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Education The Almighty Buck

Jeff Bezos Is Opening His First Tuition-Free Bezos Academy Preschool, Where Each Child 'Will Be the Customer' (thehill.com) 114

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos on Tuesday announced he's soon opening the first location of a network of tuition-free "Montessori-inspired" preschools for underserved children. In an Instagram post, Bezos said the first Bezos Academy will open in Des Moines, Wash., on Oct. 19. The network of schools will offer year-round programming, five days a week, for children between the ages of 3 and 5. Admissions will prioritize low-income families, according to the Bezos Day One Fund website.

"This classroom is just the beginning," Bezos wrote in a post featuring a photo of a preschool classroom. "The @bezosacademy opens its doors on Oct. 19th. This one in Des Moines, WA, is the first of many free preschools that we'll be opening for underserved children." The nonprofit organization says it wants to run the schools using the same set of principles that have driven e-commerce giant Amazon. "Most important among those will be genuine, intense customer obsession. The child will be the customer," the organization said on its website.

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Jeff Bezos Is Opening His First Tuition-Free Bezos Academy Preschool, Where Each Child 'Will Be the Customer'

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  • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @09:03AM (#60535260) Homepage Journal

    Jeff Bezos Is Opening His First Tuition-Free Bezos Academy Preschool, Where Each Child 'Will Be the Customer'

    No, he who pays for it 'Will Be the Customer', and call the shots.

    • The nonprofit organization says it wants to run the schools using the same set of principles that have driven e-commerce giant Amazon

      Which is "Grab as much personal information about our 'customers' as possible that we can sell to corporations for them to improve their ad targeting"?

      • Re:Uh No (Score:4, Informative)

        by cusco ( 717999 ) <brian.bixby@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @10:35AM (#60535652)

        Not sure how much "personal information" about 3 and 4 year-olds is worth, but it's not going to be much.

        BTW, you apparently are unaware that Amazon doesn't sell its customers' information, any data gathered is for internal use only. I work there, and PID (personally identifying information) has the highest level of security classification, higher even than employee data.

        • Just to clarify for the gp, it's really valuable data and it most certainly would not be sold directly. For Amazon's ad program alone it generates around $13B in annual revenue. So it's really no different than Google. The data is definitely used for advertising targeting, but just within their walled garden.

          • by cusco ( 717999 )

            Personal information about preschoolers is really valuable data? Not really sure why, but OK.

            Besides, this isn't going to be an Amazon company, they won't be sharing data anyway.

            • Correct, that wouldn't be valuable. What's valuable is all the customer data on the Amazon platform that they've collected and use to target ads that generates the $13B a year in revenue. Sorry, should have made that clearer.

        • Amazon doesn't sell its customers' information

          Given Amazons increasing domination of the retail world, there will soon be no other retailers to sell it to anyway. I'm sure that Amazon enjoys keeping and using this information just for itself; why let rivals have it at all?

    • I am not disagreeing with you. While I would rather see a more universal preschool system and a schooling system that is better designed to help the individual student vs having kids on average meet test scores. However the core part of the problem we are facing is that most companies and government debates have forgotten about the customer as the actual economic drivers.

      There is so much talk around companies saving money, via efficiencies from technology, cut in taxes, reduction in regulations. There ha

      • School education is currently set at level for people of the industrial revolution. That would allow a high school student to read a set of directions, fill out a time sheet, perhaps do some match to make sure things are calibrated, That is no longer sufficient. As we need less people who will blindly do what they are told, but be able to think on their feet and adapt to problems.

        I suspect you can't really fix this in the modern environment in the USA (with so many parents who don't know anything) without making more school mandatory and free, although I WOULD like to see critical thinking taught in high school. Still, making at least two years of college (preferably more like 2-3, since many will not have the freedom and/or ability to get a 2 year degree in two years) free to all would be a good move here.

        • by cusco ( 717999 )

          IMNSHO critical thinking skills need to be taught in grade school or even kindergarten, they need to be integrated into the individual's regular problem-solving thought process rather than something dredged up out of memory like algebra. I was lucky, my parents taught me to think rationally as a child (to the later distress of my mother when I became an agnostic by age 12). Unfortunately most households in the US are pitifully unable to teach them to their children because the parents don't possess them t

        • In high school?

          Fuck man, that's grammar school at the latest. Formal varieties of logic should be in middle or high school.

