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Do you really want a giant multinationals addressing issues normally handled by the state? Do you really want google to be so involved in education and housing?

• ForHackernews 6y ago
  Not necessarily. Reading this article I actually find it quite obnoxious that Google would come in and tell HBCU computer science departments to redesign their curricula to focus less on "theoretical" concerns and more on like, Python scripting that G needs from its junior engineers. But it's also worth noting what a dishonest dodge it is for these huge companies posturing like "oh we care so deeply about this issue, but it's a pipeline problem we can't fix!" - as though they can't build whatever pipeline they want to get the candidates they want to get.
  • bko 6y ago
    > But it's also worth noting what a dishonest dodge it is for these huge companies posturing like "oh we care so deeply about this issue, They have to say this. The executives of these large internet companies get dragged in front of congress regularly and some politicians built their entire careers on passing punitive targeted legislation against said companies. > as though they can't build whatever pipeline they want to get the candidates they want to get. That's what they're doing when they're trying to influence the curriculum of computer science departments. As an aside, I remember flipping through AP (high school level) computer science tests and got a kick out of how the state education board tested students. Here's an example Consider the following code segment. List<String> animals = new ArrayList<String>(); animals.add("dog"); animals.add("cat"); animals.add("snake"); animals.set(2, "lizard"); animals.set(3, "fish"); animals.remove(3); System.out.println(animals); What is printed as a result of executing the code segment? (a) [dog, fish, cat] (b) [dog, fish, lizard] (c) [dog, lizard, fish] (d) [fish, dog, cat] (e) The code throws an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException exception. https://www.apcsaexam.org/uploads/1/0/7/7/107712547/ap_sample_questions_from_college_board.pdf https://www.apcsaexam.org/uploads/1/0/7/7/107712547/ap_sampl...
• devwastaken 6y ago
  The private market is exactly who should be funding higher education. Federal government funding has resulted in significant inflation of costs and poor quality of administration and instructors. Education that does not meet the market should fail and be replaced.
• ttz 6y ago
  Yes, if they said they were going to. > whats wrong with our politics Lobbyists, the need for fundraising by officials putting them in the pockets and interests of corporations and entities... do we really want to go there? Corporations and entities have incredible influence in politics; to not acknowledge this would be disingenuous. Politics is driven by money, idealism be damned, and Alphabet has a lot of this. Why shouldn't one expect them (well, their subsidiary, Google) to back up what they said? To be fair, I also understand where you're coming from. I'm from a privileged socioeconomic class, from a tech industry perspective. So it's easy for me to say "I don't want to get into the politics because it doesn't affect me; all I want is reasonable search results and for them to leave me alone". We have (or were able to earn because we had the resources) the baseline privileges and advantages in life that enable us to have this attitude. But some groups still don't, and it's my belief (and hopefully, society's someday) that we should effectively (not just rhetorically or trivially) give them the pathways to level the playing field.