Slashdot Mirror
Code For America: 'The Peace Corps For Geeks'
rjmarvin writes "Cities are taking coding to the streets through projects like Code for America and CityNext, working with governments on multiple levels to better serve constituents with mobile and cloud technologies. The 'Peace Corps for geeks' is using technology to make everyday life in cities run more smoothly, providing a way to 'connect technologists and designers with their government to solve important problems and reimagine how government could work.'"
Worth a mention:
http://www.iesc.org/geekcorps
Fixed that for you.
Although I don't believe it.
Some small things will get done if they take money from people who would do better stuff and use it to do stuff that these central planners think of, but really the reason the Peace Corps can do some good is that most of the work requires minimal training; if they get a bunch of post-high-school kids who think they can code but don't have any ideas for their own better projects, they're not going to get a very good product out of it.
"Coding Corps?"
Sure! Solve the worlds problems and feed the poor, unshackle the chains of oppression!
With some code!
Sure...
No, you're missing the point. The Government is supposed to provide all of those things. The Government takes a little more of our money, and in exchange we don't have to worry about those needy people.
Just think about it... one day we won't need charities or shelters. The Government will do it all.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Yes, i'm the one that has taken a course on Python, did Codecademy, learnpythonthehardway.org, etc person. Why did i give up at it? Because code is not written for humans, its written for obsessive compulsive people, programmers it seems.
All these sites are find and dandy if you are already young and learning is awesome to you, but for the average person in the world, they just won't get it.
Programming is not going to change the world, or make governments better. Thats people you have to change, that is not something even a program will ever fix.
The current predominate sentiment is that government is the enemy and needs to fail. Serving constituents is another word for socialism. What we need is massive cutbacks to government IT budgets and malware targeted towards the government to aid its collapse. Call it the Grover Norquist Pledge for geeks.
Yes, there's lots of things Code for America could do with free coding labor. "Do it for America! Do it for Free!"
Who do you think pays for the Peace Corps? Or more accurately, AmeriCorps?
young amateur coders, poorly supervised, critical infrastructure on the back end...
And you think the horde of government IT contractors making millions off this line of work are just going to abide by this?
>>working with governments on multiple levels to better serve constituents
Ah, youth.
Young, idealistic, naive, and easily duped.
America & Peace in the same sentence.
Shhhhh, this is Slashdot, not Sparta
Table-ized A.I.
As if lowball wages and race to the bottom aren't enough, now the USA wants coders to work for free.
Not to mention that the troll is overlooking the fact that a lot of Peace Corps jobs in more developed countries (Eastern Europe etc.) include setting up I.T. infrastructure. Not all peace corps members are sleeping in the dirt and being raped by filthy savages.
But it looks like even Domestic Geek programs won't see any funding, as America is too busy starting illegal wars for Israel. Forward, MARCH!
-- Ethanol-fueled
Or let you enjoy a bout of Cholera or bring Amoebic dysentery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoebic_dysentery home as wonderful reminders of digging latrines for people who look at you funny and still just squat and shit in the street.
Peace Corps is not all roses and feel good happy. A LOT of the people you help resent your help and continue to live in unsanitary ways because they are used to squatting in a bowl and throwing it out the window at the neighbors. You cant bring civilization to people that do not want it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
At best it's AmeriCorps for geeks. Peace Corps is a much different level of commitment. There are geeks in the Peace Corps, so really, Peace Corps is already "Peace Corps for geeks".
I spent a LOT of time helping needy people. While there are a LOT of people that need out of real reasons and want the help, there are a LOT more that are just sponges looking for a handout. And we are to ignore the fact that the single mom with 3 kids that really needs 2 loaves of bread, but instead hand out one loaf to each even the ones that are obvious not in need. Back in the 80's over HALF of what we did to help went to the local military either directly, or they just stole it from the people we gave it to.
Want to help people really in need? Send in special assassination teams with silenced guns (to hell with nato and the Geneva convention) to quietly kill most small country military leaders and warlords. THAT will solve their problems.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
where I can snap a photo of bump in a road, a sprayed wall or broken city light, and post it there to create a ticket that I will see assigned to specific administrative person and can see the whole progress until it is resolved. This one, simple thing would be transformational enough in terms of increased accountability that I cannot fathom any government deciding to implement such a thing.
And even if it produced useful stuff that worked well, it would stop dead when the patent trolls got involved.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
okay lets try this we have
KONG: good with breaking things and glaring at other things (plus hes good with heavy lifting)
MIKE: carpenter/general contractor
JOHN: electrician
SAUL: hes a talker and good with arranging "things"
BOB: pure geek and can throw together networks that are "bullet proof"
what you do is put them and some supplies in C-130 and fly them out to Randomstan. When they land
KONG can help with digging trenches and moving stuff around (until he is needed for "other" things. SAUL can talk with the local Important Folks to try to ensure KONG is not needed for "other" things. MIKE and JOHN can do the building stuff. After the Power situation is sorted out BOB can get busy finding out how Bullet Proof his Skillz are (and be tool monkey for MIKE and JOHN).
(note for those playing KONG: your coworkers don't need any bullet holes)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
I disagree, people should do what they are good at. It's not the best thing to ask a surgeon to go out on the fields to work as a farmer just to "feed the hungry". Programmers should write programs and Linux/UNIX engineers should design, architect and construct systems.
