Thompson accuses me of being “patronizing.” Huh? How?
BBC NEWS | Technology | Give me rice, but give me a laptop too
To make things worse Intel and Microsoft seem to have done everything they could to undermine the project, offering cut-price hardware and discount operating systems in an attempt to keep this remarkable machine, with its Linux operating system and AMD processor, at bay.
Now US journalist John Dvorak has weighed into the debate, dismissing the laptop as a ‘little green computer’ that changes nothing, and arguing that sending food aid to Africa is a better way to solve the continent’s problems.
Dvorak is so wrong that it pains me.
He misrepresents both the laptop’s capabilities and the plans for how it will be used.
‘Demeans people’
He ignores the educational uses and its sophisticated mesh network and acts as if the sole purpose is to get online, asking what benefit the “spam-ridden Information Super Ad-way laced with Nigerian scams, hoaxes, porn, blogs, wikis, spam, urban folklore, misinformation” has to offer.
And he demeans the people who will receive the computers, asking his readers if they will feel “better about the world’s problems, knowing that some poor tribesman’s child has a laptop”, apparently contrasting a “tribesman” with a real person like himself, safe in his Western affluence.
Yeah, that’s compelling logic. Take a cheap shot at me with a politically correct barb. Oh! Ouch!
No matter. I stand firm with my opinion.
You can read it here, if you have not already. I expected a few off-the-wall apologists for the project to take a few runs at me. Nobody likes a critic.
I agree with Thompson that your piece could be less condescending, but the underling points are perfectly sound. How anyone can argue that a $200 laptop is more benefical than about 100 other things for most scenarios is completely certifiable.
This is simply mis-marketing. If it were originally named, “one laptop per student (OLPS)” it might then have been universally understood as an education aid suited for third world communities, rather than as a contentious misdirection of good intention.
Some of these elitist people just don’t get it at all. It’s like when Laura Bush went over to talk to Saudi Arabian women dressed to the nines in their black burka’s sporting pink ribbons about the dangers of undetected Breast Cancer. Gee, don’t you think the idea that these women can legally be blinded if their husbands even THINK they were looking at another man might a little more on their mind than a lump on a breast that Allah says they’re not even supposed to look at, let alone touch?
Let’s see, we have children starving, eating 3 bowls of rice and wheat paste and that new protien stuff that Anderson Cooper did a segment about on 60 minutes last month called “Plumpynut” and barely able to summon the energy required to make the basic walk to the local Doctor to get more food, yet we need to figure out a way to get them the latest funny video on YouTube to take their minds off it.
There are certain degrees of “not getting it”. This guy ranks up there with Barbara Bush when she said that the Hurricane Survivors “have it pretty good”, and when Marie Antionette, when told that the commoners didn’t even have enough bread to eat uttered that infamous phrase “…then let them eat cake.”
It must be nice living in a world where you can afford to be that out of touch of reality.
For the record, Marie Antoinette did not say “let them eat cake”. http://ask.yahoo.com/20021122.html
Anyone that doesn’t see the whole one laptop per child scam as corporate push to create markets is blind. You can say at it basics, that it is a thoughtful idea, however, spending an extra 5 minutes on the idea quickly concludes that it’s going to create more consumers (which last time I checked, is getting us into a big mess).
John, I don’t know if the OLPC project will succeed or fail, and I haven’t read Thompson’s article. I care more about your opinion (which I respect) than his.
But I read your article, though, and I think it shows your prejudice. At least in your piece, you come across as believing that there are only two kinds of people in the World: fat rich Americans and 6 billion starving people. Maybe that’s not what you meant, but it feels that way.
The fact is that there are about 5 billion people in between the absolute rich and the absolute poor: are not hungry right now, but they have no access to computers and really could use one, especially if connected to an educational program. Any computer, but normal PCs may be too expensive if you load them up. That’s all the OLPC is: one option. Not sure sure it’s the best option, but I sure support them for trying. If they fail, I won’t be ashamed of having supported them. The great Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa said once that every endeavor is worthy if your soul isn’t small.
I know what I’m talking about: I come from Brazil, and there are lots of underprivileged people there, but they have food already. What they need is better education, and the government has a budget for education. Why not use that money to buy a cheaper computer that was made specifically for educational use?
Should all non-hungry people of the world stop all educational effort until everybody has food? Well, that won’t result in a better world, would it, since Agriculture and Engineering need highly educated individuals in large numbers?
You stop educating people and you will have to keep feeding them forever (or you may have to start feeding more of them more often), because you reduce or eliminate their ability to create wealth.
Give them a chance, please. They aren’t hurting anybody, and they are certainly not taking food from the hungry to give it to “richer” people.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Or, to put it another way:
Give a continent food and you feed them for a month. Teach a continent to be self sustaining (By giving them educational tools) and you feed them for a lifetime.
We’ve been giving charity to places like Africa for decades, and they’re not doing any better. But by all means John, keep sending them food instead of education. Just be prepared to do that forever.
Sure. Let them eat rice, John.
