2020 Democratic Primary

[Dakota Tebaldi]

GO BLUE

 

[bubblesort]

LOL, some of you guys are so crazy. I mean... look, I do respect you guys. I really do, all of you. Some of the most powerful people in virtual worlds frequent this forum, and I respect that. At the same time, I can't believe how sheltered a lot of you guys are. Have you never had an honest political conversation with a Trump supporter before? You guys need to get out of your social media bubbles and hit up a country flea market now and then or something.

As for all the people calling me names, and saying they "don't trust me", or that I am allied with this person or that... that's loony tunes crazy. This isn't Risk or Monopoly, but if it was, you do know how alliances in those games always end, right?

I just want to point out that this so called aggression from Bernie Bros is nothing compared to the aggression of Biden Bros in this thread. I mean, I think the entire point of a lot of these posts is to hurt my feelings.

Well, you can save your breath. You made me sad. I cried, went through many boxes of tissues while listening to Adele. Now that that's out of the way, maybe you want to have a real conversation?

I'm not going to let the crazy people derail a good debate, though, so I'm going to try to reply to the people who brought up real debate points (I apologize if I missed any, over the past 4 pages):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shout out to Kurds, dude.

I actually like the idea of pulling out of Syria and Iraq (and Afghanistan, for that matter). An independent Kurdistan would be a wonderful thing, but I'm not interested in sacrificing any more American lives for it. We have no business in Iraq, to begin with, and Hillary's mishandling of the Arab spring is the reason why Assad is still in power, and persecuting the Kurds in Syria. In short... we got our asses kicked. We have no victory condition. As Sun Tzu said, "If you can win you must fight, but if you can not win, you must not fight." I would support taking Assad out with bombs, like we did with Ghadaffi, or even a limited military engagement like we had in the former Yugoslavia in the 90s, but I can not support what we are currently doing in Syria. We are throwing good resources after bad, and trying to set up an American colony in the middle of the levant. It's imperialist. We're better than that. We need to bring our troops home, and use the money we would have spent there on education and health care for Americans. These misadventures in the middle east have cost us over $6 trillion so far. Medicare for all will cost us a fraction of that.

Ooh, ooh, and banking regulations! What good have those ever done anyway?

Biden voted to repeal Glass-Steagal. Then, he fought Warren when he advocated for the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill, which did a lot of horrible things, including being the reason why why you can't discharge student loan debt through bankruptcy.

... It couldn’t be something like the Republicans nominating a federal judge who thinks homosexuality should be criminalized again.

Yeah, that is bad, but Biden won't do any better. Democrats like Biden don't actually appoint anybody good when they have the chance. Do I need to remind you of the Merrick Garland situation? Some of the effects of Trump on the supreme court could have been mitigated, if not for that. I mean, Garland was a horrible choice, because he opposes voting rights, and opposed human rights for Gitmo detainees, but he would still be better than an asshole like Gorsuch. The democratic party talks a big game, but when it comes to actually appointing good people, they drop the ball. New party leadership is needed, and if we don't get it, the democratic party does not belong in power.

And that Iran deal, who needed it anyway, amirite?

I'll give you that point. Biden is a bloodthirsty war hawk on almost every other issue, but I will agree with Biden that the Iran deal was a good thing.

Eunoli makes a lot of points that I want to respond to, in it's own post, which I will write when I'm done with this one. Sorry, there's a 10k character limit on posts here.

... Biden can be counted on to put qualified people in posts that believe in the mission of their departments and who are not set on wholesale looting.

That alone would put Biden or Sanders over Trump even without the damage he has done to this country and the world.

Biden takes money from the top 15 big pharma executives in America, so I assume he will appoint people who will make them happy, just like Obama did, when Biden was VP. Obama appointed the dingo Tom Wheeler as head of the FCC. Obama also appointed Tim Geithner to be the Treasury secretary, after he cheated on his taxes. Obama appointed cabinet level positions to Mosanto's buddies, including secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Michael Taylor, who was a former Mosanto VP, was appointed to run the FDA.

Ok, so what is Trump’s credible plan that makes him better than Biden?

The strongest argument for Trump against Biden is that Biden is a bloodthirsty chicken hawk, who loves war, while he himself dodged the draft because he had asthma, while being a high school football star. At the same time, Trump is trying to pull out of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, while negotiating with North Korea more seriously than presidents in the past have even attempted. Trump is taking a lot of flak for this. I think he's just calling a spade a spade and admitting defeat in wars where we have no victory condition. If the Taliban were easier to negotiate with, I think we would have been starting to get out of Afghanistan last week.

