Biden tells coal workers to learn code for future jobs

[cyclone24 1,814]

Wow did not see this quote or story. What an insane thing to say.  Way to alienate an extraordinarily proud and extraordinarily hard working segment of our population. Why not just ask the school secretary to become a marine. 

 It's almost like these guys are just handing trump bullets to shoot them with.

[sderk 1,040]

53 minutes ago, cyclone24 said:

Wow did not see this quote or story. What an insane thing to say.  Way to alienate an extraordinarily proud and extraordinarily hard working segment of our population. Why not just ask the school secretary to become a marine. 

 It's almost like these guys are just handing trump bullets to shoot them with.

It's crazy. Biden may as well just say "Go back to school for the next 4-8 years and figure out what you want to do with the rest of your lives. Next topic!".

[cyclone24 1,814]

5 minutes ago, sderk said:

It's crazy. Biden may as well just say "Go back to school for the next 4-8 years and figure out what you want to do with the rest of your lives. Next topic!".

Exactly.   Hey sorry I know this is like a generational family type thing with you coal miners but we want to put you out of a job. Maybe go into something you don't want to do instead?

[EternalShinyAndChrome 2,513]

1 minute ago, cyclone24 said:

Exactly.   Hey sorry I know this is like a generational family type thing with you coal miners but we want to put you out of a job. Maybe go into something you don't want to do instead?

Why coding? Why not make the transition to stock broker? Or CEO?

[Hardcore troubadour 12,626]

Just now, EternalShinyAndChrome said:

Why coding? Why not make the transition to stock broker? Or CEO?

Or consultant for an energy conglomerate in the Ukraine? A coal miner has more energy experience than Biden’s crackhead son. 

[EternalShinyAndChrome 2,513]

2 minutes ago, Hardcore troubadour said:

Or consultant for an energy conglomerate in the Ukraine? A coal miner has more energy experience than Biden’s crackhead son. 

Maybe Biden actualky said " learn to do coke " instead of learn to code?

[sderk 1,040]

Maybe Biden just finished reading the Da Vinci Code and thought to himself "How cool would that be to have a job like Robert Langdon? I need to work that into my speech. People will eat that up."

[EternalShinyAndChrome 2,513]

Coding requires having to think logically.

That's going to eliminate most women working in the coal industry right off the bat.

Does Joe Biden have any other recommendations for them?

[Voltaire 4,556]

10 hours ago, kilroy69 said:

This is bullshit. Anyone can code with enough training. Anyone. 

False false false.

I'd love to return to Michigan and get one of your $125K jobs but I know with 100% certainty that I cannot do this.

[sderk 1,040]

22 minutes ago, EternalShinyAndChrome said:

Does Joe Biden have any other recommendations for them?

Biden would say, "I don't know much about women, but my mother used to make a damn good pee-can pie. I remember when she used to rub the fuzz on my butt cheeks. I also loved it when the neighborhood kids would feel the curly hairs on my body with their little hands. Then they would bounce in my lap. I love that to this day. Those miners should be coders. Is that your daughter? Let me give her a hug."

[kilroy69 994]

7 minutes ago, Voltaire said:

False false false.

I'd love to return to Michigan and get one of your $125K jobs but I know with 100% certainty that I cannot do this.

You don't think that with a concentrated course at 40 hours a week for a a year you could learn to code at a level that could get you a SPECIFIC  job? I actually have more faith in you that that. 

 

When I say anyone can do it I am exaggerating of course. That being said I fully believe that given the right training that a large part of the population can be re-skilled. 

[Hardcore troubadour 12,626]

Does anyone think that if coal mining was done by blacks instead of white men that the left would attack this industry like they do? Not a chance. 

[Voltaire 4,556]

15 minutes ago, kilroy69 said:

You don't think that with a concentrated course at 40 hours a week for a a year you could learn to code at a level that could get you a SPECIFIC  job? I actually have more faith in you that that. 

 

When I say anyone can do it I am exaggerating of course. That being said I fully believe that given the right training that a large part of the population can be re-skilled. 

MY GI Bill money is long gone and even if a course were offered for free, I'm still intimidated as all hell after a lifetime of failure after failure after failure trying to figure computer stuff out. Plus,I can't take a year off work to try and most likely fail at doing this anyway.

I will keep this in mind however, I wouldn't mind sending my kids your way.

