
Computer Science Education - dr_linux
https://www.google.com/edu/cs/index.html
======
duderific
> Computers are everywhere in our world today and being an educated citizen
> requires an understanding of the fundamentals of computer science and its
> underlying problem-solving methodology of computational thinking.

I know this is just some copywriter writing this, but this seems the height of
Silicon Valley bubble thinking. Plenty of people do just fine in their lives
barely interacting with computers at all.

Sure, it's helpful to be able to use email and a web browser, but "being an
educated citizen requires an understanding of the fundamentals of computer
science"? Come on.

~~~
jkaptur
Plenty of people "do just fine in their lives" without knowing how to read.
This is discussing how to "be an educated citizen", a far higher bar. An
educated citizen:

* can have an informed opinion about the NSA's definition of "collecting" information [0].

* when told "we need to make sure that this list of 100,000 URLs are all valid websites", doesn't respond "wow, we'll need to hire a big team".

* can reason about data-driven classification of documents (e.g. Facebook's news feed, Google search).

[0] [https://www.eff.org/nsa-
spying/wordgames#collect](https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/wordgames#collect)

~~~
xtreme
I disagree. That is like saying that an educated citizen must:

* have an informed opinion on current Emission standards

* be able to change oil on their own car

* could describe how a 4-stroke engine works

Replace the computer with a car and you will see that what you consider basic
knowledge is not basic to most people. They rely on experts for advice,
opinion, and guidance.

~~~
gshulegaard
People often forget, but educating the masses is a challenge that was
discussed in length by the Founding Fathers of America as being a cornerstone
of a successful democracy:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers)

Education of the masses was believed to be instrumental to avoiding tyranny of
the majority which was a very real concern (especially since so many Founding
Fathers came to America escaping religious prosecution as the minority faith).
It's my personal belief that the difficulty in achieving "sufficient"
widespread education ultimately shaped the decision to model America's self-
governance after a Republic with non-elected checks and balances (included
non-elected ones e.g. Judicial) rather than a more direct/representative
democracy.

The pseudo-perversion of the Electoral College leading to highly correlated
Executive Branch elections with the popular vote I think undermines this
system and heightens the education requirement of the average citizen.

Also, on a side note, the lack of perfect information has significant effects
on Economic systems leading to market externalities.

~~~
InitialLastName
Briefly intrigued as a sidenote: How many of the Founding Fathers _themselves_
came to America as religious refugees?

Of the 145 people who, according to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United_States)
were signatories of the Continental Association, Declaration of Independence,
Articles of Confederation, or US constitution, 14 were born outside of the
British-American Colonies. Of these, 6 seem to have clearly immigrated for
reasons (business, military or education) other than religious persecution. I
only see evidence of one (Daniel Roberdeau, whose father was a Huguenot living
in the West Indies) having had religious persecution as a recent proximal
cause of immigration to the Americas. The rest are unclear, although it seems
that a few of the Presbyterian Scots might have had religious reasons for
immigrating.

So, short answer, if anybody else cares, virtually none (1-5%) of America's
founding fathers immigrated due to persecution as a minority faith.

~~~
gshulegaard
Perhaps, but the strong religious motivations for the early colonies is well
documented. [1]

> Many of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the
> United States of America were settled in the seventeenth century by men and
> women, who, in the face of European persecution, refused to compromise
> passionately held religious convictions and fled Europe.

Even from the article you link quotes a wide range of religious beliefs:

> Of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, 28 were Church of
> England (or Episcopalian, after the American Revolutionary War was won), 21
> were Protestants, and two were Roman Catholics (D. Carroll, and
> Fitzsimons).[19] Among the Protestant delegates to the Constitutional
> Convention, eight were Presbyterians, seven were Congregationalists, two
> were Lutherans, two were Dutch Reformed, and two were Methodists.

And of special note most of the prominent Founding Fathers most Americans
would recognize were either anti-clerical Christians or not specifically
Christian or Deists:

> A few prominent Founding Fathers were anti-clerical Christians such as
> Thomas Jefferson,[20][21][22] who constructed the Jefferson Bible, and
> Benjamin Franklin.

> Historian Gregg L. Frazer argues that the leading Founders (Adams,
> Jefferson, Franklin, Wilson, Morris, Madison, Hamilton, and Washington) were
> neither Christians nor Deists, but rather supporters of a hybrid "theistic
> rationalism".

So it may have been poor wording on my part, but I don't think it unfair to
consider religious freedom an important consideration for the Founding
Fathers.

[1]
[https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html](https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html)

~~~
InitialLastName
> So it may have been poor wording on my part, but I don't think it unfair to
> consider religious freedom an important consideration for the Founding
> Fathers.