    • Jeff Bezos Is Opening His First Tuition-Free Bezos Academy Preschool, Where Each Child 'Will Be the Customer'

      No, he who pays for it 'Will Be the Customer', and call the shots.

      I think you miss understood, when he said each child 'Will Be the Customer' he meant each child will be turned into the perfect customer for amazon.

  • by Tom ( 822 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @09:08AM (#60535286) Homepage Journal

    No, the child is NOT the customer.

    A customer is someone who pays something in exchange for a good or service. These kids pay nothing. That's nice - but it means they're not the customer. It makes you wonder who the customer is. Advertisement business again? Tracking companies? Data collection?

    What's the business model here? Since running a school isn't free, money needs to come from somewhere - and whoever gives it is the ACTUAL customer.

    • In a way it bothers me that schools are giving chromebooks to our kids. Especially after I read the terms and conditions to them.

      There is something that really bothers me about the wording to this article.

      You're right, by the way. But it's not who is buying goods that bothers me, it's that amazon is potenially going to be programming our children.

      Google and amazon have no place in our childrens education at least until they are old enough to understand the terms and conditions. And I still wonder if most

      • You know what would have made me smile though? A guy as rich as bezos just opening up free preschools without any strings attached. No mention of kids being customers or anything like that. He's kind of making Gates look like a saint.

        It would be just different strings. That guys fortune comes from somewhere. If he's from a meat packing imperium, you would see those strings attached unless it's a vegetarian school (and why would he even have that idea?) and someone connected to church wouldn't found an atheist preschool and someone from a conservative rich family wouldn't foster liberal tendencies in that school.

        So the charity will always mirror the founder. And if it's only by the beneficiaries looking up to him, they will "inherit" som

      • You know what would have made me smile though? A guy as rich as bezos just opening up free preschools without any strings attached. No mention of kids being customers or anything like that. He's kind of making Gates look like a saint.

        Only to those who ignore reality, including history. Who cares what people say? It's what they do that matters. Bill Gates has done notable harm to education with his initiatives. (I'm not even getting into the medical stuff RN.) It remains to be seen what effect Bezos will have on education.

        Gates is famous for attached strings. Bezos, not so much. But there's time yet.

      • There is something that really bothers me about the wording to this article.

        Most important among those will be genuine, intense customer obsession. The child will be the customer,

        Bezos wants the children to "most importantly" genuinely intensely obsess over him. What's bothersome about that? /s

        • by Tom ( 822 )

          What's bothersome about that? /s

          That he apparently cannot think outside a narrow box that sees everything as a business transaction.

          Being a human being contains things that aren't commercial. That cannot be properly expressed in terms of shareholder value, customers, price, market or profit. Love, of course. Pleasure. Parenthood. Play. Sex. Fear. Loss. Philosophy, art and education.

      • by cusco ( 717999 )

        I'd prefer that a company run in a rational manner be in charge of "programming our children" than any church (with the possible exception of the Unitarians).

        The students of a school absolutely should be seen as its customers. Unfortunately the administration of most schools see the taxpayers as the customers, and whoever pays the most gets to say what happens.

        • by mysidia ( 191772 )

          The students of a school absolutely should be seen as its customers.

          Actually.. probably not. its probably students' parents that should be viewed as the customers -- true the services are intended solely for the benefit, well-being, and educational development of the students.

          However, preschool-age children lack capacity in various ways including good judgement and will often Not be in a position to appropriately represent what their interests will be.. For example, they may well ask for candy all

          • by cusco ( 717999 )

            The fantasy of "The customer is always right" is not true, not even in retail (my wife worked in retail for 20+ years). The job of the provider is not necessarily to serve the customer what they want but frequently to give them what they need instead. I work in physical security (key cards, alarms, cameras, that stuff). We frequently get requests from our customers for ways to make such-and-such easier, and we tell them "No" if it would violate security parameters. We're the experts, not them, as the te

        • by Tom ( 822 )

          The students of a school absolutely should be seen as its customers.

          Absolutely, emphatically NOT.

          The students of a school absolutely should be seen as its STUDENTS.

          Labeling them "customers" implies a commercial relationship. If you accept that, you've already bought into the idea of school-as-business. But why should a school be a business? Why should it have customers at all? That's simply not necessary, unless you want to extract profit from the operation.

          A school needs teachers and students. Maybe a few administrative people, cleaners and housekeepers. What it doesn't ne

      • by Tom ( 822 )

        You know what would have made me smile though? A guy as rich as bezos just opening up free preschools without any strings attached. No mention of kids being customers or anything like that. He's kind of making Gates look like a saint.