Biden, on the other hand... he voted for the war in Iraq, even though recently publicized documents show that he and everybody else in congress knew the reasoning behind that vote was bullshit. Biden also refuses to call the assassination of Soleimani an assassination, which signals to me he would do the same thing Trump did. Biden calls himself a zionist, calls BDS anti-semitic, and supports brutal IDF incursions in Gaza, and record setting aid packages to Israel. Biden personally tried to intervene to stop Ecuador from granting Snowden asylum.

The list goes on, but you get the picture. Trump might rattle his sabre, but he actually acts in the best interests of peace advocates. Biden does not.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Coming from an outside view here's my take on this: Sanders would try to be a disruptive president it he could make it. Obama also tried to be disruptive and in the end turned out to be a lame duck, aside some nice catch phrases like "Yes we can!" he did not achieve much for the masses.

Sanders is the anti-establishment candidate; Biden is the establishment candidate to prevent Sanders. While Biden has a boring outside manner you should not mistake him as moderate; he did many bad enough things in the past. He is for sure not a man who would be able to heal the diverted country, he would also not revert many things which Trump introduced. He would merely cover up the really ugly spots perhaps and that's it, smiling and boring you to death.

I am pretty convinced if Biden makes the race in the end that many Sanders supporters would not vote Biden, but Trump in defiance of being robbed of the opportunity to have Sanders or just stay at home. And unless something drastic happens to the economy, like a major oil price shock, Trump most likely will win against Biden.

 

[Salome]

 

[Brenda Archer]

Coming from an outside view here's my take on this: Sanders would try to be a disruptive president it he could make it. Obama also tried to be disruptive and in the end turned out to be a lame duck, aside some nice catch phrases like "Yes we can!" he did not achieve much for the masses.

Sanders is the anti-establishment candidate; Biden is the establishment candidate to prevent Sanders. While Biden has a boring outside manner you should not mistake him as moderate; he did many bad enough things in the past. He is for sure not a man who would be able to heal the diverted country, he would also not revert many things which Trump introduced. He would merely cover up the really ugly spots perhaps and that's it, smiling and boring you to death.

I am pretty convinced if Biden makes the race in the end that many Sanders supporters would not vote Biden, but Trump in defiance of being robbed of the opportunity to have Sanders or just stay at home. And unless something drastic happens to the economy, like a major oil price shock, Trump most likely will win against Biden.

If Trump gets re-elected it won’t have anything to do with the economy, it will be because of racism, pure and simple.

The Republicans, in possession of both the Senate and Presidency for another guaranteed four years, are certain to start a war with Iran and possibly even China.

Trump is a puppet. He’s not making decisions about anything really important. For that you should look at McConnell, and some characters who are not in the press very often, but are hardly invisible.

The other likely problem with the perfect storm of coronavirus/recession/federal incompetence is civil unrest. The homeless population is growing. They’re both elderly and sick, so they’re helpless, but they’re going to be joined by younger people as the economy tanks. The easiest way to deal with restless youth is to start a war and bring back the draft. They can also be incarcerated.

If you want a *really* nasty world recession, just tank China and the US at the same time.

Biden is too far to the right for me, but he will be a competent manager. With a Dem Senate, he can repair quite a lot. He’s not going to engage in adventurism with a Dem Senate. Remember, Congress is his equal. He is not a prime minister.

The other check on the President is going to be large blue states. This is already underway. It’s the main headwind Trump is facing, since the Senate is currently useless.

Re-electing a Trump is the kind of curse I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

 

[Brenda Archer]

LOL, some of you guys are so crazy. I mean... look, I do respect you guys. I really do, all of you. Some of the most powerful people in virtual worlds frequent this forum, and I respect that. At the same time, I can't believe how sheltered a lot of you guys are. Have you never had an honest political conversation with a Trump supporter before? You guys need to get out of your social media bubbles and hit up a country flea market now and then or something.

As for all the people calling me names, and saying they "don't trust me", or that I am allied with this person or that... that's loony tunes crazy. This isn't Risk or Monopoly, but if it was, you do know how alliances in those games always end, right?

I just want to point out that this so called aggression from Bernie Bros is nothing compared to the aggression of Biden Bros in this thread. I mean, I think the entire point of a lot of these posts is to hurt my feelings.