For sure, and I didn't mean to be correcting you, I was just pondering what
seemed like a sort of historical elision of "move to the new world to practice
religion freely" and "founding fathers creating the USA" when the former
predated the latter by more than a century.

I like to try to grapple with timescales as a way to understand history, so
finding conclusions like "the vast majority of the founders and framers were
born in the colonies" (and, in many cases, from prominent families that had
been in the colonies for generations) are interesting to me.

------
0xFFC
I don't want to be negative here, But I think anyone who can convince Berkeley
guys to re-activate this[1] channel would make humanity _much much_ more
service.

I am saying this because this channel changed my life, literally. I do live in
third world country, I went to local college, where you will learn nothing
after 4 year (not even writing a simple hello world, TBH). But after watching
and learning from this channel and MIT opencourseware, right now I am working
on internal of linux kernel (just think about not being able to write hello
world after 4 year, and compare it with hacking linux kernel to get a feeling
about how far I came) as hobby project, and I came this far only by watching
various (from OS class to compiler, algorithm, etc) class and solving their
assignments and writing their projects. I came this far by my own (only,
without any help other than free material in resource I mentioned). I am 100%
sure I will go further and further, because this is my _thing_ , I may not be
that smart, but I am resilient.

So I am perfect/live example of how free educational material can change
people lives, and I do live in very small city (indeed very small, which most
people are not familiar with computer until 3,4 years ago).

I did have 40kb connection, sometimes I spent a whole day waiting for
downloading a lecture, to watch it, considering I had to use VPN, you can
understand how hard it was to download a whole class from youtube. Right now I
have better connection.

[1] :
[https://www.youtube.com/user/UCBerkeley/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/UCBerkeley/videos)

~~~
wfunction
The issue was that people with disabilities across the country (i.e. non-
Berkeley-students) were suing* Berkeley for not making their videos
accessible. That's why you can't have nice things unfortunately. See here:
[http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/09/13/a-statement-on-online-
co...](http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/09/13/a-statement-on-online-course-
content-and-accessibility/)

Lectures up to 2015 are still there though? Do you consider their materials
obsolete or something?

*Edit: Specifically, the Attorney General was threatening to file a lawsuit pursuant to the ADA, and damages were ordered to be paid (I don't know if they actually were). Follow the link above to find the Department of Justice letter; the interesting bits are on the last two pages.

~~~
libeclipse
What? So a lawsuit to allow more people access to knowledge resulted in no one
having access to more of it.

Damn, that's just.. I'm struggling to refrain from saying a word that'd get me
in trouble.

~~~
tdkl
Yes, we live in a time where minorities tyrannize the rest.

~~~
Yizahi
No. Minorities are still in worse situation than majority globally. And all so
called "minority tyranny" is just a random malfunctioning of institutes
usually directly involved in screwing minorities. E.g. some black woman
successfully sued some white white male for racial/gender reasons and it was
bad for common sense? That's because it was possible in the first place to do
that, only previously it was done the other way.

PS: I'm not a minority.

~~~
Chris2048
> Minorities are still in worse situation than majority globally

The "group average" of a persons designated (prescribed?) demographic is
irrelevant on the level of comparing individuals and their interactions.

> only previously it was done the other way.

Given it was different individuals, this is only true if you define groupings
specifically to, say, match a racist white and a non-racist white, from
different generations, simply because they are both white; Hence mistreatment
of some innocent, random modern white can be interpreted as 'comeuppance'..

------
xiaoma
Are they offering anything on the site for people who want CS education? From
clicking around a bit it seemed like it was focused entirely on people
teaching and learning in physical classrooms.

I was pretty excited at first, thinking this was something like a Google-
sponsored version of EdX or OpenCourseware that was laser focused on CS.