        Never gonna happen.

        These guys came to be where they are by trampling others underneath and have years and years of countless bootlickers telling them that they're right, yes of course sir.

        I don't think they have a clear view of the real world anymore. Too many layers between them and ordinary people. They may actually genuinely think that they're doing good, but they're little different from Marie-Antoinette recommending "Quâ(TM)ils mangent de la brioche" to starving peasants.

    • A charity doesn't need a business model, so that is not the point here. But if you found a charity, you simply DO NOT speak of customers! That is just plain wrong.

      Of course as with all charities (and especially the charity mindset in the US(*)) this does not answer the question if there is or isn't some hidden agenda. I'm not implying that here, but there is no way to know.

      (*) Helping people in need and helping society is expected from private donators rather than the public sector. Nothing wrong with that

      • by Tom ( 822 )

        A charity doesn't need a business model, so that is not the point here. But if you found a charity, you simply DO NOT speak of customers! That is just plain wrong.

        Exactly. The fact that he speaks of "customers" makes it clear that the charity is simply the front to run this business tax-exempt.

        Also, those billionaire-founded and -funded charities all have a sinister purpose: Whitewashing their name while using money as power to spread their personal view of the world without it having to compete with other ideas.

        • As I said above: That has to be assumed.
          But the problem is: Even if some honest billionaire would found a charity without any afterthought: We wouldn't know it as either we wouldn't know from its existence at all, or it would look exactly the same as one with a hidden agenda.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 )
      No, the child is the customer like he said. They will be "trafficked" to the appropriate learning institution, and they will pay with the sacrifice of their innocence. Feels like a solid business model.
    • Yeah I was picturing the kid as the product also, but a little differently. You box them up in the morning, driver tosses them into the Amazon van then returns your precious tike in the afternoon. The short vans reserved for "non-Prime" students, of course.

    • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @10:14AM (#60535564)

      No, the child is NOT the customer.

      A customer is someone who pays something in exchange for a good or service. These kids pay nothing. That's nice - but it means they're not the customer. It makes you wonder who the customer is. Advertisement business again? Tracking companies? Data collection?

      What's the business model here? Since running a school isn't free, money needs to come from somewhere - and whoever gives it is the ACTUAL customer.

      Perhaps the largest mistake we're making here, is continuing to assume that education should be treated like a fucking business.

      Gonna be a hard lesson to learn when the US gets schooled by the rest of the planet because we're too busy arguing bullshit semantics about "customers" instead of educating our future to be mature and responsible enough to survive.

      Yeah. We practically deserve this shit by now. Amazon schools...talk about a WHAT THE FUCK.

      • by Tom ( 822 )

        Perhaps the largest mistake we're making here, is continuing to assume that education should be treated like a fucking business.

        Who is that "we" you are talking about there?

        Largely, the developed world has state-run education systems. Granted, Europe is always a ready victim for American bullshit and the education system has seen way too many "public-private partnerships" as the sell-outs are called over here. But school are run by the government and are for free.

        Like every -ism, capitalism has gone too far end will eventually murder itself - with considerable collateral damage. Most -ism ideas have a useful core that could be used

        • Perhaps the largest mistake we're making here, is continuing to assume that education should be treated like a fucking business.

          Who is that "we" you are talking about there?

          Largely, the developed world has state-run education systems. Granted, Europe is always a ready victim for American bullshit and the education system has seen way too many "public-private partnerships" as the sell-outs are called over here...

          I already have an oar in my hand, and you've boarded already. Who's this "we"? Uh, sounds like you and me, boatmate.

          But school are run by the government and are for free.

          I love how taxpayers get so fucking brainwashed by the taxman that they don't even remember what they're obviously paying for.

          Yeah. Ours are "free" like that too. And suck just as bad. No funding because of tax dodgers. This why we still have colleges the world over that are still entitled to charge a metric fuckton for that education.

          Look, I'm the first guy to call out the idiot in th

          • by Tom ( 822 )

            I love how taxpayers get so fucking brainwashed by the taxman that they don't even remember what they're obviously paying for.

            Yeah. Ours are "free" like that too. And suck just as bad.

            Ah, you see, there's the difference. In much of the world, public schools are actually not bad. In fact, in quite a few countries, it's the other way around - private schools and universities are for those who can't make it in the public system and need to buy their way to a degree.

