by Patrick Appel
Patrick McConlogue’s wants to teach a homeless man to code:
The idea is simple. Without disrespecting him, I will offer two options:
1. I will come back tomorrow and give you $100 in cash.
2. I will come back tomorrow and give you three JavaScript books, (beginner-advanced-expert) and a super cheap basic laptop. I will then come an hour early from work each day—when he feels prepared—and teach him to code.
Noreene Malone, along with much of the internet, trashes the idea:
What this suggestion shares with earlier ideas to turn the homeless into wireless hot-spots and to act as app beta-testers is a belief in the saving power of the tech world.
It’s not that the ideas are intentionally exploitative or ill-intentioned; rather, it is the bubble-bound thinking that is bothersome. In this worldview, involvement in the startup scene is the kind of transformative thing that can be a cure-all balm. It’s a narrow sort of Utopianism, one that doesn’t fully consider that there might be problems that the tools they have at their disposal can’t solve. These instances get noticed because it’s not good PR to be insensitive to the less fortunate, but this mindset pervades the tech world far beyond its interactions with the homeless.
Will Oremus partially defends McConlogue:
McConlogue’s post makes people uncomfortable not only because it is naïve and condescending, but because it raises an issue over which many of us quietly harbor guilt and doubts of our own. What is the proper response when your heart aches for a homeless person you pass every day on the way to work? Is it to flip a few coins in the guy’s direction now and then? Maybe buy him a sandwich or two? Resolve to donate some money to a local shelter this year? Turn your head and walk on? And if your answer is any of the above: What makes you so sure that your approach is doing any more good than McConlogue’s?
In a follow-up post, McConlogue reports that the homeless man, Leo, chose the coding lessons.
The Dish 