~~~
Spare_account
From the linked page there is a section titled "Learn Computer Science" which
contains a section titled "Student Learning" which contains a variety of
learning resources that can be experienced through the browser.

[https://www.google.com/edu/cs/learn/student.html](https://www.google.com/edu/cs/learn/student.html)

~~~
m0nty
Looks great if you're Indian, Irish or female.

Edit: Or AU/NZ, missed that one.

~~~
dotancohen
I don't see why this rather insightful post is downvoted. The site
specifically targets these groups by name.

Why in the age of a _World_ Wide Web and "post-discrimination" are large
companies such as Google deliberately targeting specific groups? What will be
in the girls-only code program that might be inappropriate for boys?

~~~
hdctambien
> Why ... are large companies such as Google deliberately targeting specific
> groups?

Large companies are judged by the diversity of their employees. They want to
hire more women. In order to hire more women, there needs to be more qualified
women applying for jobs. In order for there to be more qualified women
applying for jobs, there needs to be more qualified women. In order for there
to be more qualified women we need to be teaching more girls how to program.

> What will be in the girls-only code program that might be inappropriate for
> boys?

It's more about what won't be in those classes, specifically: inappropriate
boys.

One school of thought about why there are less girls in computer science
classes is that the environment/culture? of the currently self-selected
students can sometimes (seem) abrasive and uninviting.

Maybe that is just a stereotype, but offering classes specifically for
underrepresented demographics is at least a method to test that theory.

~~~
titraprutr
> Large companies are judged by the diversity of their employees

And here is the problem - diversity has become a goal rather than a natural
consequence of everyone having equal chances.

It's not the lack of diversity that those companies should focus on - much
more important is an elimination of any kind of discrimination based on
gender/race/religion etc.

~~~
hdctambien
I see it as more of a temporary compensation for earlier gender based biases.

In a world where boys and girls are given the same opportunities at (even)
younger ages, you wouldn't need something like this.

As it stands right now, it is intimidating for a girl to sign up for her first
computer science class knowing that it will be full of boys that have been
encouraged to do computer sciencey things from an earlier age. There is the
perception that the girl will come in at a disadvantage.

Allowing a them to sign up for a class with the perception that they all have
equal footing/previous knowledge could give them the confidence they need to
join the classes with boys that are perceived to have more experience.

When the time comes that girls are signing up for computer science classes at
the same rate as boys, then classes like this would no longer be necessary.

That being said, public schools cannot create X-only classes. There is no
discrimination in which students can signup for my computer science classes
and I have unfortunately low female enrollment.

~~~
wolfgke
> I see it as more of a temporary compensation for earlier gender based
> biases.

So you tolerate that a complete sex shall be punished for former sins. Clearly
not my sense of justice.

> In a world where boys and girls are given the same opportunities at (even)
> younger ages, you wouldn't need something like this.

Everybody can use the internet to learn coding. But at least to me it seems
that mostly boys (with few exceptions) seem to love doing this - in particular
from young age on.

~~~
hdctambien
> So you tolerate that a complete sex shall be punished for former sins

This is not a zero-sum game. Creating a new opportunity for girls does not
remove an existing opportunity for a boy.

> But at least to me it seems that mostly boys (with few exceptions) seem to
> love doing this - in particular from young age on

Maybe you should try talking to more girls and asking them what they are
interested in.

~~~
wolfgke
> > So you tolerate that a complete sex shall be punished for former sins

> This is not a zero-sum game. Creating a new opportunity for girls does not
> remove an existing opportunity for a boy.

Not when quotas are involved. In Germany, where I live, every few years
serious attempts to introduce women quota for companies are attempted to pass
as a law (which typically are only prevented in the last moment because of
massive protests of business associations).

~~~
metaobject
So are there any gender quotas currently in place?

~~~
wolfgke
Some political parties already have quotas in their statutes for a long time
(Die Grünen (Green Party) - 50%; SPD - 30% I think).

Since Januar 2016 gender quotas for the supervisory council of the 106 largest
market-listed companies were introduced. For restaffing in the supervisory
council there is a quota of 30% for both gender (or the position has to be
left vacant).

