Biden to Coal Miners: “Learn to Program”
2020 is going to be so much fun.
Telling Journalists to “learn to code” in anticipation of their job losses is enough to get you kicked off Twitter. Seriously.
Joe Biden promised to create a new legion of unemployed blue collar workers to advance the Green New Deal, as we covered in Biden Says Willing to Sacrifice Hundreds of Thousands of Energy Workers for a Green Economy.
Yes.
Don't worry, we got it on tape. #DemDebate https://t.co/4RyQ10b873 pic.twitter.com/WQzboy4XbI
— Andrew Clark (@AndrewHClark) December 20, 2019
Joe has the answer as to how to reeducate those masses. They should learn to code.
But Biden returns to the same point: "Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for God's sake!"
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) December 30, 2019
Via Washington Examiner:
“Anybody who can go down 300 to 3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well,” Biden said Monday during a campaign event in New Hampshire. “Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for god’s sake!”
Democrat Joe Biden: “Anybody who can go down…in a mine sure as hell can learn to program as well…Anybody who can throw coal into furnace can learn how to program for God’s sake”
Biden said @ the Dem debate he'd cut hundreds of thousands of blue collar jobs for "green economy" pic.twitter.com/JIWO2pjr32
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) December 31, 2019
Even liberal media types are not amused. Via New York Magazine, Please Stop Telling Miners To Learn To Code:
God only knows where Biden got the idea that coal mining consists of throwing the stuff into a furnace. That’s not how it works, but I digress. Biden’s recommendation is stale stuff. It’s the kind of rhetoric that will only sway voters whose ideal president is a machine that spits out a white paper from 1998 every time someone pushes a button. Re-training programs for workers in precarious industries have been with us for a long time. So has a specific fixation on the tech industry, as though it’s a cure-all for rural poverty.
But 1998 was a long time ago. It’s evident now that re-training programs – including the ones that teach miners and factory workers and whoever else to code – are not the panacea that technocrats hoped they’d become.
2020 is going to be so much fun.
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Comments
Why bother? You’d only be replaced by an Indian on an H1-B visa. That’s the new trend these days. Thank you American Congress [BOTH PARTIES] for protecting American jobs and STEM students./sarc
Lizzie Warren?
Ducking!
I think a lot of software companies have adopted Joe’s attitude.
He just said he’d give driver’s licenses and citizenship to illegals. I really hope this guy wins the democrat nomination, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.
They can switch to mining BitCoin?
“Get a job on the board of a Ukrainian Energy Company or a Chinese Fir. I’m told there’s no qualifications needed! Easy Peasy, no Malarkey!”
I thought Dens thought “learn to code” was mean.
I think Biden should learn to code. So as a fallback position.
I’d really love to see him try!
Hilarious!
I wonder if Hunter knows how to code?
Probably not. But if dad becomes president, I’m sure he could wrangle a position on the board of Intel or HP.
That’s “codespeak” for “coalminer, you’re screwed.”
Joe, pack it in and go sit by the pool for the rest of your life. You have done nothing substantial with your political career except to make yourself a multi-millionaire. You are a creepy old guy – give it up.
He will probably head to Thailand, were being touchy feely kids is tolerated for a price.
Biden is a Political Hack and a Fool. Plus he’s got the Senility Thing kicking in. LOL
He is not even a man so much as a leisure suit lizard. In eternity, Joe will be less than Arlen Specter. Maybe they can touch cuff links and make grunting sounds, on a certain day, at a certain time, while pretending that it mattered.
Meanwhile, Uncle Joe campaigns like it’s 1999.
Joe Biden, “Let them learn code!”
Marie Antoinette, “Let them eat cake!”
Didn’t work out so well for her…
It is not only an insult to miners, but an insult to programmers to suggest that someone can pick up programming in a few weeks and be good at it.
I’m also sure it is an insult to Universities which offer degrees in computer science or software engineering.
Also any person who is over 35 and been a blue collar worker will have a hard time learning to code. Hell they have to learn to type first. I figure maybe 5% will actually make the transition. Just like someone who first learns the piano at 35 is going to have a hard time learning to be a concert pianist.