[kilroy69 994]

Just now, Voltaire said:

MY GI Bill money is long gone and even if a course were offered for free, I'm still intimidated as all hell after a lifetime of failure after failure after failure trying to figure computer stuff out. Plus,I can't take a year off work to try and most likely fail at doing this anyway.

I will keep this in mind however, I wouldn't mind sending my kids your way.

Why not learn with your kids now at a basic kids level?  You can make it a game? 

[Strike 3,957]

9 hours ago, Strike said:

How much time have you actually spent coding? 

Bump for Kilroy.  LOL

[kilroy69 994]

11 minutes ago, Strike said:

Bump for Kilroy.  LOL

Sorry. I have a basic knowledge of java. Thats not the point. The point is that given a 40 hour a week course for a year with the intent of teaching someone 1 single language is not something that is rocket science or something that can't be done if it was wanted. Again I am not saying that actually everyone can do this but why not try instead of just dismissing it because its just a bunch of dumb rock diggers?  The idea of an apprentice program is crazy to you guys which blows my mind. 

I am an IT recruiter. I do not claim to be a programmer. What I claim is that I wish to see more US citizens go that route and not force me to use h1bs that are lying anyway. 

 

THE LARGE AMOUNT OF H1B'S HAVE NO SKILLS AT ALL. NONE.  I would rather hire a dumb coal miner that can communicate clearly in English that is a lower skilled programmer than an H1 that is lying anyway about their 8 years of experience with a graduation date of last year working on technologies for 5 years that came out last month. 

[vuduchile 1,941]

4 minutes ago, kilroy69 said:

Sorry. I have a basic knowledge of java. Thats not the point. The point is that given a 40 hour a week course for a year with the intent of teaching someone 1 single language is not something that is rocket science or something that can't be done if it was wanted. Again I am not saying that actually everyone can do this but why not try instead of just dismissing it because its just a bunch of dumb rock diggers? 

I am an IT recruiter. I do not claim to be a programmer. What I claim is that I wish to see more US citizens go that route and not force me to use h1bs that are lying anyway. 

Programmers with JAVA knowledge were a hot commodity back in 2000ish when I worked in HR consulting  

That’s 20 solid years of excellent earning potential for someone who’d taken time to learn it. 

Actuaries were also heavily recruited back then and likely still are.  

 

[Voltaire 4,556]

3 minutes ago, kilroy69 said:

Why not learn with your kids now at a basic kids level?  You can make it a game? 

In 2000 or 2001 when I was at wit's end and living with my mother going nowhere, substitute teaching, maybe this would have made more sense to try. Instead I I came to China and have spent eighteen years teaching English to kids. And it's worked in that I'm making a good living providing for my family. And I like doing it, it's not a problem.

My problem is my son. The Chinese school system piles kids with homework and kids have no time to play. My daughters (so far) can handle it, but my son is being ground under.  The homework is in Chinese, I can't help him, my wife's idea of 'help' is to constantly berate him until he cries. I'd rather get him in a US school. But if I return to the US, I'm still not any more qualified for work now than I was when I left. Also, I'm 48 now rather than 29 (with computer skills beyond abysmal.)

Also, I think I'm stuck here. My attitude always was "Well if China gets too stupid, I'll leave." Then I bought an apartment with a mortgage, although that's nearly paid off now and I can sell it. But now, I've also dumped my life savings into a school. That is not so easily sold. The biggest reason it grows and makes money is that I have round eyes and a perfect American accent. I'm irreplaceable. There are almost no foreigners here which means to sell/walk away from the school is to destroy it. Maybe. I might be able to sell it online, there could be somebody like I was up until five years ago, a foreigner in China wanting my own school, I wouldn't know how to meet that person. I wasn't planning on looking for one until I was 65 or so.

My oldest is 12, son almost 11, and the youngest is 6. They're overwhelmed with school stuff, and likely will learn this at school, but could potentially do an hour or two on the weekends for classes similar to mine in that I teach English when Chinese kids have free time.