Wikipedia link:

>
> [https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frauenquote&oldid...](https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frauenquote&oldid=161310967#Deutschland_2)

Here a Reuters article about the topic:

>
> [http://web.archive.org/web/20160619090749/http://de.reuters....](http://web.archive.org/web/20160619090749/http://de.reuters.com/article/deutschland-
> frauenquote-bundestag-idDEKBN0M20XI20150306)

Here an "official" article by the Federal Minestry for Family Affairs, Senior
Citizens, Women and Youth ["Federal Minestry for everybody except men" ;-) ]:

> [https://www.bmfsfj.de/bmfsfj/themen/gleichstellung/frauen-
> un...](https://www.bmfsfj.de/bmfsfj/themen/gleichstellung/frauen-und-
> arbeitswelt/gesetz-fuer-die-gleichberechtigte-teilhabe-von-frauen-und-
> maennern-an-fuehrungspositionen/78562)

------
defnfoo
Meanwhile, google discriminates against older people ("old" being pretty much
anyone in their late 30s). They are so inclusive, and so diverse... as long as
they get to decide what diversity and inclusivity are.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/google-loses-ruling-in-age-
bi...](http://www.businessinsider.com/google-loses-ruling-in-age-bias-
lawsuit-2016-10)

~~~
NotSammyHagar
I was past 40 when I was hired at Google, worked there for almost 10 years,
knew many other older devs. I disagree that they were discriminatory. At least
in my experience, that was not an issue.

~~~
defnfoo
The experience of those filing the law suit differs from yours. You may have
known some older devs, but the numbers are very clear: the average age of a
google employee is 29. The US national average is 42.

Google itself is not very diverse by most metrics. Maybe they should practice
what they preach?

[http://time.com/4391031/google-diversity-
statistics-2016/](http://time.com/4391031/google-diversity-statistics-2016/)

~~~
rifung
Disclaimer: I work at Google (opinions are my own)

How would the people filing the lawsuit know whether Google didn't hire them
due to their age or for other reasons? I see posts all the time about people
complaining they didn't get into company X because of some silly reason but
frankly, unless you are the interviewer you likely will never know the reason.
Shouldn't we wait to see the outcome of the case?

Indeed Google itself is not as diverse as we would like to be, but that's
actually the reason we have these outreach programs: to try to get a more
diverse applicant pool, which hopefully will translate to a more diverse
workforce.

The average age being 29 doesn't surprise me because there are many more young
applicants than there are older ones, since CS is getting more and more
popular. Not only that but typically a larger company will have more junior
developers than senior ones, and most junior developers are also more junior
in age.

I don't know whether Google discriminates by age since I don't have the
numbers, but I will say that Google takes diversity and inclusivity extremely
seriously. I don't think a day goes by that I don't see a post asking for
volunteers for some activity to promote diversity. That being the case, it
would surprise me if we discriminate in a systemic way. For some individuals
to do so unconsciously wouldn't surprise me just because it's human nature to
be biased, although we do our best to unlearn that behavior.

~~~
krashnburn200
To play devils advocate here, Google has been an absolutely mind blowing
company. They didn't do it by being Average, and perfect diversity means
_exactly_ that... Average.

Why are people so interested in screwing up something that obviously works,
and works so amazingly well in pursuit of absurd ideologies?

~~~
djaychela
I think you're using a wrong definition of average there. Yes, if you
aggregated every quality of the populace, then you would be correct. But
talking of age, for instance, wouldn't be the case. I'm quite sure there are
plenty of people older than me (45) who could run rings round many of Google's
employees, but wouldn't get the chance to do so (or maybe want to be there
given the culture).

Google may have been 'mind blowing' but there is a bucket-load of things they
simply seem unable to do (such as have a clear overall strategy, leading to
the mess that is their approach to messaging), and in addition while they have
clearly been hugely profitable, they may not give the best experience for some
of their users (I've heard the phrase 'regularly cut off [their] own limbs'
used). Whether this would be changed if their workforce was more diverse in
terms of age (and therefore more experienced) we will never know, but I have
my suspicions.

------
strathmeyer
I graduated with a CS degree in 2004 from Carnegie Mellon University and
Google didn't give a shit about me until 2011 where they told me they would
only hire me if I were working for another local company first. The other
local companies didn't want to hire me, because they thought I would just go
work for Google. Never met anyone at Google who cared that I was a good
programmer or had devoted my life to it. They seemed focused on stealing
workers from their competitors. If they want to hire computer scientists, then
tell their employees to focus on that in the hiring process. If they have
someone with a Computer Science degree who is a great programmer who wants to
work with them, maybe they should find the time to speak with them or to
explain how they could get a job in computer science or programming.

My experience is that Google things a Computer Science degree is worthless. It
can't get your foot in the door to speak to them, you have to be a race or
gender they are looking for.