            Good luck with your schools. "We" are going to need it.

            Agree on that. Europe copies too many of the stupid american ideas, most likely because they profit the people who make the decisions, and what do they care about the damage it does to everyone else, right?

      • Perhaps the largest mistake we're making here, is continuing to assume that education should be treated like a fucking business.

        Yeah there is the whole "run X like a business" cult of Republicans and conservative Democrats. Amongst many flaws, it ignores first the fact that businesses are rife with corruption and waste and there is no such thing as a large organization that doesn't have it.

        • Perhaps the largest mistake we're making here, is continuing to assume that education should be treated like a fucking business.

          Yeah there is the whole "run X like a business" cult of Republicans and conservative Democrats. Amongst many flaws, it ignores first the fact that businesses are rife with corruption and waste and there is no such thing as a large organization that doesn't have it.

          Treating education like a business is only our first mistake.

          Stupidly assuming one can continue to justify and sustain human life based solely on their ability to get and keep a job, is the next greatest mistake we will make, especially as Greed continues to demand that we get rid of all these expensive human workers and replace them with machines in a "great leap" towards automation and AI.

          Education should be free. Employment should be optional. Life and health should be a given Right. No, I don't give

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Bezos is the customer.

      This is what billionaires have always done. Be a complete dick but then do a few charitable projects to whitewash your image for posterity. Those old schools and libraries named after some guy are mostly there to make you think they were good people, but they rarely were.

      Zuckerberg does it, Gates does it, even Trump does it. Oil firms do it, tobacco firms do it. Gouging pharma companies throw a few doses to the developing world, sponsor a few scholarships. None of it makes up for all t

    • by bozzy ( 992580 )
      Sounds the the children will be the customer... Eventually. Think Buy N Large [fandom.com]-style indoctrination.

      Once the earth is trashed we can abandon it on an "Axiom" built by Blue Origin.
    • for profit. It's like selling drugs, first one's free kiddies.
    • Fair enough, but where is the malice? Be clear, no hand waving about rich people being bad.
      • by Tom ( 822 )

        The malice is the intentional mislabeling that is happening here. If there was a non-malicious business model behind it - why the lies?

    • No, the child is NOT the customer.

      What's the business model here?

      Easy answer.

      The network of schools will offer year-round programming, five days a week, for children between the ages of 3 and 5.

      It's a babysitting service. Gotta get those poor single moms out of their homes and into an Amazon warehouse somehow. This is how.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @09:14AM (#60535298)

    i am not sure what to think about this new world we are moving towards, where billionaires take over basic government functions like funding medical research, schools, prisons, ... police... war...

    • by xonen ( 774419 )

      While i tend to agree with you, it's not all that new.. We have a private security sector next to the police, universities started reaching for 3rd party funding somewhere in the 90's, health care is often a private company.

      And the million dollar question here is: what makes us think that governments would do those tasks better? We have seen govs fail a lot too. We see schools and teachers - in my country - complain about a lack of funding. Since there's plenty money in the world (and else we print some) it

      • by JeffSh ( 71237 ) <jeffslashdot&m0m0,org> on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @10:10AM (#60535540)

        it brings us to a disturbing question, was the government of anything, even our own democracy, ever but a facade for the interests of capital? Those interests may have been held in check periodically and maybe the periodic check is the best we can ever hope for, but this realization is something that our public schools never would speak about or teach about, because control of the curriculum is in the hands of the government.

        balancing libertarian views and liberal views is an exercise all people should go through and i hope that comes through in this post.

    • That's what you get when everyone cries "Socialism" in horror as soon as someone mentions decent healthcare...

      But of course, the price of keeping out billionaires out of running schools, prisons and police is to have the government run it...

      What's better? In the end that's probably a case by case descission.

    • i am not sure what to think about this new world we are moving towards, where billionaires take over basic government functions like funding medical research, schools, prisons, ... police... war...

      If you haven't yet, read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. Or if you want to kick it old school, Pohl and Kornbluth's Space Merchants. "You can't trust reason. We threw it out of the ad profession long ago and have never missed it."

    • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @10:19AM (#60535592)

      i am not sure what to think about this new world we are moving towards, where billionaires take over basic government functions like funding medical research, schools, prisons, ... police... war...

      Here's the sad/pathetic/corrupt irony.

      Had Amazon actually paid taxes, they wouldn't be in the "business" of providing education, because our taxpayer-funded education system would actually be fucking funded.

    • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @10:25AM (#60535608)

      That is what the conservatives want. Privatize everything because they figure they can somehow magically handle this better.

      The problem is these services are not necessarily profitable to the company offering the service, as they are for the greater good service. This is why Government has services, this isn't Communism or even Socialism, it is a key role of government to offer services paid by everyone's tax money to offer features that offer the greater good even if it isn't a directly profitable activity.

      How many billions of dollars of goods Travel the government funded roads daily.

      • by Dan667 ( 564390 )
        conservatives don't think they can do it better, that is just what they tell their general base. It is really a scheme to make as much money as possible taking over government functions that are natural monopolies. Looks at private prisons for what the rich conservatives want to do to everything.
    • It does raise the question of why we send billions of dollars in taxes to the government, if those billions never get utilized to fund the things we're supposedly paying the government to do. More and more it seems our government, at least in the US, is a theater organized by big money to keep our interest while the shove their hands in our pockets to clean them out.

  • Perhaps the first thing on which they should concentrate is English.

    Tuition-Free - does that mean they will not teach?

    Tuition Fee Free perhaps?

    • No, they got it right. The point of this school is probably to produce lifelong customers, and a large pool of potential code monkey wage-slaves from which to hire easily in the future.

    • Perhaps the first thing on which they should concentrate is English.
      Tuition-Free - does that mean they will not teach?

      lol

      tuÂiÂtion /t(y)oÍzoËiSH(É(TM))n/
      noun
      noun: tuition; plural noun: tuitions

      North American
      a sum of money charged for teaching or instruction by a school, college, or university.

      Irony, thy name be Slashdot. Also ignorance.

      • by ranton ( 36917 )

        Irony, thy name be Slashdot. Also ignorance.

        I'm not sure how ignorant the poster is, as he was likely just trying to be pedantic. Using the word tuition to refer specifically to the payment for education is a relatively new usage, even if it has become the most common meaning today. The term itself used to mean the act of teaching itself. Over time common usage went from "I paid for tuition" to "I paid tuition". Dictionary definitions changed accordingly.

        I think it was probably just a failed attempt at being a smart-ass, not actual ignorance. There a

        • I think it was probably just a failed attempt at being a smart-ass, not actual ignorance.

          If we had a reasonable way to find out for sure what the actual cause was, I'd bet you a dollar it was an attempt at being a smart-ass which failed due to actual ignorance. And I have never had to pay out on one of these bets, either. We clearly can't trust the commenter, though, so I suppose the answer will remain occluded.

          I'm not an English expert, although I was on track to become one at one time. Then I dropped out and got a tech job. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night, and I used their internet

        • It is not clear from the title which of the two meanings of the word "tuition" was meant. So the author ( or an editor who knew how to edit ) was either not aware of the two meanings ( so THEY were ignorant ) or was too lazy to make it clear which meaning was intended. It is not about pedantry, it is about writing correct, readable English.
          • It is not clear from the title which of the two meanings of the word "tuition" was meant.

            No, but it is clear from the summary.

            Headlines have two jobs. One is a job they do for you, the reader: tell you what the article is about. The other is a job they do for the publisher, who wants to give views: make you want to find out more about the article. This headline did both of those jobs.

          • by ranton ( 36917 )

            It is not clear from the title which of the two meanings of the word "tuition" was meant.

            It was very clear from the title which of the two meanings was being used. It said a tuition free school was being created. It is not reasonable to assume they meant an education free school. Noticing context clues and knowledge of the subject matter are necessary when reading.

            If I say I rode on a small jet-liner, you should be able to know it was small relative to an airplane. Not small compared to a mouse. Just because I didn't clarify how small it was, context clues and knowledge of airplanes should be g

            • Nonsense. Just like saying "the child really is the customer", because it is a headline one might expect it to contain some sort of suprise, revealed in the article.
              But that surprise should not be based on poor use of English when writing ( or editting ) the headline.
              That is just lame, like your excuse.

  • Buy n Large is your super store
    we've got all you need
    and so much more

    Happiness is what we sell
    That's why everyone
    loves BnL
  • to run schools. A child is far too innocent and gullible to apply critical thinking and realize they might be manipulated to further the school owner's agenda. Ask McDonald's: they know a thing or two about targeting children to creating lifelong customer loyalty.

    Of course, sadly in the US, the public alternative ain't much to write home about...