I went in the Army to pay for college, then didn't find good work. A big waste of time and effort and shitty jobs that made me miserable and got me nowhere. I do like my liberal arts degree. It was fun and it pays off in my cognitive ability even if it doesn't pay off my bills. I love liberal arts but now the colleges don't even teach liberal arts anymore; they replaced it with PC bullsh*t. Some pink haired freak teaching Gender Studies. Instead of Shakespeare, you get lesbian interpretive Shakespeare set in a Chicago ghetto. Instead of being illuminated learning to love liberty with Immauel Kant, John Locke, and John Stewart Mill, you get turned into a brain dead Marxist with dim bulbs like fuckoff Foucault and suck my ass Derrida. Ugly ass art that a first grader can do, means nothing, and looks like a phillybear crime scene. That's the Post-Modernist crap shoveled onto kids that passes for liberal arts these days. For earning potential, they're better off in STEM anyway but turning the liberal arts into a wasteland is tragic, kids like I was aren't very good at STEM.

[FlyinHeadlock 459]

I'm a Vet myself but my saying has always been, do not let other create circumstances for you. Create your own circumstances.

If you want out then get out. Won't be easy but it's your choice. Either accept that circumstance or create the one you want or die trying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Voltaire 4,556]

7 minutes ago, FlyinHeadlock said:

I'm a Vet myself but my saying has always been, do not let other create circumstances for you. Create your own circumstances.

If you want out then get out. Won't be easy but it's your choice. Either accept that circumstance or create the one you want or die trying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've done eighteen years of this and can easily do another seventeen until I hit 65. Especially now, with the school set up, I'm reaping the seeds I'd sewn earlier.

It's just my son... aarrrggh! Poor kid has another 7 1/2 years of this.

One upside of Chinese schools and Chinese culture is that even though he cries so frequently, I don't have to worry about him becoming gay or transgender. Another big thing I use to worry about is Communist Party propaganda, but not so much anymore, most all of the adults I know went through the system and they recognized it as bullshit along the way. It seems to me that kid in Chinese schools is more likely to have a positive opinion of the US than a kid in US schools. The Chinese Communist Party is authoritarian but it isn't communist. My MIL's generation saw starvation and famine first hand as children, know what communism is like, and are so the whole population is fully vaccinated against it.

Critical thinking skills aren't developed here, I wonder if they still are in the US. Surely not at any of the school systems I could afford to live in.

[FlyinHeadlock 459]

Back to the topic and that is Biden is finished. He complains about the dumbest that has no bearing on anything. Coal miners are not a problem. It's the costs of healthcare, which by the way the ACA was suppose to fix. It didn't fix anything. It's worse!  There was no savings for Americans. We pay more now than ever and we have less options and this is mainly the middle class. We got crushed by the ACA.

Then he talks about children. Ok. Then why isn't Hunter paying child support for that baby. The kid is almost 2 years old and he hasn't paid a dime. If I knocked up some stripper and I didn't pay child support in a year my ass would be an a effin jail cell.

Screw this guy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JustinCharge 2,397]

23 hours ago, fandandy said:

Everyone is not smart enough to code.  This country needs relatively decent-paying jobs that require more brawn than brains such as digging coal out of the ground.  That said, skills such as coding need to be taught in our schools from an early age along with the skilled trades.  My daughter a few years ago was still having to memorize the state capitals.  WTF?  Such useless information.

actually, rote learning is critical to proper brain development.  by training a child's brain to remember things when they are young, they will go thru life with better recall skills.  that gives them a leg up on everyone else as an adult because they will be operating with a better knowledge base than others.  i preferred rote learning all the way up thru college and as i got older, i definitely noticed a difference between me and my peers in general recall ability on everything in life.  sometimes people think i must have done extensive studying on a topic to make comments but honestly i just read or hear something once and remember / recall it instantly.

[Frozenbeernuts 1,652]

On 1/1/2020 at 9:11 AM, kilroy69 said:

He IS dumb. His statement is not. 

Im betting most people who work in those jobs do not have the base intelligence to become a programmer. I think that people tend to underestimate how many seriously unintelligent beings there are in this country, especially in the south.

[jerryskids 5,191]

6 minutes ago, Frozenbeernuts said:

Im betting most people who work in those jobs do not have the base intelligence to become a programmer. I think that people tend to underestimate how many seriously unintelligent beings there are in this country, especially in the south.

There is a lot of fact and fiction in this thread; this is one of the fictions IMO.  

I have had a lot of debates on this site with our old welcher Chronic Husker about nature vs. nurture; I tend to take the nurture side with the belief that with "10,000 hours" of deliberate practice most people can achieve mastership in most intellectual endeavors.  I have also experienced on numerous occasions what GW Bush famously described as "the soft bigotry of low expectations" -- people who are quite intelligent but grew up never even considering college.  In this respect I agree with kilroy.

