$100 laptop project launches 2007

Why is this a good idea? Does everybody need a computer any more than they need a generator, a water heater, or a toilet?

Sociable engineering is fine, but social engineering has never worked. We'd do better to get our own politics back in order and let others decide whether they'd like to follow our example.

I've lately been fantacizing about finding a spot on earth...anywhere on earth, where I could live free. If that's a place that has no computers, I'd be there in a minute.

I've been fantasising about a spot on Earth where there are no mobile phones. See you there.

I agree on desire to make life both mobile phone and laptop or Blackberry free. [The need to make life (especially non-corporate life) simpler.] While progress is necessary and desireable, it is often self serving only to those making financial gain from it. [Kind of makes me wonder who profits from the laptop scheme.]

I am heavily involved with providing potable water for poor 3rd world villages in several areas around the world. Water is certainly more needful than computers and cell phones; however, I have seen cases where the latter are more available than potable water, and in numerous cases the governments could care less. As to where one might live to be relatively free from the onslaught of communications technology, try rural Central America or rural Africa, but you better get there quickly as it will likely change.

This idea sounds good-at first. I have a problem with cheap computers if the owner has to walk 5 miles a day to get water. Ask a starving kid in Africa if he wants to drink water from a plastic cup or fine Steuben and you get the point!

Think about how revolutionary the Internet really is... the ability to talk with people far away (like this!), to find the latest news (from multiple sources), and to find fantastic educational resources (Wikipedia, and the rest of the WWW).

Givings kids access to those things will make them aware of the possibilities, and give them new tools to help achieve those possibilities, namely, education and desire.

And don't forget, when these kids are older they will expect communication with others to be the norm. They will not let local politics keep them quiet and they will enjoy a wider, more balanced view of the world.

There are other efforts going on to bring food and water to people; this effort could bring a revolution of thought.

This sounds good, but it doesn't work this way unfortunately.

Americans are less educated than ever, when it comes to the most important things. I can tell you from personal experience that most people in the voting booth can't tell you the difference between fascism and marxism, and would never recognize that we operate more under these rules today than under the libertarian republic envisioned by our founders.

Now if we've never taken the half-hour necessary to read and understand the U.S. Constitution, then what makes you think that oppressed kids will see past all the eye-popping, entrancing, head-pounding stuff clogging the internet?

I would hope that oppression would make one want to be free. But I don't see it. If you can show me where this happens...I'm there!

www.thefreedomfarm.com

...and that's why it's so cool to be offering this advantage to people who are actually excited by the prospect of an education. Many of the features of the OLPC computer are specifically for operating in places with no electricity and no communications infrastructure.

I think of this as an investment in a better future for Africa. Instead of poverty and famine, we could find a peaceful, growing market. Beats donating tons of food to corrupt governments.

Well amen to your last paragraph. Maybe Africa is the next China. But they've a horrible history of slavery, oppression, genocide and war going back as far as anybody can see.

I just wish there was an 1890 USA government (no slaves, no Jim Crow, and politicians on a short leash) somewhere on earth. Even the USA-friendly and now somewhat reformed Liberia has political/social troubles out the wazoo.

Ahhh... Today's technology under a tiny government that doesn't do much...that'd be as close to heaven as we'll find here on earth.

Maybe EBay & PayPal reaches further than we realize

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Many initiatives have been set up to provide rural areas with natural resources, yet there are government factions which are not allowing some money to be sent to these villages to allow for these resources to be obtained.

I'm assuming that the 100$ computer does not infringe on any laws or stipulations the government has set forth. The computers also provide children with a more level playing field than many countries in the rest of the world. It only takes one child to figure out a solution to a crisis...

I believe we often hope that children will solve the problems we know very well that we're leaving for them. But poverty is a political problem, with the possible exception of unusual natural disasters.

And while I make my living with computers, I think that they are very poor educational tools. In fact many good studies show that 2D interaction with TVs and computers is very bad for young kids' development.

Give a village a few good used computers that'd cost $100 anyway, and they'll be able to surf porn and setup scams like many others around the world.

If you want them to solve world problems, however, teach them history and tell them to never trust politicians.

good points.

I think comparing the mentality of villagers in rural Africa and citizens of developed countries is a bit misleading. Just because people in north america, for instance, would abuse a computer by using it for scams and porn, does not automatically entail that a villager would do the same.

I'm just saying that they're hearts are in the right place. They're trying to bring technology to parts of the world that don't have it. And a computer is a powerful tool that can be used in a very conducive way. People base their whole lives and careers on computers.

The problem with people is that we've all been the same since Cain slew Abel. Nothing ever changes. In fact a disproportionate number of email scams do come from very poor regions of Africa!

We shouldn't romanticize the poor any more than we trust the mighty.

The project is meant to improve the lives of people who lack education(one laptop per child project). Whether that increases the number of scams sent to people is a small price to pay if it can educate the young and provide them futures they couldn't possibly have had before.

It's also a project aimed at children, not the adults, of poor regions. So saying that internet scams would increase cannot be stated as a necessary outcome, even if what you say about poor regions of Africa is true.

We shouldn't base our conclusions on selective facts but rather objectively look at the pros and cons of what the project is presenting.

I appreciate both your concern and your sentiments. You make some good points.

But Americans have in general corroded a big hole-in-the-head about education. We never, ever consider facts in policy discussions, and that is a terrible shame.

Poor homeschoolers embarrass rich private school kids because the assembly-line education model that failed the Owenites in the 1820's still doesn't work today, while the classical (dialectic, logic, rhetoric) model that always worked still does.

We have lots of unemployed/underemployed math and science PhDs, and too few entrepreneurs to compete with the hungry lions overtaking us from China, India, and everywhere-but-here.

American kids get embarrassingly expensive, inexcusably awful education. While that's only partly because we delegate education to gimmics, let's not spread our bad habits around the world.

I can see your point about the weakness of the american education system.

Homeschooling takes a lot of effort from the so-called teacher. Many times a home schooled child does not come out with the abilities a schooled student may have (such as social skills, which are in themselves an importance). Also, extra curricular activities such as sports, arts, etc are not as easily accessible to these home schoolers.

The argument, however, is centered around providing rural areas of the world with tools to further exploit their high levels of potential. By providing laptops to children at reasonable prices, a plethora of learning tools can be used to educate children to becoming leaders of their regions. These leaders will be the ones who change the political climate of the unstable government now presiding in these areas.

Andy-I suspect you have a rather dim view of the world around you. The poorest people in the U.S. live better and more rewarding lives than the Princes of the ancient world. It is not about computers or poverty, it is about what Adam Smith referred to as the 'invisible hand'. Give people the tools and the access to knowledge and they will take care of the rest. I suggest you pick up a copy of his book, The Wealth of Nations, and see what you think.

I agree completely. I've read The Wealth of Nations, but I greatly prefer Von Mises and Rothbard. Nobody's more freemarket than I am, and that's why I'm so saddened by what's happened to the USA.

Take a look at www.thefreedomfarm.com and see if you disagree that we no longer live under the Rule of Law, Free Markets, or anything our founders intended.

We've become the ages-old imperialist mercantile empire, and that has a very predictable end.

Yes, I have a dim view of the world. I've read too many history books to believe that success is an option.

And yet I do keep trying to make things better. I have hope. That's why I've run for office six times (!) and write columns for 22 newspapers. Maybe we'll be the first civilization in all of human history to avoid self-destruction?