I think the point the author is trying to make is that there are many problems in plain sight we could be spending our efforts on, and instead we are chasing illusory profits by putting so many resources into developing AI features. AI is not the source of the issues, but rather a distraction of great magnitude.
> Hence, this nice physical face-to-face meeting, a supposed benefit of returning to the office, does not materialize.
It does in my experience. 1 on 1s and small meetings often do have all of the attendees present, especially when in-office days are designated. Some meetings do have people attending virtually, but a good conference room setup with large screens and good interfaces for conferencing make it more comfortable than being stuck in front of your computer. Regardless, you are in the room with many people face-to-face, and you can discuss things with them after the meeting and build relationships.
I see your point, because sometimes I have to find a room in the office just to have a 1:1 virtually, which arguably is more of a hassle than just taking the call at home. But I do find that hybrid works well overall in my experience, and the interpersonal benefits are large even though not everyone is in the office at the same time.
I think the situation would be drastically different if the buses didn't exist, for better or worse. Workers would make completely different choices in where they live, and it's not likely they would choose the same neighborhoods that the buses afford them the convenience of. And just maybe SV companies would change their highly suburban and unsustainable real estate policies. Just because 1 bus going form a to b is better than 100 cars going from a to b doesn't justify the policy of the buses or even demonstrate they're sustainable.
A hearing like this reinforces secrecy and benefits only the people in that room. They are given a platform to legitimize their activities and deny the existence of anything that may violate the constitution or upset Americans.
"Hey guys, we're here to tell you all about anything except what you actually want to know about" = the game of secrecy vs the public
I suppose it would be nice to know how many FISA requests there have been, but what does the number of requests have to do with the core issue? Is the number of FISA requests in proportion to the amount of data being shared? Does it tell us the nature of what is shared or how it is shared? We still know nothing about the contents of legal FISA requests and therefore can't really say whether a single request violates our rights or not. Publishing aggregates tells us essentially nothing because we still don't know the limits of a request, or at least I don't.
I think the visual reinforcement of note names is a poor idea. When I play piano, I play best when my brain and hands are reading the music spatially. When I start thinking of note names I become much more clumsy and slow, because it's interrupting my spatial thinking. I always recommend that people think about intervals as opposed to note names when learning a piece of music. It encourages various good habits, like being able to identify overarching patterns in the music and play in different keys easily. Intervals also correspond more closely to how your hands have to move. Because of all this I don't think it's helpful in the long run to have the visual reinforcement of each note name. It might be easier for children or beginners at first, but in the end it may be a crutch that prevents the student from "seeing" the music..!
I find that for a lot of people documentation has replaced experience. I watched a performance a week or two ago, and a guy in front of me took photos and videos for 20 minutes straight then abruptly got distracted and walked away. It struck me as precisely the symptom of working to externalize your life so much that you forget to actually experience it.
Thinking in terms of narcissism, distraction, oversharing, externalization, etc, I've realized how scary and absurd the Google Glass marketing is. It's been marketed as something that will let us come back to reality and genuine interpersonal relationships, when it's only going to indulge our tendency towards sharing and distraction even more. I think that in order to market Google Glass effectively they had to make the absurd claim that even easier access to the internet will cure our anxious attachment to it.
I'm all for teaching CS in high school, but am irked by the claim that "learning to code is just as important as learning how to read and write." This is obviously not true if you think about it for two seconds. There isn't a job in the world that doesn't involve communication. Reading and writing is the basis of forming arguments and understanding things -- quantitative or not. The best programmers I've encountered have great mastery of their native language. Educators need to be careful about how they suggest CS should be implemented in HS, and just how much is essential. It could be very effective to integrate CS into a mathematics track, since they reinforce each other so nicely. Computer literacy is so important and is becoming more important -- no argument there -- but even computation itself requires a good grasp of language. Computers can't answer the question of "why" for us.
They also suggest that computing skills will be required for "any" job, which raises some important questions. First of all the claim itself is bs: Yeah, computers will become more and more ubiquitous, but many vocations just don't and shouldn't require computational skill. In many cases it could be a distraction from the core issues of the vocation. I don't care if my therapist, dance instructor, baker, farmer, mother, coach, musician, ... (ad infinitum) knows how to reverse a linked list. Sure, computer literacy would help all of them achieve certain things, but let's be honest about what level of CS education is _essential_. Secondly, a world where EVERYONE has a job where computing is of central importance is one I personally would never strive towards. We should ask ourselves if we really want to stick all of society behind a computer.
> Reading and writing is the basis of forming arguments and understanding things -- quantitative or not.
Similarly, having an exposure to coding and computational thinking also fosters those sorts of critical problem solving skills that are helpful whether or not you're a programmer.
> I don't care if my therapist, dance instructor, baker, farmer, mother, coach, musician, ... (ad infinitum) knows how to reverse a linked list.
That is not the argument we are making. We are not advocating that a baker must also be a professional programmer, but we are saying that a certain level of computer literacy is important no matter what field you are in.
Similarly, we wouldn't expect your dance instructor to be well versed in Hemingway, but you would still value a basic level of reading and writing skills.
Your first point is certainly true, but I still think that "as important as.." is an overstatement. Problem solving skills are taught in innumerable ways, so what makes programming the most important?
I agree with your second point too, but "computer literacy is important" belies "any job requires computational thinking". I think it's a great cause and I'm happy to chip in, but the hyperbolic text makes me crave a more nuanced discussion of it all.
I basically agree, but it depends on the definition of programming. For example, I consider "using Excel" programming above a certain level of proficiency. Assuming your therapist, dance instructor, baker, farmer, mother, coach, and musician are actually small business owners, they would certainly benefit from mastering spreadsheets.
Many mothers probably regularly use a calculator for household budgeting. Excel can do that better. However for most mothers it is not worth the effort to learn it, because their calculator is good enough. Providing future mothers with good excel skills would improve their lifes in my opinion.
> Secondly, a world where EVERYONE has a job where computing is of central importance is one I personally would never strive towards. We should ask ourselves if we really want to stick all of society behind a computer.
This is not really what we are advocating. Our claim with "Read Write Code" is that these are now essential skills, even if that is not what you spend all of your time doing. Few become professional readers or writers, but many find reading and writing useful skills. Computers are used in many parts of daily life--even if you don't become a programmer, a knowledge of problem solving with computers will be useful.
Actually almost everyone is a professional reader/writer. Even programmers read and write as part of their professional practice, and I can't really think of any job where at least verbal communication plays a vital role. The way I see it, computers should be a vital and practical part of teaching quantitative reasoning, and quantitative reasoning should be given the same attention as language skills. It wasn't in my high school, where less math was required.