However, 10,000 hours is a lot of hours.  To use a chess analogy for programming, a person can learn the rules of chess much like they can learn the language of Java.  But a chess master looks at a board and doesn't see pieces, he sees groupings, strategies, etc.  Similarly a master programmer can abstract from the code and see the big picture.  

There is another issue with age.  Children learn things much faster (e.g., languages) much easier than adults.  Their brains are designed to do so. 

I agree with the basic premise that we need to accelerate the conversion of our society to a STEM-centric one.  But it won't happen overnight, and it won't happen very much with older folks.  

[kilroy69 994]

24 minutes ago, Frozenbeernuts said:

Im betting most people who work in those jobs do not have the base intelligence to become a programmer. I think that people tend to underestimate how many seriously unintelligent beings there are in this country, especially in the south.

I just believe even dumb people can learn a specific skill. I am not saying these people would turn out to be some type if diamond in the rough wizz kid.I am saying they would be replacement level with the liars of the IT world who have just as much experience with their 8 year resumes. 

 

That sounds crazy to you guys? 

[Strike 3,957]

18 minutes ago, kilroy69 said:

I just believe even dumb people can learn a specific skill. I am not saying these people would turn out to be some type if diamond in the rough wizz kid.I am saying they would be replacement level with the liars of the IT world who have just as much experience with their 8 year resumes. 

 

That sounds crazy to you guys? 

Yes, because you're wrong.  Programming, much like math, takes a certain way of thinking.  A lot of people don't think that way, and nothing you do or say is going to change that.  In college I was a math and CS whiz kid who tutored those subjects on the side for money, so I think I'm pretty qualified to comment on this.  I'd love to know more about your background in java programming though.  From what I remember, you were a low level manager at some meat farm or something before becoming an I.T. recruiter.  So I'm a little skeptical that you have enough background in understanding the requirements of being a good programmer to comment on this. 

To one of Jerry's points, I haven't used advanced Math in decades.  A friend of mine, who is still a Math tutor, thinks I could pick it right back up if I was so inclined.  And I've still got the books if I wanted to.  But the idea scares the fock out of me.  I don't think that my mind would pick it up as I did my late teens/early twenties and I'd be frustrated and pissed at myself for not being able to at this age.  I mean, I'm sure if I really wanted to I could but it would take a lot longer and be a lot more frustrating.  Since I don't have the need for it I don't even try.  You aren't going to take a 50 year old coal miner and teach him how to be a programmer in a year.  You might succeed 5% of the time. 

[edjr 5,556]

14 hours ago, kilroy69 said:

You don't think that with a concentrated course at 40 hours a week for a a year you could learn to code at a level that could get you a SPECIFIC  job? I actually have more faith in you that that. 

 

When I say anyone can do it I am exaggerating of course. That being said I fully believe that given the right training that a large part of the population can be re-skilled. 

   Certain people were born with the capacity to do certain jobs. Not everyone is wicked smaht or can comprehend certain things. World will always need ditch diggers as my dad used to say.

[Bert 1,091]

47 minutes ago, Frozenbeernuts said:

Im betting most people who work in those jobs do not have the base intelligence to become a programmer. I think that people tend to underestimate how many seriously unintelligent beings there are in this country, especially in the south and the Twin Cities.

[edjr 5,556]

1 minute ago, Bert said:

[Strike 3,957]

5 minutes ago, edjr said:

   Certain people were born with the capacity to do certain jobs. Not everyone is wicked smaht or can comprehend certain things. World will always need ditch diggers as my dad used to say.

Your Dad was Judge Smails? 

[Frozenbeernuts 1,652]

I started doing computer programming in college. The other students in my field were so far advanced in math than I was, and I was always pretty decent at sub calculus level math. Calculus on the other hand, it just didn't come easy. Whereas I personally new multiple people starting at calculus 3 and thinking it was a joke they had to even take it at all. I ended up not liking programming, but it was also difficult for me. 

How long until programs start writing themselves?

[Strike 3,957]

53 minutes ago, Frozenbeernuts said:

I started doing computer programming in college. The other students in my field were so far advanced in math than I was, and I was always pretty decent at sub calculus level math. Calculus on the other hand, it just didn't come easy. Whereas I personally new multiple people starting at calculus 3 and thinking it was a joke they had to even take it at all. I ended up not liking programming, but it was also difficult for me. 