That the poor people need is knowledge, trade, business and markets. IT can provide this, like auction markets where farmers and shopowners can put bid and ask prices on grains, meats, etc. Where people with useful skills can market their services to those who need the services, mechanics, metalworkers, woodworkers, carpenters, plumbers, construction, trucktransporters, etc. Via IT you can also teach usefull skills to these poor people.
Yeah, we all like to pretend the the Peace Corps is some sort of egalitarian organization, but it's not. They don't just accept anyone. You have to have a sterling resume and be a graduate of a good Eastern university to even have a chance. If you have FFA, 4-H Club, or ROTC in your high school extracurriculars, you need not apply. These are dead giveaways for the wrong kind of politics, the kind the Peace Corps doesn't support. Having a Peace Corps for Geeks is just more resume-polishing for the 1%. Seriously, fuck those people.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Just open it up for someone else to pick up the gun from the dead bodies and fill the power vacuum. Shit holes will be shit holes. You kill one asshole and a new one takes his place.
Source to cite that they don't accept "FFA, 4-H Club, or ROTC in your high school extracurriculars". Or does belief in that just make you feel good?
Just keep on killing assholes. Give our servicemen a cash bounty for each one killed.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Absolutely true, but what's your point?
Peace Corps specifically does a long pre-volunteer process to get local support for the work. The people may not care about the volunteers' work, but the local chief does, and they'll listen to him. The locals understand that the volunteers are trying to help, and they're bound by the local customs to accept it. Sure, there are some funny looks, but once that granary protects the crops from rodents and other thieves, it's appreciated. Finally, starvation is less of a problem in the village, and the locals accept help.
No, it's not all roses and happiness. Nobody ever said it was. It's usually hard work in some of the harshest climates on Earth, trying to work through corrupt governments and isolationist locals. Sometimes, it outright sucks. You see people mistreated or dying, and you can't do anything about it because the customs demand it. Then other days, you see someone benefiting from your work, and they have a better future because of it. That's the moment that makes it worthwhile.
You have to realize that volunteering isn't about solving the world's problems. Giving a village a granary or teaching better farming techniques isn't going to magically make everything better. Once your project's complete, you know it might be destroyed by a civil war next year. Ultimately, you can't bring civilization to people who don't want it. That's not the real point of the project, though.
The locals aren't uncivilized. They aren't savages who need Western technology to save them from their heathen ways. They're people. They're people who, for various people-related reasons, have a harder life than they could. The Peace Corps and other volunteer organizations exist not to mold them to our ways, but to offer them a better life, and hopefully inspire a peaceful search for a brighter future. If that one granary inspires a local to learn about safer food handling, they might be able to promote using a new latrine, or even convince street vendors to wash their hands before preparing food. With less disease and starvation, they can move up Maslow's Hierarchy, and worry less about whether they'll die tomorrow or not.
Volunteers don't bring civilization to the world. They bring the world to civilization.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
You're forgetting that those "assholes" carry the support of their followers, often because of promises that they'll wipe out the Other Guys (Jews, Communists, Taliban, homosexuals, Republicans) who are the ones really causing the problems. In the locals' eyes, those warlords are legitimate leaders, and now America's just killing them off to further its own oppressive regime.
Pretty soon, our well-compensated servicemen have just exterminated half a country for the capital crime of wanting to be free from the influence of the Other Guys. At least then we'll know who the real assholes are.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I fail to understand how anyone could live in downtown san francisco on $35K for 11 months. Additionally are they doing some type of student loan forgiveness for participating in this program? Why would any programmer want to do this?
People forget about that. Despite popular belief, the internet isn't just a source of ultra-porn, it also has information about how to grow crops more efficiently and fix your own equipment.
Why? Because:
1) "cloud", it's usually nothing but a vendor lock in
2) executed by companies with no interested in empowering the community
The people will not get better by these projects. Remember: the government is there to serve the people.
The self-imposed American government of the (The North) is not very respected among the people with more than half a brain. No money, no free work. I guess that smart coders would rather code for the world in an open source way, instead of coding for one corrupt system that is breaking their lives in numerous ways. Why Shouldn't I Work for the NSA? (Good Will Hunting) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOZllbNarw
~ Best man at your service.
Whoever wrote "Peace Corps for geeks!" simultaneously fails to understand what the Peace Corps does and perpetuates the off-handed insult of technology professionals. Incidentally, based upon my time spent visiting a friend in the Peace Corps, I would say the Peace Corps is already "the Peace Corps for geeks!".
now you want it for free, after screwing us over for 25 years ?
good luck with that.
jr
Peace Corps volunteers do not work inside the US.
Reading the site was like attending the worst kind of corporate marketing powerpoint presentation imaginable - the buzzword bingo buzzer went haywire within seconds.......
Maybe, offering some technical detail on standard platforms, open source frameworks, specific projects that could be useful everywhere (and maybe not just in the USA) would be a lot faster at generating enthusiasm and the sort of critical mass necessary for something like this to succeed?
Just a thought (or 2)
taking coding to the streets
Most of us call that "getting fired".
http://www.thebaffler.com/past/the_meme_hustler
Want to do actual good with code? Write free software then. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
So who is going to maintain this? This sounds like a great idea until you start to look at the entire lifecycle of a custom product ...
But if the Government supplants charities and eliminates shelters, how long before it says, "We know all about taking care of people... we'll just start caring for you too...