Well, you can save your breath. You made me sad. I cried, went through many boxes of tissues while listening to Adele. Now that that's out of the way, maybe you want to have a real conversation?

I'm not going to let the crazy people derail a good debate, though, so I'm going to try to reply to the people who brought up real debate points (I apologize if I missed any, over the past 4 pages):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I actually like the idea of pulling out of Syria and Iraq (and Afghanistan, for that matter). An independent Kurdistan would be a wonderful thing, but I'm not interested in sacrificing any more American lives for it. We have no business in Iraq, to begin with, and Hillary's mishandling of the Arab spring is the reason why Assad is still in power, and persecuting the Kurds in Syria. In short... we got our asses kicked. We have no victory condition. As Sun Tzu said, "If you can win you must fight, but if you can not win, you must not fight." I would support taking Assad out with bombs, like we did with Ghadaffi, or even a limited military engagement like we had in the former Yugoslavia in the 90s, but I can not support what we are currently doing in Syria. We are throwing good resources after bad, and trying to set up an American colony in the middle of the levant. It's imperialist. We're better than that. We need to bring our troops home, and use the money we would have spent there on education and health care for Americans. These misadventures in the middle east have cost us over $6 trillion so far. Medicare for all will cost us a fraction of that.


Biden voted to repeal Glass-Steagal. Then, he fought Warren when he advocated for the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill, which did a lot of horrible things, including being the reason why why you can't discharge student loan debt through bankruptcy.


Yeah, that is bad, but Biden won't do any better. Democrats like Biden don't actually appoint anybody good when they have the chance. Do I need to remind you of the Merrick Garland situation? Some of the effects of Trump on the supreme court could have been mitigated, if not for that. I mean, Garland was a horrible choice, because he opposes voting rights, and opposed human rights for Gitmo detainees, but he would still be better than an asshole like Gorsuch. The democratic party talks a big game, but when it comes to actually appointing good people, they drop the ball. New party leadership is needed, and if we don't get it, the democratic party does not belong in power.


I'll give you that point. Biden is a bloodthirsty war hawk on almost every other issue, but I will agree with Biden that the Iran deal was a good thing.

Eunoli makes a lot of points that I want to respond to, in it's own post, which I will write when I'm done with this one. Sorry, there's a 10k character limit on posts here.


Biden takes money from the top 15 big pharma executives in America, so I assume he will appoint people who will make them happy, just like Obama did, when Biden was VP. Obama appointed the dingo Tom Wheeler as head of the FCC. Obama also appointed Tim Geithner to be the Treasury secretary, after he cheated on his taxes. Obama appointed cabinet level positions to Mosanto's buddies, including secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Michael Taylor, who was a former Mosanto VP, was appointed to run the FDA.


The strongest argument for Trump against Biden is that Biden is a bloodthirsty chicken hawk, who loves war, while he himself dodged the draft because he had asthma, while being a high school football star. At the same time, Trump is trying to pull out of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, while negotiating with North Korea more seriously than presidents in the past have even attempted. Trump is taking a lot of flak for this. I think he's just calling a spade a spade and admitting defeat in wars where we have no victory condition. If the Taliban were easier to negotiate with, I think we would have been starting to get out of Afghanistan last week.

Biden, on the other hand... he voted for the war in Iraq, even though recently publicized documents show that he and everybody else in congress knew the reasoning behind that vote was bullshit. Biden also refuses to call the assassination of Soleimani an assassination, which signals to me he would do the same thing Trump did. Biden calls himself a zionist, calls BDS anti-semitic, and supports brutal IDF incursions in Gaza, and record setting aid packages to Israel. Biden personally tried to intervene to stop Ecuador from granting Snowden asylum.

The list goes on, but you get the picture. Trump might rattle his sabre, but he actually acts in the best interests of peace advocates. Biden does not.

You can’t convince us, are you trying to convince yourself to vote for Trump?

Do you realize you’re lecturing a crowd of people who are mostly over 50, well-travelled, and some with advanced degrees?

We’ve all met some Trumpists. For myself, Christofascist bullshit can go die in a fire. But if you like it so much, why don’t you just vote for Trump?

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

If Trump gets re-elected it won’t have anything to do with the economy, it will be because of racism, pure and simple.

