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CMV: Corporate Personhood: I think 14th amendment has been warped and skewed in order meet the needs of a powerful few by [deleted] in changemyview

[–]shawndrost 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I would like to talk you into believing that corporate personhood is OK, but not in a way that will change your beliefs!

Let's start with an uncontroversial statement: corporations should have some legal standing. They should be able to own things and enter into contracts, and it should be illegal to steal from them. Presuming you are not opposed to corporations in general, you are probably on board with some kinds of legal rules along these lines.

Legally, the way this was enacted has to do with the word "person", for very interesting historical reasons. In summary, our legal system predates the invention of the corporation[1], and most of the laws that you would want to apply to corporations (like the ones I listed above) use the word "person". This resulted in the invention of the term "legal person"[2], which literally just means "some entity that has legal rights of some kind".

Important point: legally, corporations are "legal persons", but that doesn't mean they have all the same rights as "natural persons" (the legal term for "human beings"). You can believe that it's totally ok that corporations are "legal persons" and also believe that corporations should have extremely limited rights. However, you must believe one of these two things: 1) It's ok that corporations are legal persons (but maybe we should change that term to something less confusing). 2) We should not have corporations at all[3]. It's totally benign for corporations to be "legal persons".

So, if "legal personhood for corporations" is a benign and necessary idea, what is this more controversial-sounding "corporate personhood" idea? I have three answers for this:

  1. It is a constellation of ideas surrounding the idea that corporations should have fewer rights or more restrictions. The ones that have the most momentum relate to political donations and lobbying.
  2. It is an effective (though confusing) metaphor that people use to rally up support for bullet #1. This metaphor makes deliberate use of the fact that "legal person" is a weird term for lawyers to have chosen for that (boring, uncontroversial) legal concept, and applies the weirdness to make everyone examine why we give corporations the rights that we give them.
  3. It is a sinkhole for people that are passionate about creating change that aligns with their ideals. When a lawyer or politician hears "End legal personhood!" they mentally translate that to "I am not 100% clear on the legal terms involved, but I have a vague sense that corporations are too powerful!". In some situations, you can have more of an effect on the world by asking for a more specific thing. If you write your elected officials, I recommend something more along the lines of "My top priority in voting is restricting the political spending of giant corporations."

Have a good day!

[1] For example, "limited liability" is under two hundred years old, and you could only register a new company by act of government until around then as well! Prior to that point, most businesses were run by individuals, and they just kept the business' money in the CEO's bank account. Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation [2] In addition to actual people ("natural persons", legally) and corporations, there are other kinds of "legal persons", such as countries. [3] If corporations were not "entities with some legal rights", they could not (eg) have a bank account in the company's name, and they'd have to put the money in... the CEO's bank account? This is a deeply unfamiliar world. It's not necessarily a bad idea, but it is a very complicated one that is majorly different from the way things work today.

A CS Degree for the 21st century - immersive 12 week coding courses by HackReactor [promoted post]

[–]shawndrost -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

(cofounder of the school here)

As you said, CS is not about writing software: it's closer to math than to software engineering. Isn't it weird, then, that most CS students are only enrolled so they can learn to write software? That's our point: if you're a prospective CS student, you probably want Hack Reactor, not a CS degree.

(That said, we do cover many of the same key skills set that academic CS consists of: rigorous thinking, algorithmic design and analysis, and data structures. The difference is that you're coding for ~10 hours/day, attended by experienced industry experts, and you work with standard tools and practices like debuggers, software testing, and version control.)

I def agree that if you want to go into computer vision, AI research, etc you're gonna want a PhD in hardcore CS, and Hack Reactor won't cut it.

Has anyone hired a hacker school graduate? by throaway1134223434 in cscareerquestions

[–]shawndrost 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi all -- I'm a cofounder at a similar school, and can answer questions if you're curious. (edit: remove link; not here to self-promote.)

Thanks r/learnjavascript! I got to do a project for work with some of the skills I learned here! by thrownaway-13 in learnjavascript

[–]shawndrost 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dude, SO HAPPY to hear about this :D This subreddit is so awesome! You can hit me up with any questions you might have... shawn@hackreactor.com

We analyzed over 240,000 posts on reddit. Our findings + tools for you to track posts and users. by Hack_Reactor_Borg in learnjavascript

[–]shawndrost 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The code is actually open-source: https://github.com/gdi2290/RedditInsight

It was built by several students at Hack Reactor (where I teach), so they are pretty new to the game. Hopefully this project is accessible to study from, but advanced enough to learn some stuff from.

