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Michael Bloomberg: You Can't Teach a Coal Miner To Code
theodp (442580) writes "Gigaom reports that while speaking at the Bloomberg Energy Summit on Wednesday, former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he gives 'a lot of money to the Sierra Club' to help close dirty coal plants, but added that as a society we have to 'have some compassion to do it gently.' Subsidies to help displaced workers are one option, said Bloomberg, while retraining is another option. But, in a slight to the tech industry's sometimes out-of-touch nature with workers outside of Silicon Valley, he said retraining needs to be realistic, 'You're not going to teach a coal miner to code,' argued Bloomberg. 'Mark Zuckerberg says you teach them to code and everything will be great. I don't know how to break it to you... but no.'"
Additionally, this is a false dichotomy. A coal miner might not be interested in coding, or suited for it, but he might be great at putting engines into the new model Tesla. It's the TOTAL number of high-paying jobs that's important, and people tend to gravitate to what they like. I could never imagine working nine to five on an auto assembly line, but that's what people did 50 years ago at GM, for $20 an hour before the cheap labor conservatives came along and crapped in the punch bowl.
Focus on the important things. Tie the H-1B visa allocation to unemployment, so that if unemployment is above say 6%, the visa quota goes to zero. Put the screws down on trade with China and India. There will be plenty of non-coding jobs for coal miners. We've tried "free trade" for the last thirty years, ask a 22 year old on their 500th resume submission how well that's worked out for us.
Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.
Then there's those of us who can code in an almost-trancelike state, but rarely get the opportunity because companies these days have all embraced the "open plan work environment" that the ADHD Under-30 crowd loves so much, and which makes it completely impossible to get into a proper mental state to do any serious coding because every time some person walks by our desk or has a loud conversation directly behind us we lose our concentration.