One Laptop per Child Doesn't Change the World
by John C. Dvorak
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2227872,00.asp
Does anyone but me see the OLPC XO-1 as an insulting "let them eat cake"
sort of message to the world's poor?
Hands Across America, Live AID, the Concert for Bangladesh, and so on. The
American (and world) public has witnessed one feel-good event (and the
ensuing scandals) after another. Each one manages to assuage our guilt
about the world's problems, at least a little. Now these folks think that
any sort of participation in these events, or even their good thoughts
about world poverty and starvation, actually help. Now they can sleep at
night. It doesn't matter that nothing has really changed.
This is how I view the cute, little One Laptop per Child (OLPC) XO-1
computer, technology designed for the impoverished children of Africa and
Alabama. This machine, which is the brainchild of onetime MIT media lab
honcho Nick Negroponte, will save the world. His vision is to supply every
child with what amounts to an advertising delivery mechanism. Hence the
boys at Google are big investors.
Before you cheer for the good guys, ponder a few of these facts taken from
a world hunger Web site. In the Asian, African, and Latin American
countries, well over 500 million people are living in what the World Bank
has called "absolute poverty." Every year, 15 million children die of
hunger. For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children
could eat lunch every day for five years. Throughout the decade, more than
100 million children will die from illness and starvation. The World
Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well fed,
one-third is underfed, and one-third is starving. Since you've entered
this site, at least 200 people have died of starvation. One in 12 people
worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of
5. Nearly one in four people, or 1.3 billion -- a majority of humanity --
live on less than $1 per day, while the world's 358 billionaires have
assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent
of the world's people. Let's include Negroponte and the Google
billionaires.
So what to do? Let's give these kids these little green computers. That
will do it! That will solve the poverty problem and everything else, for
that matter. Does anyone but me see this as an insulting "let them eat
cake" sort of message to the world's poor?
"Sir, our village has no water!" "Jenkins, get these people some
glassware!"
But, wait. Think of how cool it would be! Think of how many families will
get to experience the friendly spam-ridden Information Super Ad-way laced
with Nigerian scams, hoaxes, porn, blogs, wikis, spam, urban folklore,
misinformation, sites selling junk from China, bomb-making instructions,
jihad initiatives, communist propaganda, Nazi propaganda, exhortations,
movie clips of cats playing the piano, advertising, advertising, and more
advertising. Do you now feel better about the world's problems, knowing
that some poor tribesman's child has a laptop? What African kid doesn't
want access to Slashdot?
Of course, it might be a problem if there is no classroom and he can't
read. The literacy rate in Niger is 13 percent, for example. Hey, give
them a computer! And even if someone can read, how many Web sites and
wikis are written in SiSwati or isiZulu? Feh. These are just details to
ignore.
Every time I bring up this complaint to my Silicon Valley pals -- usually
as we race down I-280 in their newest Mercedes-Benz S Class sedan while
listening to their downloaded music from their iPod to the car's custom
stereo -- I get flak. They tell me, "It's a start. Computers will save the
world from poverty. You are just jealous you didn't think of the idea."
Yeah, that's it. I'm jealous.
Apparently, saying anything negative about the OLPC XO-1 computer amounts
to heresy in this community. You may as well promote NAMBLA or the KKK.
People don't want to consider the possibility that their well-meaning
thoughts are a joke and that a $200 truckload of rice would be of more use
than Wi-Fi in the middle of nowhere. There seems to be a notion that the
poor in Africa or East Asia are just like the kids in East Palo Alto. Once
they get a laptop, there will be no digital divide, will there? People can
say, "I did my part!"
So on it goes, with people falling all over themselves, saying how cool
the little laptop is and how it fundamentally changes the way laptops work
and what computing is all about. It's waterproof! So, we read long
articles about the thing. We see an incredible deer-in-the-headlights
Leslie Stahl puff piece about the device on 60 Minutes. No one says it's a
crock. Instead, only the minutiae of implementation and whether Intel
should be allowed to make a similar machine are questioned. During the
show, Stahl makes the idiotic claim that this is the first laptop in
history on which you can read the screen in broad daylight. So much for
fact checking. Then there is a tremendous push to get the public to take
part in the "Give One, Get One" promotion. "I want one!" says a cohort of
mine in a podcast. Apparently, he is going to toss his Mac PowerBook and
use this. Who is he kidding?
I was amused at the one critique thrown into the 60 Minutes mix for
balance. Negroponte was asked about the devices being stolen from the
children. He assuaged the audience by saying that the machine will stop
working in a month or so if stolen. Oh, okay. That was good enough for 60
Minutes. I'm thinking, "But it was still stolen!"
Some readers will just perceive these complaints of mine as coming from a
grumpy old man who doesn't like anything. Fine. Stay optimistic. Buy ten.
All I can tell you is that, personally, I have never seen such a cavalier
and pompous assuredness in my life. As if this whole OLPC scheme is
anything other than a naïve fiasco waiting to unfold. I'll donate my
money to hunger relief, thank you.
--
Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to
do what we ought. -- Pope John Paul II
--[Manny [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Alternative Information and Opinion at http://www.phnix.net
Advocacy blog: http://mamador.wordpress.com
Personal website: http://mannyamador.multiply.com
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