True, but this is not what I was talking about. I was talking about under which circumstances Trump most likely will not get reelected, and one possibility is the USA entering a full blown war with Iran. Iran most likely would mine the Street of Hormus, and since most refineries in the USA are not equipped to refine crude oil from fracturized drilling this would lead to a major oil price shock with the price going through the roof, because a good share of the gas in the American filling stations comes from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

And if there's one thing that Americans do hate it is high gas prices, because Tesla is not yet the choice of John Doe for mass transportation. Surprisingly so far Trump was clever enough or listened to his advisors for once - your choice - to not launch a full scale attack against Iran this year.

It will not be easy to prevent Trump's second term - and I doubt that Biden is the man being able to achieve that, as long as Trump does not get a stroke or something.

 

[bubblesort]

1) Biden won't put children in cages.

This is a good point. Trump is brutal to immigrants, and that is wrong. Trump is running concentration camps at the border, and putting 6 year olds on trial without lawyers. That said... despite what the pundits on the news tell you, Trump did not do this unilaterally. He did it with the backing of congress, and of senators like Biden.

Biden voted against amnesty for immigrants, while saying they should speak English. He voted multiple times to expand deportations and indefinite detention. When Biden was VP, his administration deported more immigrants than anybody, before or after, including Trump. His administration also refused to give kids toothpaste and soap. He supported militarizing the Mexican border. He didn't just vote for a fence, like what Trump is building, but he voted for a double fence, and then voted to fund that fence multiple times. He also voted to ban travellers with HIV, which put us on a short list of countries like China, Cuba, and Russia.

So Trump is bad here, but Biden is not going to fix the problem, either.

2) Biden won't try to butcher the environment and hurry us down the path to climate change catastrophe.

Biden claims that he is looking for "middle ground" in climate change policy. What does that mean to Biden? It means he keeps advisors from fracking and gas companies around. Joe and his son Hunter worked together to expand fracking in Ukraine. After saying he won't take donations from fossil fuel companies, he attended fund raisers held by them. The connections to the peoplel trying to destroy the environment are everywhere. Sunrise's heckling tactics are a bit wild, but I think they have a good, granular breakdown of their scorecard, showing why they rated him F-. If Sunrise is too extreme for you, though, Greenpeace gave him a C- (although they later revised it up to a B because of some meaningless stump speeches, which they should have disregarded).

3) Biden won't monetize the office for his own good.

I don't even know where to begin with this. Lets start with Ukraine, where he used American aid money to protect his son's company from prosecution, after his son was appointed to the board as a political favor to him. When people ask about this, he flips out on them. He is so scared to talk about this, he even said he would defy a congressional subpoena to testify about it. He voted to deregulate credit card companies, making it impossible to discharge student debt in bankruptcy, while taking over a million dollars in donations from the finance industry, and while his son Hunter worked for MBNA. He made sure his brother got a nice fat $1.5 billion contract to build houses in Iraq, despite his brother having zero home construction experience. Hunter somehow magically gets away with refusing to pay child support. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The more you dig, the more you find out that Biden is basically the head of a white collar crime family.

4) Biden won't go golfing in the middle of national crises.

I hate golf, too. It's not a real sport. Also, it doesn't matter who the president is, nothing pisses off constituents like photos of politicians golfing. I honestly don't know why all presidents do it. Anyway... Biden does golf, so he's no better than Trump in that regard. When he does golf, he likes to golf with Burisma company executives. Maybe golfing with fracking executives as the planet burns doesn't fit a strict definition of a national crisis, but it's not good.

5) Biden won't put his children into critical jobs even though they can't pass security screenings. His son might be a jackass - but he won't be in government.

Biden actually already does that. Here's an article about just 5 members of his family, and the key government positions they have held.

6) Biden will put professionals in charge of the departments they oversee.

I don't think so. Here's another article about the Biden's family corruption business. Also, I'm just going to copy paste from my above post for this one...

Biden takes money from the top 15 big pharma executives in America, so I assume he will appoint people who will make them happy, just like Obama did, when Biden was VP. Obama appointed the dingo Tom Wheeler as head of the FCC. Obama also appointed Tim Geithner to be the Treasury secretary, after he cheated on his taxes. Obama appointed cabinet level positions to Mosanto's buddies, including secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Michael Taylor, who was a former Mosanto VP, was appointed to run the FDA.

7) Biden won't govern by twitter.

Governing by Twitter is just how the world works now. I know it sucks. I don't like it, either. Biden won't change that, though.

