Why the “Learn to Code” Meme Is Toxic and Shouldn't Be Used
zeroequalsfalse.press
zeroequalsfalse.press
I admit I haven't wandered through the more dilapidated internet street corners lately, so perhaps it's become toxic due to the sheer volume of use where its no longer something to be seen in good fun, or perhaps we are running low on goodwill as a society to be able to enjoy a joke?
Setting that entire matter aside, the article has (to me) a somewhat tenuous argument that saying the tone deaf joke of 'learn to code' is disrespectful to programmers and the like. I'm not sure about that, but I don't have a coherent reason to articulate that just yet.
Because journalists are better than you. This is the only "reality" the media are interested in pushing forward. It underlies every weird thing coming out of the media in the last few years.
If this was a widespread thing that many journalists spouted, I understand the outcry. If only a few journalists spouted this nonsense, then I don't think it's fair to punish an entire industry over some bad apples.
What I suspect is that the "learn to code" push was more of a society-wide meme trafficked by politicians, economists, and tech CEOs. And I have to imagine that some journalists gave those people a platform. But perhaps I'm looking at the wrong evidence?
EDIT: dexen's post found maybe one example: A Buzzfeed quiz that suggests coding could become the next blue collar profession. That kind of fits the "learn to code" meme. The other articles dexen posted were actually counter to that - An article where Michael Bloomberg said learning to code is unrealistic for many displaced workers, and another article about coal miners proving him wrong.
Is that it? Or are there more examples?
But I definitely remember hearing that message in the media for the last 20 years, and I don't recall anyone calling it "trolling" until it was directed at journalists.
I've wasted the entire morning looking for sources of this by now. Like you, I sort of remembered hearing that message over the years. But now that I'm looking, I'm not actually finding many examples where news outlets are seriously suggesting this.
Have you ever thought you knew something, but end up misremembering it? There are lots of people who swear they remember a movie called Shazzam staring Sinbad as a genie, but there is no such movie. There was a movie called Kazaam staring Shaquille O'Neal, and Sinbad once dressed up in similar garb when hosting a movie showing. But people conflated the two things.
I think that's whats going on. And if so, we should not be harassing journalists who had nothing to do with this.
The whole point is that it wasn't a punishment when some journalists did it, but it's a punishement when some journalists hear it. So, they are full of crap.
But when did they do it? and who? Please send me any evidence you have. I feel like I'm going crazy here. Not finding anything.
Unless you're prepared to apply that "sexism" standard equally, you're being sexist by applying unequal standards.
And those circles do seem to have a lot of overlap with the circles that consider the "Learn to Code" meme "toxic".
We should just be better to each other. Don't fight their ignorance with the same ignorance, it is just making the world a meaner place in my opinion.
James Damore circulated a long unscientific document critical of female engineers as a whole at his place of work. This is far more than just "commenting on career choices".
He made a frankly stupid choice to be unprofessional and it cost him his job. Beyond anything else his judgement was poor. It's fair as is dismissal for other unprofessional behavior at work or for incredibly poor decision making.
This is a great place to talk about something I've observed about academic ideas like these, which I'll call the difference between Academic and Vulgar, by analogy to "Vulgar Libertarianism" and "Vulgar Socialism":
There's a difference between Academic Positions and Vulgar Positions, where Academic Positions are defined as being the ones academics write papers about and Vulgar Positions are the ones average people who support those Positions use in day-to-day discourse, especially in discussions with others. This is a convenient feature: Academic Positions are nuanced and logically defensible, whereas Vulgar Positions are simple, pugnacious, and useful in street-fight debates where you primarily want to shut down the person you're opposed to.
Intersectionality has a Vulgar form: "Check your privilege!" In the Academic sense, that statement is, at most, a gentle reminder to examine the totality of a situation before judging it. In the Vulgar sense, it's a way to shut someone down by stating that they're "privileged" and are, therefore, unworthy of having a judgement at all. In the Academic sense, saying someone is "privileged" is nonsensical, or perhaps tautological, in that everyone has some position where they're privileged and some positions where they're disadvantaged, so saying that a person is privileged is not very meaningful. In the Vulgar sense, "privilege" absolutely does adhere to individuals, and people with "privilege" must never disagree with those without.
Anyway, the Academic form is the only one officially acknowledged to exist, whereas the Vulgar form is the lived experience, the one which drives actions and policies. Therefore, the Vulgar form is never seriously discussed, because when you mention its features, the person you're discussing it with will deny that their philosophy has those features, as, indeed, the Academic form does not.