Joining the world economy means communicating and interacting with it. It mandates understanding a broader culture than one’s own. You’ve traveled, John. You had the means. You were educated; your parents had the means. Some do not, and they’d forfeit empty bellies for a chance at participating in the real world, one that today uses cell/mobiles, computers, and has constantly running electricity– and real PCs.
Lots of people put their hearts and wallets into this one, just as those that put hearts and wallets into food donations hope their moneys are useful. Both are investments, one short, the other longer term.
You’ve been spotted, and correctly, for your lack of vision; it’s nearsighted– just like your glasses. Aim, shoot, ready, John. It’s a fact that you rarely find humility; perhaps your hardened heart will beat again one day.
The legendary computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra is oft’ quoted as saying, “Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.”
There’s a computer in your wristwatch these days. You can give some kid a $1 watch and the kid can learn just as much from it as that green piece of junk, and the watch will last longer.
#6, Sean,
Sometimes teaching a man to fish doesn’t do sweet eff all. Especially when the guy lives in a desert or near a fished out water source. Or the water is polluted.
Teaching someone to farm works great, when there is enough water. Or the well doesn’t dry up. Or the land doesn’t go barren. Or the seed wasn’t eaten because the last harvest was so bad. Or there are more people than the land will support. Or the implements can be repaired. Or there is fuel for the tractors.
Educating someone does no good if the person does not have the tools to work with. What you end up with is a group of people that can spell their name for the relief workers.
Most very poor countries have such severe problems that it will take more than simple computers to fix. Sure, teach them, just don’t count on these computers being the panacea to fix everything.
John Dvorak writes opinion pieces, I don’t agree with everything he says, but I enjoy his style of writing and respect his opinion. That Thompson fellow I feel did a hack job on John, but he probably really believes he’s changing the world and took John’s opinion as a personal attack. More power to Mr. Thompson Negroponte and the rest of them, I hope they do make someones life better, but I gotta’ side with Dvorak, I’d rather have a full belly than a peek at porn on the Interwebtubies.
I’ve spent the majority of my adult years working in third world and developing nations. Believe me, there are two kinds of kids who will use (as opposed to sell) these laptops: those who use them to explore all the “bad” things on the net and those who will be stimulated to explore the technology and be massively disappointed at these toys. A far better approach, in my opinion, would be to make vast supplies of desktop units available to schools. Outside school hours, the computer labs become subsidized net cafes. When this was done in Egypt, not only the kids but their parents began to show interest. The idea of actually giving each child something out of the Fischer-Price catalog strikes me as attempting to assuage a capitalist’s guilty conscience. Personally, I don’t see the innovations of the OLPC as being particularly groundbreaking. Sure a whole classroom of students can share a single dial-up connection. And wait an hour for the first page to draw. And who’s going to pay for the telephone? I’ve visited schools where the one and only telephone is kept under lock and key because the school doesn’t have funds to pay for it. There is so much else these places need before they need individual laptops. And those that can use these are able to afford better.
And, come on: starting in Nigeria? Do you have any idea how long it will take them to manage the scam email traffic on a shared dial-up?????
Sean, yes that is correct but a tossing everyone a laptop is not the way.
Education is the start with simple and sustainable school system to educate the children.
How can one have a school sustainable system? Stabilize and reform the governments.
China during the Mao years is proof of that. Mao shut down the schools during the cultural revolution. If there was an equivalent of the $200 laptop back then would it had made any difference? No, not one bit. China needed to reform after Mao died and open up the schools.
See the point?
I agree with John on this point.
Cheers
John is totally right on on this one. You really have to go to Africa and see how poor can really get. Laptops? how about electricity? a job? food? shoes? a pencil and paper for school. How about a government and police force that doesn’t prey on it;s own people? How about a little ammo for the AK-47 in the hut?
Come on!!!!
I’ve been there. My wife tried to teach school there. The people are just like us. In fact we are all from there… if you were really poor and had no shoes. would you really want a laptop… Well as long as it was a mac!
Happy holidayz!
It’s hard to predict the impact of something like the OLPC laptop – if millions of them actually got in circulation. It might be nil. But certainly many of the problems in really backwards parts of the world are rooted in simple and complete ignorance of a larger reality. If these little green things start to bring a new generation into some contact with that reality, the impact could be huge.
I am quite familiar with the “poorest of the poor” that John refers to in his op-ed piece, having lived among them for a number of years.
I guess I mostly disagree with John.
That doesn’t mean that I endorse OLPC, since the devil is in the details and I don’t know the details.
It’s true that the dollar-a-dayers, on the verge of death millions have no need for computers. Those people need malaria medication, clean water, dental work, etc etc,
But there are hundreds of millions of less-poor who would use a computer to better themselves, but could not afford one.
Thompson’s correct. Starving people need computers. Fish and chips are very satistying when one is hungry. In fact I think i’ll go have a nice bowl of transistors. Or not.
Thompson’s an idiot.
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
– in other words, instead of giving them $200 laptops, let’s use the money to teach them to fish (or grow food, or build wells for drinking water).
The OLPC is gonna flop, John is right about that. Where he is wrong is that we should be giving food relief to starving people. We have been doing that for a long time it doesn’t work. The food aid deflates prices of local crops and prevents farmers from producing. They need security (political and physical) and investments in small business. They need to build their own economy.