8) People working in a Biden administration won't be obligated to say how grateful they are to be working for him (and not the United States of America) every time they are on camera.

I am honestly unfamiliar with reports of Trump doing this. It wouldn't surprise me, but I've just never heard of it.

9) Biden is liked by the international community.

Sure he is. China loves his son for helping them surveil Muslims. Ukrainian oligarchs love him for protecting them from investigations. Israeli hard liners love his support for their apartheid regime. The list goes on and on. The international community that likes him is not the international community you probably want to like him.

10) Biden will handle emergencies in the same way no matter what state they happen in.

Maybe true. I haven't seen anything to indicate that yet.

 

[bubblesort]

11) Biden has already released his tax returns.

Yeah, and those tax returns show he earned over $15 million in the years after he left office. He earned that from 'book payments', and 'speaking engagements'.

12) Biden will bore us (we really need to not be in a constant state of panic or outrage).

I don't think so. I mean, maybe you don't think calling somebody a, "lying, dog faced, pony soldier," but I think it's funny. It shows he's crazy, but it's still funny.

13) Biden won't try to encourage defunct, environment killing industries like coal. He won't take away tribal lands to do so.

Yes, Biden did famously tell coal miners to "learn to code," which is as callous and tone deaf as you can get. Hunter's work in Ukraine has already been covered here, but he also sits on the board of a chinese coal company. You think Joe Biden is going to do anything to jepordize his family business? I don't think so.

14) Biden won't hire 'acting' officials in place of real ones.

I doubt it. Everybody does that. I don't think there has ever been a time when all official appointments are confirmed and filled.

15) Biden isn't a pussy-grabbing asshole.

Yes he is! He most definitely is! This list of 7 accusers is a year old. There have probably been more since then, and nobody knows how many more than that might be under NDAs. That's on top of his creepy touchey feeley habits in public. I don't even want to think about how he behaves in private.

 

[bubblesort]

Aw, crap, I lost all my hyperlinks in the second post there when i copy pasted to a second reply.

If you want citations for any of that let me know.

 

[bubblesort]

True, but this is not what I was talking about. I was talking about under which circumstances Trump most likely will not get reelected, and one possibility is the USA entering a full blown war with Iran. Iran most likely would mine the Street of Hormus, and since most refineries in the USA are not equipped to refine crude oil from fracturized drilling this would lead to a major oil price shock with the price going through the roof, because a good share of the gas in the American filling stations comes from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

And if there's one thing that Americans do hate it is high gas prices, because Tesla is not yet the choice of John Doe for mass transportation. Surprisingly so far Trump was clever enough or listened to his advisors for once - your choice - to not launch a full scale attack against Iran this year.

It will not be easy to prevent Trump's second term - and I doubt that Biden is the man being able to achieve that, as long as Trump does not get a stroke or something.

You raise some good points, but I don't think Trump will invade Iran. Trump rattles his sabre, but doesn't actually take military action like that. Also, I don't think high oil prices are a concern at the moment. Quite the opposite. Putin fucking over OPEC is going to help Trump.

 

[bubblesort]

You can’t convince us, are you trying to convince yourself to vote for Trump?

Do you realize you’re lecturing a crowd of people who are mostly over 50, well-travelled, and some with advanced degrees?

We’ve all met some Trumpists. For myself, Christofascist bullshit can go die in a fire. But if you like it so much, why don’t you just vote for Trump?

LOL, yeah, I know. Should be pretty easy for them to have a simple conversation about politics, but here we are... seems like a lot of them seem to hurl insults instead of facts. Biden supporters are truly toxic people.

If you think my arguments are so convincing, then why don't you vote for Trump?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Yes, Biden did famously tell coal miners to "learn to code," which is as callous and tone deaf as you can get.

Coincidentally, some 25 or 30 years I used to teach couple of courses in SQL and relational databases as part of a course for former miners in my native Nottinghamshire who were retraining after the deep-cast pits closed up there, and had chosen that particular option as part of a government-funded retraining programme at what, in the US, would be called a community college.

Three of them, at least, eventually went on to get professional certification with either MS SQL server or MySQL.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Well, today is the next big day.

Nobody should be disheartened yet; it's anybody's race right now. Sanders needs a little over 55% of the remaining delegates to secure a clean nomination, while Biden needs a little over 51%. That's not a huge spread. Tomorrow could flip the race yet again just as easily as it could widen the lead.

