narrative you've just reproduced, as well as the entire ‘#learntocode’ meme, of snooty journalists callously advising distressed workers to casually retrain themselves and change careers, is transparently a false one, sustainable only if you refuse to read the actual content of the articles that are allegedly part of it. The reason it's been propagated so widely despite that fact is the role that it plays in an online culture war between alt-right edgelords (and often, their ‘woke centrist’ apologists, à la Joe Rogan and company), including their soft allies on the ‘intellectual dark web’, and their perceived enemies: ‘SJWs’ and ‘intersectional feminism’, as they understand them. They represent the despicable and hegemonic views of an out-of-control leftwing mainstream in the same way as the ‘progressive NPCs’ do to 4chan's /pol/, Anita Sarkeesian does to gamers for whom the insulation of videogames from serious art criticism has resulted in an allergy to even 101-level feminism, and the ‘liberal mainstream media’ does to Trumpian Fox News acolytes. This is about flogging the political and cultural outgroup by any means available, honest or not, and nothing more.
  • dexen 8y ago
    >no, no, no, edgelords and /pol/tards Please consider providing a positive narrative - "this started a trend, this expanded it, that was the result, here's where we are at presently, that's the expected future". Picking apart a succinct and sourced (even if weakly) post is much less convincing. Having been part of the "culture war"[1], I nonetheless couldn't just post my lived experience here, as it wouldn't stand on its own. Thus I went out of my way to build up narrative from supporting sources. It's not exactly how I perceived it personally, but that's the closest version I could support with sources, i.e., as close to objective as I could provide in under 15 minutes or so. -- [1] I'm using different moniker for the purpose, due to the high tensions and the mudslinging involved.
    • etg34525 8y ago
      I'm also looking for sources... and finding none that justify harassing journalists like this. I had this vague recollection of "learn to code" being spouted by different publications. But the more I look into it, the more I think we're just mis-remembering news stories from the time. All I'm finding are articles about Rusty Justice. That's not a journalist telling miners to code. At least not directly. Maybe that's the implicit message. But I think that's reading into it too much. It's a human interest story, not a prescription. I think a lot of people are angry at the media, and looking for anything to validate that anger. There's no shortage of media scandals you could point to. But in this specific case, I'm not seeing evidence. Maybe journalists deserve more credit.
    • pxc 8y ago
      I'd be more interested in the experience that you mentioned, if you're willing to share it. Individual personal experiences aren't compelling in the way that certain arguments can be, but there's also some inherent validity (and for me at least, interest) to them even when if they're not necessarily representative.
  • TheShrug 8y ago
    I appreciate your diligence, but I'm having a real tough time following any argument you are making. I feel like you are receiving downvotes because you come off as sounding secure in your perspective but your arguments appear rather aimless.
• lm28469 8y ago
  > Way to start with a false premise. The meme died out by now Change the dates and look at the graph, I don't think you can say such a trend died by looking at the last 90 days. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%22learn%20to%20code%22 https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%22learn... We still see articles about teaching kids to code, either at home or in school almost weekly on HN.