How long until programs start writing themselves?

Already happening to an extent.

[MTSkiBum 1,594]

12 minutes ago, Strike said:

Already happening to an extent.

 

We use code generation software for almost all of our business objects, managers, and procedures.

 

I have not used much entity framework, but from my understanding it also generates alot of that backend code.

[iam90sbaby 2,124]

2 hours ago, jerryskids said:

There is a lot of fact and fiction in this thread; this is one of the fictions IMO.  

I have had a lot of debates on this site with our old welcher Chronic Husker about nature vs. nurture; I tend to take the nurture side with the belief that with "10,000 hours" of deliberate practice most people can achieve mastership in most intellectual endeavors.  I have also experienced on numerous occasions what GW Bush famously described as "the soft bigotry of low expectations" -- people who are quite intelligent but grew up never even considering college.  In this respect I agree with kilroy.

However, 10,000 hours is a lot of hours.  To use a chess analogy for programming, a person can learn the rules of chess much like they can learn the language of Java.  But a chess master looks at a board and doesn't see pieces, he sees groupings, strategies, etc.  Similarly a master programmer can abstract from the code and see the big picture.  

There is another issue with age.  Children learn things much faster (e.g., languages) much easier than adults.  Their brains are designed to do so. 

I agree with the basic premise that we need to accelerate the conversion of our society to a STEM-centric one.  But it won't happen overnight, and it won't happen very much with older folks.  

Did you hear about the guy that did that?  Some guy quit his job, decided to put the you can master anything in 10,000 theory to the test, ends up becoming an amateur golfer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_McLaughlin_(golfer)

[Masshole 642]

15 hours ago, Voltaire said:

 I do like my liberal arts degree. It was fun and it pays off in my cognitive ability even if it doesn't pay off my bills. I love liberal arts but now the colleges don't even teach liberal arts anymore; they replaced it with PC bullsh*t. Some pink haired freak teaching Gender Studies. Instead of Shakespeare, you get lesbian interpretive Shakespeare set in a Chicago ghetto. Instead of being illuminated learning to love liberty with Immauel Kant, John Locke, and John Stewart Mill, you get turned into a brain dead Marxist with dim bulbs like fuckoff Foucault and suck my ass Derrida. Ugly ass art that a first grader can do, means nothing, and looks like a phillybear crime scene. That's the Post-Modernist crap shoveled onto kids that passes for liberal arts these days. For earning potential, they're better off in STEM anyway but turning the liberal arts into a wasteland is tragic, kids like I was aren't very good at STEM.

Solid rant.   Well done 

[jerryskids 5,191]

2 hours ago, iam90sbaby said:

Did you hear about the guy that did that?  Some guy quit his job, decided to put the you can master anything in 10,000 theory to the test, ends up becoming an amateur golfer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_McLaughlin_(golfer)

A few things.  One, I specifically qualified it with "intellectual" endeavors.  Two, I'd need to see what his "deliberate practice" was. 

[lickin_starfish 1,480]

If I lost my job, I'd just sit on my ass and collect the $1K that Yang is gonna give to me.

[MTSkiBum 1,594]

31 minutes ago, jerryskids said:

A few things.  One, I specifically qualified it with "intellectual" endeavors.  Two, I'd need to see what his "deliberate practice" was. 

What the guy did was incredibly impressive, he went from never having golfed to being a scratch golfer. It kind of proves your point.

[sderk 1,040]

5 minutes ago, MTSkiBum said:

What the guy did was incredibly impressive, he went from never having golfed to being a scratch golfer. It kind of proves your point.

Just think, with 10,000 hours of full time intense study, a bunch of coal workers can turn themselves into amateur programmers. 

[EternalShinyAndChrome 2,513]

20 hours ago, sderk said:

Biden would say, "I don't know much about women, but my mother used to make a damn good pee-can pie. I remember when she used to rub the fuzz on my butt cheeks. I also loved it when the neighborhood kids would feel the curly hairs on my body with their little hands. Then they would bounce in my lap. I love that to this day. Those miners should be coders. Is that your daughter? Let me give her a hug."

I feel like taking a shower after reading that.  That's f0cking creepy.