 

[bubblesort]

Coincidentally, some 25 or 30 years I used to teach couple of courses in SQL and relational databases as part of a course for former miners in my native Nottinghamshire who were retraining after the deep-cast pits closed up there, and had chosen that particular option as part of a government-funded retraining programme at what, in the US, would be called a community college.

Three of them, at least, eventually went on to get professional certification with either MS SQL server or MySQL.

Oh yeah, I know what you are saying, but there's an important larger context to this statement in America. Over here, telling coal miners to code is like saying "All lives matter" to BLM activists. It may be true, but it's still an insult. Hearing the phrase, "learn to code," makes coal miners and people close to them see red.

Biden is from Scranton, PA, which is coal country, so he knows this. He just doesn't care.

 

[Zaida Gearbox]

Oh yeah, I know what you are saying, but there's an important larger context to this statement in America. Over here, telling coal miners to code is like saying "All lives matter" to BLM activists. It may be true, but it's still an insult. Hearing the phrase, "learn to code," makes coal miners and people close to them see red.

Biden is from Scranton, PA, which is coal country, so he knows this. He just doesn't care.

Not to mention that in most US states such job retraining would never-ever be offered for free here in the US. So, you can't afford to take time off from work to take classes to hopefully keep up in an ever changing job market? Go fuck yourself. Can't afford to take a training course that now costs as much as my bachelors degree did at a private college 25+ years ago? Go fuck yourself.

 

[Anya Ristow]

Sanders had another Fox town hall yesterday. He reportedly knocked it out of the park, and the audience was supportive. Fox was, once again, more fair than CNN.

Michigan has an open primary, meaning anyone can vote in the Democratic primary.

 

[Aeon Jiminy]

You need to grow up.

This world is not perfectible. People are trying to raise the next generation in the world we’ve got, and save what we can of it for generations to come.

Nobody is forcing you to believe in the “social contract,” but it’s plain that Sanders does, and that you do not share his politics.

You’re a Trump voter. The politics on offer has to be perfectly pleasing to you, or you feel free to reject it (out of privilege), yet you’re willing to vote for the Christofascist puppet.

I don’t know why you’re not willing to own your true politics, but whatever.

When I lived in VT/NH we practiced *participatory democracy.* It is a lot of work and it has always been communitarian, ever since the Puritans. These are the home voters who keep re-electing Sanders, who embodies his own communitarian religion.

You don’t understand. Go back to Trump where you belong.

I truly don't understand how you can label me a Trump voter when I have never voted for Trump in my life? I've never even voted Republican. You call me "privileged" which is a laugh and a half on the whole story of my life. Have you ever read " The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson? Are those who are not willing to blindly follow the community... privileged? Put away your label machine. All of this categorization is not bringing you to some universal truth.

 

[Anya Ristow]

Not to mention that in most US states such job retraining would never-ever be offered for free here in the US. So, you can't afford to take time off from work to take classes to hopefully keep up in an ever changing job market? Go fuck yourself. Can't afford to take a training course that now costs as much as my bachelors degree did at a private college 25+ years ago? Go fuck yourself.

You can get the kind of certifications mentioned, and other "learn to code" courses, at evening community college, for a fair price. The problem with "learn to code" is it mostly doesn't work. It did in the early 90's, but it doesn't anymore. You pretty much have to be autistic to be a programmer anymore, and this is intentional. When soccer moms entered the field in the 90's, programmer culture resisted by making everything a contest of minutiae. You now not only have to be detail oriented and have great memory and logic, traits that not everyone has, you also have to have the patience of God and the tolerance for Sheldon Cooper personalities. And you'll have to pass a whiteboard test that the interviewer can pass only because he got the question and answer from a "stump the normies" book.

Worse, the twenty-something codemonkey interviewer has to like you. And you'll have to already have experience for your very first job. Participation in an open source project counts, of course, but how many people will have had that experience prior to their first job interview? Or been able to contribute meaningfully to such a project without experience? Or had the desire to do so uncompensated while trying to train themselves out of unemployment? Or been able to get along with the personalities involved? Or had their submissions accepted by the personalities involved?

Basically, the field is hostile to ordinary people. I know two people who have done this training. One doesn't have the personality for it and never got a job. The other does have the personality for it and went through a couple positions and "wasn't a good fit" and is no longer in the field.

 

[Salome]

I think the reason I keep peeking back into this thread is to remind myself that conspiracy nutters and propaganda actors have a much more willing audience than I generally like to believe.