This isn't motte-and-bailey because there are plenty of people who honestly don't hold the Vulgar position and who would argue against it if someone expressed it to their face. This isn't a tactic, it's the inability of the academic world to communicate their ideas in a nuanced fashion, and the unpalatability of nuanced ideas to people who just want a fight.
Right. This short, low-effort article doesn't seem to be aware of the context of the meme, and how it's just spitting back the very meme that journalists were promoting. Of course if you're not aware of that context, or didn't take the effort to research it, then the meme will seem more trollish and less poetic than it is.
Because you're taking a meme meant for low-income low-prestige men and applying it to members of a high-income high-prestige mixed group.
You are, in short, reducing the status of the journalists to those of unemployed coal miners. Hell, you might as well slap a paper hat on their heads and tell them to man a fryer. It's "problematic" and "toxic" to be reminded that you can fall in the class structure like that.
Yeah, seems off to me too. If there's anything about the whole thing that's disrespectful to programmers, it's that journos think programming as a career path is beneath them.
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 layoffs at BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post.
Way to continue with a false premise.
The phrase was used literally [2], and 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. "Those jobs aren't coming back" and all that. The only concern back then was of practicality, and nobody in their right mind considered it to be a put down of the workes, or of programmers.
Yes, the phrase may seem insensitive from our, programmer's, POV. Nonetheless, there's a historical precedent to it, based off of much wider segment of society than just programmers.
I find it shameful that Twitter, in its infinite wisdom, decided to suppress the accompanying hashtag, and later on even went as far started penalizing the posters. It used to be understood as a good idea back then, it's still considered a good idea now-a-day. I think it was shot down only for the expediency of keeping the journalists a-buzz on Twitter.
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[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&q=...
[2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/should-...
[3] https://gigaom.com/2014/04/09/michael-bloomberg-you-cant-tea... and https://www.wired.com/2015/11/can-you-teach-a-coal-miner-to-...
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...
We still see articles about teaching kids to code, either at home or in school almost weekly on HN.
Not in the slightest bit offended by this. No one should be. It's a silly meme.
They think it's easy, low-effort, and high-paying. To most people, we sit at desks (or play ping pong) all day, type words on keyboards, then collect a five-figure paycheck at the end of the week.
That said, I don't think most people can code very effectively. It requires a person to be generally intelligent, and then to specialize in a narrow part of computer science. "Learn to Code" is great advice, but it should probably be understood that everyone who's being displaced won't become effective coders.
Jesus said "The truth will set you free."[1] The corollary is that lies make you a slave. Ideas can definitely hurt people - especially ideas that are believed.
In this context, the idea that I need to learn to code could be very harmful if I believe it, devote time and money into learning how to code, and find out that I can't code well enough to get a job (or that I hate it). Now I'm out a bunch of time and money that I could have spent learning how to do something else that fit me better.
Even worse is if I conclude that "coding = success, not being able to code = failure", and therefore that I am currently a failure, and a permanent failure if I fail to learn how to code. That can be massively harmful.
The meme itself isn't a big deal. Directing some smack talk at the media is completely fair game. If someone takes the meme seriously, however, it can definitely hurt people. (Don't take career advice from memes. Even more, don't take advice as to your identity or value as a human being from memes.) -- [1] Actually, he said that if you followed his teaching, you would know the truth, and the truth would set you free - it was spiritual truth and spiritual freedom he was talking about. I'm taking his words more broadly than perhaps he meant them.
I think I probably could have caveated a little better, and said something like:
"People are throwing around the word 'toxic' far too freely. I'm worried about over-sensitivity and censorship. Because of these concerns, I'm apt to push back on characterizations that words and ideas are harmful, even if the ideas themselves are flawed and open to criticism. Specifically, flawed ideas that deserve to be criticized can't really hurt you in the way that 'toxic' implies."
Tim Apple himself is saying that colleges are not doing enough to teach folks to code! Acknowledging this underlying reality, even in a somewhat provocative way, is hardly "toxic".
What hurts our industry is the ninja/hero culture where devs burn the midnight oil for no overtime. If you want to be respected as professionals, behave like a lawyer. What would your lawyer say if you told him he needed to do a Saturday night deployment?
Now that journalists are being told to learn how to code to pay their bills, it is controversial.
When blue collar workers faced job shortages due to environmental regulations (I am not arguing those were wrong of course, just putting it into perspective), journalists suggested those workers to "learn to code" in some very insensitive remarks.
Now, those words are being thrown back at journalists facing job shortages themselves.