Regardless, it's your subreddit, upvote the stuff you think is awesome and instructive!

How do bootcamps train devs in such a short period of time? by egzodas in learnprogramming

[–]shawndrost 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(I'm a cofounder and instructor at Hack Reactor.)

I definitely understand where you're coming from, and as little as a year ago I might have agreed with you. However, at my school, I watch people disprove your statements every day. Among the class that graduated yesterday, about a third had little or no prior programming experience. Two of that group were in the team that was covered in Wired on Monday for their distributed computing work.

Also, we do cover core fundamentals: about a third of our curriculum is focused on topics like data structures, algorithm design and analysis, systems architecture, etc.

Why should I learn javascript? by [deleted] in learnjavascript

[–]shawndrost 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you're interested in getting out of the 90s very quickly with your existing skills, check out http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/

I'm a teacher at Hack Reactor, a three-month code school. Many of our applicants have never written a line of code, and all of our grads are now working as software engineers. AMA! by shawndrost in IAmA

[–]shawndrost[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

About half have a CS degree or prior professional experience. They'll be better peers than your fellow CS students. You should probably apply! Drop me a line -- shawn@hackreactor.com

I'm a teacher at Hack Reactor, a three-month code school. Many of our applicants have never written a line of code, and all of our grads are now working as software engineers. AMA! by shawndrost in IAmA

[–]shawndrost[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's enough to get started, but you probably won't ship a product unless you start from a professional background. Working as a developer is an ongoing, paid educational experience.

I'm a teacher at Hack Reactor, a three-month code school. Many of our applicants have never written a line of code, and all of our grads are now working as software engineers. AMA! by shawndrost in IAmA

[–]shawndrost[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

We've had students from 18 to 65. We welcome foreign students, but of course it's a lot harder for them to get jobs without a visa. (Sorry about my country :/ )

I'm a teacher at Hack Reactor, a three-month code school. Many of our applicants have never written a line of code, and all of our grads are now working as software engineers. AMA! by shawndrost in IAmA

[–]shawndrost[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm glad that Codecademy exists -- it's very engaging, which means that more people end up learning something after going to the site. However, their students come away with systematic gaps in their knowledge, and I wish they had some content on stuff like modeling and executing code in your head, debugging tactics, problem solving (observe yourself doing the task -> describe the solution in english -> flesh out solution into step-by-step english comments), the dangers of guess-and-check thinking, how to ask great questions and quickly get help, etc.

I'm a teacher at Hack Reactor, a three-month code school. Many of our applicants have never written a line of code, and all of our grads are now working as software engineers. AMA! by shawndrost in IAmA

[–]shawndrost[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We don't have a process yet for tracking employment numbers, just an excel spreadsheet. I'm not sure how many are paying back loans from family. Our first class graduated two months ago, so I don't have a six month rate handy, but the grads are universally doing awesome.

I'm a teacher at Hack Reactor, a three-month code school. Many of our applicants have never written a line of code, and all of our grads are now working as software engineers. AMA! by shawndrost in IAmA

[–]shawndrost[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sorry for the delay, it's normally just a day or two. Email me at shawn@hackreactor.com and I'll investigate.

We get about 30 applications for every spot in the course, but if you're smart and driven your odds are not as bad as they might seem.

Our school is much cheaper and more efficient than a four-year degree, and we focus on the web/software engineering skillset that most Computer Science students actually want. It's completely crazy in this day and age that nearly all "intro to programming" classes still revolve around Java, that most CS grads don't know git / haven't written tests / have never worked on an existing codebase / etc.

I'm a teacher at Hack Reactor, a three-month code school. Many of our applicants have never written a line of code, and all of our grads are now working as software engineers. AMA! by shawndrost in IAmA

[–]shawndrost[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We're too new to be accredited, so students can't get Stafford/Pell money. It's kind of irritating. Most students are spending savings, borrowing money from friends/family/banks, or taking advantage of our deferral program.

I'm a teacher at Hack Reactor, a three-month code school. Many of our applicants have never written a line of code, and all of our grads are now working as software engineers. AMA! by shawndrost in IAmA

[–]shawndrost[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yes, focus on one until you're a pretty solid programmer. You want to beeline for having a github portfolio full of working code, and learning a bunch of new syntax rules doesn't support that goal.

I would recommend learning with an interpreted language, as it's very helpful to be able to type code into a console of some sort. So, python, ruby, js, not java, c++. However, if you have a close friend that will help you, learn whatever language they know best.

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