~~~
sudosteph
Being the "right" gender (assume you mean female?) with a solid Computer
Science degree wasn't enough to get my foot in the door to talk to anyone
there either. They're picky, elitist, and unless someone already there
recommends you they won't even talk to you.

At least that was the case before I got Amazon on my resume. Now it feels like
every company on the planet wants to recruit me, including Google. I know a
lot of people at Amazon who didn't have connections and didn't have a degree
from an elite school (or a degree in CS at all in some cases) and they were
still great. I'm sure google would never give them the time of day.

The one person I do know who works at Google is awful to be around (he is the
"wrong" gender and race btw and went to the same school as me, but got
referred). Google is all he talks about. I invited him to a party once and he
actually started working on his laptop mid-party and snapped at me when I came
over and asked him what he was up to ("It's confidential!" he said as he
closed the screen and left).

So feeling rejected sucks, but maybe you dodged a bullet there.

------
chillydawg
I look at that page and all I see is icons for Word, Powerpoint, Access and
Excel in a line. My brain has been hard-branded for so long. Google need to
change that page a bit.

~~~
sangnoir
Primary colors have been used in branding since forever, what brand it invokes
is a Rorschach test. I'm personally reminded of the logo on our first color
TV.

------
bruceb
We replicated a CS degree path which you can fill with free MOOCs:
[https://www.coursebuffet.com/degree](https://www.coursebuffet.com/degree)

Admittedly we have left our course list dormant for a while but we will be
pushing an update in a few weeks.

~~~
mrwebmaster
I like the idea. I want to start studying Software Design (economist here) and
did some research and found the BEng Software Engineering from Edinburgh. I am
currently trying to replicate it. If I had know about your page before, maybe
I would have taken your suggested path.

I've just started, but I can say that some courses (from this particular
degree) are not available in a MOOC version, like "Functional Programming with
Haskell" (1st semester) and "Computational Logic" (1st semester). But for CSCI
particularly, I'm sure there are more MOOC courses available.

In the "Math Segment" of your path, I would include "Linear Algebra". There is
a good MOOC version in edX called "Linear Algebra Foundations to Frontiers"
from U. of Austin TX.

~~~
bruceb
Thanks for feedback. We looked at the CS and management degrees/minors offered
by a lot of universities. We did our best to craft a path that reflects
requirements most have.

That being said there are courses that might be required that we don't have in
our requirements. Later we may add a public section were users can add in
suggestions for courses to include in a learning path.

We also need a major update in courses listings. That is coming.

------
zizzles
I glimpsed at the content for 30 seconds. This does not look anything like a
computer science education: "Pencil Code", "Blockly", "Coding Adventures",
"Craft Small Projects in HTML/CSS". These are just glorified baby-games for 5
year old's; or at the very most a stupefied introduction of basic development
for girls and malnourished Indian children.

------
projektir
I'm going to express an annoyance that I usually have with things like this.
It's not really a Google problem, or a computer science problem. More of a
society problem.

Why is everything related to education always targeted at young people? My
ability to synthesize new knowledge has increased substantially after I was
already out of college for a few years. But once you are in that age range,
educational resources suddenly dissipate. Well, it's not the only thing that
dissipates...

But, seriously, the amount of resources that were thrown at me while I was
younger was ridiculous. Interestingly enough, I could hardly keep up with it.

A bit odd that everyone acts as if they think that there's no chance of
developing people further after the age of 25 or so. Do they really have a
much higher demand for fresh grads, as opposed to people with experience? Is
it that much harder to get a shallow understanding of computer science as
opposed to a deep one?

------
AtomicOrbital
People need to learn how to learn first ... the Trivium ... grammar, logic,
and rhetoric ... after a successful baseline there then they can teach
themselves CS or whatever ... too early exposure to CS just continues the
trade school factory mentality prevalent in current pre college education

------
fillskills
With all of Alphabet's resources, data, this is all they could manage on all
of Computer Science? Whats the data/measurements behind this?

------
theshire
This is not what I was expecting. I was expecting something similar to Udacity
or Edx but for computer science education instead just seems like a bunch of
kid games or am I wrong, I expected more from Google on this topic.

------
booleandilemma
Computer Science will end up like Math. Lots of adults today learned geometry,
trigonometry, and calculus in school. If you ask them how much of it they use
on a daily basis most will tell you they don't.

------
derrickdirge
I was really hoping this was going to provide some path to completing my CS
degree.

At least they're acknowledging the importance of education.

