Eight hundred employees resign after WhiteHat Jr asks them to work from office

Yes, abuse should not be tolerated as a learning experience.

There isn't much hope in breaking the wheels of the megacorp and government alliances, but at the very least we can share our criticism and condemn these behaviors.

That's certainly helpful to remediate, but not to prevent these things from repeating in the future.

[Assuming US laws] In most states you can terminate employment due to "Changing of Terms and Conditions" and still get Unemployment. Of Course check your local state laws, but their is a prevailing myth that if you voluntarily quit you always forfeit unemployment, that is not true, it is harder for sure, however in a situation like this chances are you would win unemployment hearing

This would be then termination with cause. Employment agreements generally state that employees can be required to work from any location as required by the employer. Refusal is then called breach of contract and hence termination without cause.

This is in India. Do they have the same unemployment laws in India?

Would refusing to move be cause for termination? That's not a layoff, perhaps, at least in the eyes of the unemployment regulations?

In Canada I think this could be a “constructive dismissal”. I believe this may be a general common-law thing, but IANAL.

Is that true in India?

This is why America is doomed internally.. we cant even have a discussion such as this, regarding what kids are busy doing studying.

I mean the entire dialogue around education from a cultural perspective is completely void in the US.

Is America known for our deep and abiding inherent trust of our fellow countrymen? (I don’t believe we’re known for that, yet remote working works here, at least to a very large degree.)

Or one could plan to cut some of both and come out of it with a leaner opex profile that keeps more human capacity.

When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

If you ask techies to describe education, it consists of memorizing trivia. And that fits perfectly well into computerized education.

It doesn't help that so many school systems do in fact look at it that way. That's why we've gotten more and more standardized testing. They want to know they're getting value for money, so they define value in ways they can measure cheaply.

From personal experience teaching a small kid that does really well one on one learning. But with paper absolutely nothing.

One of the big benefits is of computers vs books: being able to directly give automated feedback.

Pronounce or type a word wrong, the computer instantly gives you specific feedback. If you do assignments on paper teachers checks it much further away from the point the cognitive effort has been applied. There is a much less direct feedback loop.

Especially for learning how to read a computer can give feedback whereas kids can go through texts not fully understanding, or misreading words without any correction.

Of course one on one is in some ways much more effective. But there are time constraints.

To automate certain things computer programs are most time effective. Just have to check in to make sure they are taking their work seriously.

It's also harder to pretend to be studying with a computer

Apps have greatly improved my language learning, spaced repetition has been a key for learning vocabulary and it's something that computers are very good at.

Also apps like tandem have made it free, quick and easy to find someone online to practice with.

It's the logical conclusion derived from the conceptualization of humans as programmable machines and education as their programming. After one accepts that belief, the issue merely becomes one of economy. Managing costs.

As someone who is approaching mid 40s and has gone back to college, I would say I disagree with you.

Ed tech is a problem yes, because you get only 1 kind of content on a single platform. But in general, computers have given me access to so much more than a singular human interaction could.

I'll use an example (real one). "Linear Algebra" search right here on HN yields a few results and I especially liked the animated web book. Gilbert Strang's videos are well... Gilbert Strang's videos. 3blue1brown throws a fantastic perspective. Pavel Grinfeld is brilliant too.

I have so many options now, which didn't exist in 1995. And each of them is so different and great in its own way.

> At best a computer is going to be like a book v2

Yes, I agree, but I think you underestimate just how much power v2 can bring to books.

Computers make interactive media relatively easy to create. Interactivity provides a literal new dimension to the information you can convey that makes some things easier and faster to understand than if you were to read them from a book. As a student, you can be handed a live simulation and experiment with it to "grow" an intuition for the subject matter. Nicky Case's explainers are a prime example of this in action.

> I've never understood why tech people think computers are going to improve education.

For many (not necessarily all) ed-tech startups, they don't.

They aren't looking to improve education, they are looking to leverage and scale a business. And for that, 'computers' is ideal.

It's mentioned above, no?

Holding salary as hostage until they move or resign.

The other possible outcomes are not providing experience letters, acknowledging employee worked, badmouthing, and harassing your next co-workers.

Also, many big companies here do contracts with clauses that charges a service fee and take salary or bonus back if the worker doesn't work there for at least 2 years.

If you leave soon, you might end up with negative pay.

There are lots of potential ways to force this.

They can refuse to give what is called a "relieving letter". That's a letter to future employers telling that this person left on good terms and his/her experience is genuine. It's a bloody effective weapon unfortunately :(