You did not refute any of my points. Do you really think lowering the barrier of entry for poor people then giving them on the job training will bring them to the level of people that are already high performing? Companies do not have the resources to make that happen as it would require decades of training, education, therapy, life adjustments... just to get to the same level as some people have coming through the door (including some poor people who were self driven).
This reminds me of McNamara's Folly - during the Vietnam war, then Secretary-of-Defence Robert McNamara lowered mental standards for service in an effort to increase the size of the conscript pool. [0] (Gwern's review is a nice summary IMO [1]) They'd just need a little more training, right?
Suffice to say, this did not go well.
Might go a bit better without live weapons and people shooting at you, but it really should say something that there are people that the army literally cannot find a use for.
> Companies do not have the resources to make that happen as it would require decades of training, education, therapy, life adjustments... just to get to the same level as some people have coming through the door (including some poor people who were self driven).
Well, then perhaps they'll be missing out on some of the advantages that you've listed as your own selling points - perhaps a stronger sense of entrepreneurship, problem solving, and hardiness?
In any case, I disagree that the burden on businesses would be that significant. I've seen coding bootcamps churn out pretty decent frontend engineers in 3 months. Make it 6 and who knows what a company could do.
Furthermore, I don't believe it is necessarily a company's job to solve, like, illiteracy. That would be the governments' job, and considering a higher literacy would drive a greater GDP (and make a better society), that should be an objective everyone strives for. To do that, we need people that have lived through those situations to find the best way to lift people out of bad situations. To do that, we need their perspective. To get their perspective, we need them working for us... which means we need diversity.
malvosenior|6 years ago
DuskStar|6 years ago
Suffice to say, this did not go well.
Might go a bit better without live weapons and people shooting at you, but it really should say something that there are people that the army literally cannot find a use for.
0: https://www.amazon.com/McNamaras-Folly-Hamilton-Gregory/dp/1...
1: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2333328079
komali2|6 years ago
Well, then perhaps they'll be missing out on some of the advantages that you've listed as your own selling points - perhaps a stronger sense of entrepreneurship, problem solving, and hardiness?
In any case, I disagree that the burden on businesses would be that significant. I've seen coding bootcamps churn out pretty decent frontend engineers in 3 months. Make it 6 and who knows what a company could do.
Furthermore, I don't believe it is necessarily a company's job to solve, like, illiteracy. That would be the governments' job, and considering a higher literacy would drive a greater GDP (and make a better society), that should be an objective everyone strives for. To do that, we need people that have lived through those situations to find the best way to lift people out of bad situations. To do that, we need their perspective. To get their perspective, we need them working for us... which means we need diversity.
chris_mc|6 years ago
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