Yes there are some programming jobs that can be learned relatively easily. Just like you don’t need an engineering degree to build a bridge over a stream. You do need a degree to build a bridge over the Mississippi though, and building bridges over streams does not pay that well.
damn are you a graduate of the Joe Biden school of public relations
If everyone can learn to code (which I doubt) and enter that labor market it will drive wages in that industry down, probably well below what someone doing a dirty, hazardous job like coal mining can earn.
This is especially true for the kind of “programming jobs” Rod correctly says are relatively easy to learn. (Hint: clicking buttons on a wizard dialog ain’t programming.)
I’m a retired programmer and I can tell you it’s a skill that many otherwise bright people simply don’t have the knack for.
Amusingly, I did once meet a sci-fi writer who insisted that he can teach anyone to be a programmer: There is, he said, nobody who cannot become a competent c++ programmer.
Said sci-writer obviously didn’t know C++.
Presumably he did know C++, since he was tutoring kids, but he did have a reputation for arrogance far beyond what his talents and achievements warrant.
Are you referring to Douglas Adams? His work was more fantasy than Sci-Fi.
No, not Douglas Adams. I’ve met him, and he was a very genial and unarrogant man.
RodFC referred to someone starting piano at age 35 having trouble becoming a concert pianist.
Could someone skilled at piano learn programming in C#?
/ducking
/ducking
[pauses to order full auto Nerf gun]
Was a time “competent C++ programmer” was considered an oxymoron.
There are two different types of programmers, one is just taught programming principles, the other is actually an engineer, someone who takes calculus, statistics, etc.
There is a big difference between the two. In both groups, there is huge variance in their productivity.
I was multidisciplinary, working mostly in electrical engineering, but also had mechanical and architectural.
I started programing at a university using both ALGOL and FORTRAN during middle school. After becoming an engineer, I was designing early microprocessor systems, and at that time engineers had to write code. Due to limited memory, we had to optimize our code and make hardware versus software decisions.
One of the big problems I see today is that most software people lack understanding of hardware and are unable judge hardware-software trade offs.
Those who want be the most employable should bet an actual engineering degree.
Returning to coal miners, how many are capable of learning calculus?
Last, AI is already automating low level programming jobs.
I wonder what magical energy source will be powering those thousands of computers the former coal miners will be coding on?
All the hot air emitted by lefty politicians?
Today Biden is reputed to have said that he would allow all illegals to become citizens and as a prelude, illegals could get driver’s licences if otherwise qualified.
The arrogance of this corrupt POS is amazing. He rivals hillary clinton.
Coding is just dreadful. I wouldn’t be impressed with myself if I offered that as advice to anyone.
Only somebody who doesn’t know how to program would say something so ignorant.
Heck, I’ve met plenty of math PhDs, people who are a lot smarter than me, who prove themselves to be pretty lousy programmers.
That’s been my experience too.
Completely. Tone. Deaf.
On a lighter note, I asked for cash when checking out at a super market with my debit card a few days ago. A $20 bill I received had two arrows drawn on the reverse side, emanating from near the middle of the bill and pointing towards the”20″ in each lower corner. In the middle of the bill, between the origins of the two arrows, the word “Trump.”
Love this!
I liked the 20’s with the red stamp and arrow on the back which said “Trump lives here.” Sadly, they did not go through the self-checkout machines very well.
I think it might be interesting to see just what skills Slow Joe claims to have, besides tricking people into voting him a spot at the trough, that would allow him to earn a living in the real world.
This practice of devaluing what most of the country’s working people do seems to be odd, to me, for a party that claims to be a champion of the working stiff and middle class. How can they see it as a path to victory?
The days of the Democrat party championing the working stiff are gone. Today they champion illegal aliens, criminals, and the sexually deranged.
They also promote Muslims, criminals and other parasites on society.
He has shown some skill at getting prosecutors in foreign countries fired, at least when there’s money at stake.
One problem with teaching ex-coalminers to code is that in many coal-mining areas, there is no broadband.
Joe Biden was always a moron. Now, he is a senile moron.