Will the OLPC solve the problem? I don’t think so.
However, I do want a eee PC. I don’t even need the damn thing. I just want to play with it.
I worked in a project that used a survey of perceived need among a very poor tribal group in south Asia.
I tell you, they had a relatively sophisticated sense of how to better themselves as an ethnic group and that included being tech literate.
Me, the “rich” westerner, tended to encourage them to be less ambitious and focus on old-school trades and skills. But THEIR perceived need was to become participants in the new economy.
It’s in my training to seriously consider the perceived needs of a community since that’s where you are going to have the best success in community development. However, perceived needs can be the product of marketing or other unrealistic sources.
Anyway, this is why I don’t share John’s criticism of this project. I think these laptops would be welcome _IF_ they are designed right, and distributed properly.
This is a huge “IF” that I don’t have an opinion on. I can tell you this, though, — most western project to help the developing world fail.
It often because westerners just don’t understand the culture. Even worse, all too often, the project is really meant to enrich western the supposed helpers. (Take the “rebuilding” of Iraq. It’s clear now that this was really intended as a wealth distribution project to Haliburton and NOT the Iraqis.)
#18 So are you saying that a computer can’t teach you to grow food and build wells-
Do you think that most people who buy one give one would contribute $400 with no personal return-
How is giving someone a computer a bad thing, if it helps, hurts or does nothing we won’t know if no one tries-
And Dvorak has been wrong in the past… some would say he made a career out of being wrong.
OK,
LETS be realistic HERE..
$100 US dollars..
In many other countries is CLOSE to 1 years wages for the Ultra poor.
Even if the Government of the country PAID for them. WHO has the ability to get to/FIND a school.
These will probably be given, if they GET to schools, the MIDDLE CLASS of those areas..NOT THE POOR.
If you THINK the poor are going to get these, than ASK, WHO is going to TEACH them, or the Teachers HOW to use them, how to configure them, HOW to fix them, how to MODIFY them..?
NOT THE POOR.. Who have NEVEr seen this tech, dont have TIME to use this tech, and dont have the Facilities to LOAD any BOOKS or educational Software ONTO THESE Machines..
ECA,
You raise valid issues that I hope the OLPC folks are considering.
Of course you can’t just dump of bunch of these on the developing world and expect people to figure out how to use them.
For sure, if you did that, the first thing the poor would do is sell them for five bucks in the market.
These computers need to be used smartly.
But, someone needs to develop a useful, cheap and green computer for the Third World before there can be programs to widely increase computer literacy.
This program might be just that.
A quick Google tells me that the OLPC is “connected” — that’s good. But will there be free or super-cheap ISPs for them to connect to?
I’m just going to come right out and say what I know everyone is thinking. I find the presence of a webcam in the OLPC highly suspicious. Especially when the object of the machine is to keep equipment costs as low as possible. And the webcam’s been part of the OLPC since the earliest prototype, before they even knew if it was technically feasible.
Why would children in the developing world possibly need a webcam to learn? It works like this. When you’re broke and starving and you need to eat, there’s not much you won’t do for cash. And what’s the easiest way to make money over the internet when you have a camera and no real technical skills?
Was the machine designed for this purpose all along? I’m not going to accuse any of the original developers of being pedophiles. I’m just saying it’s highly suspicious.
To say a starving child doesn’t need a laptop is a mute point; They’re not getting one.
From what I’ve seen so far, the laptops are not being sent to parts of the world where people are starving to death. They’re being sent to areas that are finally a few steps ahead of the grim reaper, and now they need an education to stay ahead of him.
Those saying “it’s just a computer” are being silly. A computer isn’t just a computer. It’s the full encyclopedia. It’s a dictionary, and thesaurus. It’s a telephone. It’s every newspaper in the world. It’s a math, spelling, and literature tutor. I could go on.
The best people to judge whether folks should get these laptops, are the people getting them. And they want them. Their governments want them to have them. If the people getting these laptops didn’t think they would do any good, they wouldn’t be asking for them.
John: Kick his A## !!!!
Muckraking is best when acerbic and incisive. Bravo for years of unrestrained commentary. But I am on the side of Thompson, not merely to defend OLPC, but to assert that there’s a difference between a critic and a curmudgeon.
I’ve been called both. At least there is an active debate here and on PCMag.com) …I do not see one on the BBC site. What are they afraid of?
Indeed, a debate is good – unfortunately the BBC site doesn’t automatically allow comments/feedback on every article but each column is also on my blog and comments are open (though moderated to keep the spam out) there.
Everybody likes and enjoys a critic, just not one who misrepresents the thing being discussed. Apart from not agreeing with you about the best way to help the poor countries of the world, I object to the way you characterise the OLPC and the project generally in order to make it look like you’re just being sensible and rational. I don’t believe the project is perfect, but I do think that it can make a difference as part of a wider strategy.
ROTFLOL
“Looks Like a reconstructed left over hippie”
Hey – I object to that! I’m not reconstructed, I am *still* a hippie…