  • Financial report: Customer demand for crayons and ice cream continues to surge since we made those products available, and our customers appear to be united politically in their pro-candy and anti-naptime leanings. We’re continuing to assess the potential impact of the upcoming elections on the availability of cheese, but we currently don’t anticipate any shortages.

  • Do all the kids have to change their last names to Amazon?
  • Jeff will get the kids used to being monitored, tracked, and commanded. They'll be perfect little human drones when they grow up. Jeff envisions a world of mechanical turks.

  • "A is for Amazon, your very best friend"

  • Large areas of the public school system in the US are basically failures. Instead of touting actual performance they tout "equity", because they don't want anyone to actually measure teaching effectiveness and performance. God forbid they actually compensate teachers based on their performance.

    Standards? Good luck with that. Public schools don't believe in standards. They believe in "equity."

    Bezos will probably have a data-driven approach to education, in contrast to the touchy-feely approach to education

    • If BLM then why are their schools so bad?

      Because no lives matter [youtube.com].

    • by Anonymous Coward

      You have much to learn. Getting a lot of dental work done does not make you a dentist or qualified to give critiques on how they do their job. For education, in this (American) culture of disrespecting teachers, whining and shifting blame everybody thinks they are an expert (does this remind anybody of any elected political representatives?)

      Education is harder than dentistry, it's not well understood but that doesn't make armchair experts credible only less obviously ignorant because the experts are not t

    • equity and standard are not mutable exclusive.

      And equity should be the goal, no idea why you are against it.

  • I pledge allegiance to Alexa of Amazon and to the dictator for which its stands, one dictatorship under Bezos, indivisible with servitude and socialism for all.
  • As a parent, I can only say that the worst you can do is cater to all the wishes (not needs!) of kids. No faster way exists to ruin them.
  • In the US "customer" means the same thing as "mark". Someone to be conned out of their money in exchange for nothing.

    • Someone to be conned out of their money in exchange for nothing.

      You usually get something, but it is also usually more and/or less than you were expecting, and not in positive ways.

  • ... or labor reforms, labor unions, the era when a high school education meant you could raise a family and own a pool, that sort of thing.

    • That sort of material is usually not presented in preschool.

      I'm no Bezos-lover, but come on, it's in the headline.

  • I don't want my kid associating with the Hoi Polloi - that $119 per year has to be worth something.

  • This would never fly in Canada, but from what we hear of the American school system as long as Bezos can keep guns out of his schools you may end up ahead. You are all used to getting treated like crap unless you're part of the 1% anyway, this is no different.
  • Years ago I wrote a story about a world that had been taken over by a singular corporation. Everything about the life of citizens was dictated by the corporation. They were taught from birth that the profit was all, and any action that was detrimental to the profit was grounds for removal from "proper" society and banishment to the dregs, where you lose all access to the products of the corporation.

    It seems that world is coming about far more quickly than I'd anticipated. These kids will be taught the wa

    • by redback ( 15527 )

      Buy N Large corp from Wall-E

    • Years ago I wrote a story about a world that had been taken over by a singular government. Everything about the life of citizens was dictated by the government. They were taught from birth that the government was all, and any action that was detrimental to the government was grounds for removal from "proper" society and banishment to the dregs, where you lose all access to the society. It seems that world is coming about far more quickly than I'd anticipated. These kids will be taught the ways of governmen
  • A is for Amazon
    B is for Bezos...

  • The network of schools will offer year-round programming

    Programming... Whoa... so is the idea is to get the toddlers coding services on top of AWS?

    Talk about getting 'em at an early age, huh

  • Brainwash little kids that their highest purpose in life is to "CONSUME".

    "Customer" means you have no belief in society, that it's all market, and you probably are planning on letting your parents die when they're old, to cut costs.

  • So, this is like McDonalds trying to get their clutches into people from a very early age with the (decidedly creepy) clown and the playgrounds. I definitely don't believe Bezos is doing anything like this out of kindness, so why? To make low income families feel indebted to him and Amazon?

  • Nationwide, children have been doing K-12 school work on MS/Google platforms. (12 years of "job" performance) This gives these companies an unprecedented long term outlook on Americans academic performance. Even now, these companies control a huge piece of the labor market pie. Imagine the data these companies are going to be able to tap when Little Johnny becomes Mr. Johnny, and goes job hunting- or applies for a loan, or shops for insurance.......

    One of the biggest players in the tech space has been cons

  • The network of schools will offer year-round programming..! Hmmm, I think I might be reading this wrong..?
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E = MC ** 2 +- 3db

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