~~~
randomdata
What is the importance of a CS education?

I honestly don't feel like my exposure to CS has changed my life in any way
outside of my career. If I imagine some future where I am retired, it is not
obvious to me where I will use anything I have learned or how it will shape me
into being a better person.

It certainly has been useful to me in finding gainful employment, but if that
is the only thing it brings to the table, one could argue that Google is only
doing this in their self-serving interests. It is clear to see what benefits
they would gain in having a larger labour pool available.

~~~
Anm
"...outside of my career"

Ummm... isn't that a pretty major effect? Doesn't that have some impressive
side effects?

I watch my so many of my non-CS friends cycle through jobs (and debt) with
limited ability to add long-term stability. If information sciences are having
an impact on every industry, and encouraging students to explore those options
gives them better access to jobs, and thus improve their life, that seems like
a noble goal.

~~~
randomdata
My career has been significant in my life. I was fortunate enough to take an
interest in CS before we started pushing it on every man, woman, and child.
Since there have been few of us with the necessary skills up to this point,
job stability and compensation has been fairly great, relatively speaking.

But success is rarely duplicated! The cure for high prices, after all, is high
prices. With the push for more and more to get into CS, there will undoubtedly
be more and more looking for careers in CS-based professions in the future.
The added competition will leave these jobs in the same state that your
friends have found themselves dealing with in mature careers who have already
gone through the same dilution of people. If I'm wrong and these people do not
pursue careers that are related to CS, what have they really gained?

To put simply: Value lies in scarcity. If CS is no longer scarce, it will no
longer be valuable.

------
supergeek133
I want to know when we have the conversation about how every developer doesn't
need to be a college graduate.

------
secfirstmd
Sweet, just started a course in CS, so anything that can help is welcome!

------
lineindc
Instead of applauding this (oh, they are spreading knowledge), I'm going to
point out that they just want cheaper labour.

~~~
notgood
You know why we create software? To automate things, stuff that before
required lot of accountants can be now down with software + one accountant. So
we made accounting "cheaper" cutting a lot of jobs; should we stop making
software because it makes labor cheaper? should we stop making robots because
it makes labor cheaper? Fuck that; if socio-economics has a problem we need to
find a solution that doesn't involve stopping how far and wide knowledge can
be spread.

~~~
YCode
I got into a discussion about this recently. It seems like most of the time
new technology and automation inherently creates less jobs than it
depreciates.

Meanwhile, the population only goes up.

Assuming those two statements are true in a given economy, then this is going
to become a major problem for society as the number of people drastically
outmatches the number of (skilled?) jobs that need performed.

At a certain point we're going to have to find a new paradigm to replace our
"compete for a job and you can earn a living" system or else find ourselves in
a situation where the employer has all the power and the vast majority of
people who can even find work endure terrible conditions.

~~~
wolfgke
> I got into a discussion about this recently. It seems like most of the time
> new technology and automation inherently creates less jobs than it
> depreciates.

> Meanwhile, the population only goes up.

That's why one should consider people who produce children as "evil-minded".
There are few things that are similar as cruel as producing children who will
have no place in society. Antinatalism for the win.

~~~
YCode
Sort of.

On the other hand, on a national or global scale having children is not
optional.

If you want your species to continue, some people have to have children.

That said, I agree in that I believe contraception should be essentially free
to anyone who wants it. There's simply no logical reason for society to bring
unwanted and superfluous children into the world.

~~~
wolfgke
> If you want your species to continue, some people have to have children.

But only as many as society really needs (currently we have to many) and and
only if there exist people that are willing to bail if the child will be
unemployed (a risk that will increase with even more automatization).

