$100 Laptop: Great for the world, great for Linux (ZDNet) [LWN.net]

$100 Laptop: Great for the world, great for Linux (ZDNet)

Posted Feb 3, 2006 3:22 UTC (Fri) by bk (guest, #25617)
In reply to: $100 Laptop: Great for the world, great for Linux (ZDNet) by MasterPi
Parent article: $100 Laptop: Great for the world, great for Linux (ZDNet)

I agree with sbergman27, people who support this idea the most tend to regard a computer as a positive end in and of itself, which is perverse and not necessarily rational.

The idea is that simple exposure to technology will somehow raise the consciousness of the dirt-hovel-dwelling third world masses, regardless of the applicability of that technology to their daily lives. After all, a laptop can't help this years harvest if the rains don't come. You can't squeeze a computer and get antibiotics out. A laptop isn't going to protect you from the bullets fired from the guns of your country's corrupt dictatorial regime.

I'm not against this project, of course. I just think it's a bit pie-in-the-sky. Another example of misguided efforts by well-intentioned people.

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$100 Laptop: Great for the world, great for Linux (ZDNet)

Posted Feb 3, 2006 3:30 UTC (Fri) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link]

Part of the concept of this laptop is that it will have various technologies to enable network connectivity (like ad-hoc mesh networking). While a stand-alone computer may not be useful, a network certainly can be.

And, I think to say that it won't be helpful is to underestimate people. See this story for example: http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/Beginnings.html

Obviously, just dumping a truckload of computers on starving people isn't helpful, but in addition to other help (Fair Trade, sustainable agriculture assistance, vaccinations, etc.) this seems like a good thing.

$100 Laptop: Great for the world, great for Linux (ZDNet)

Posted Feb 4, 2006 23:04 UTC (Sat) by h2 (guest, #27965) [Link]

sbergman and bk, it's nice to see that lwn has some nice common sense among it's visitors.

I totally agree, this scheme is really strange, definitely hatched out of some ivy league setting where people think that computers are the source of well-being etc.

I have a good friend who's worked in africa for years off and on, kids not having a laptop would not even hit top 10 of things they need to function. Sometimes the west can be phenomenally clueless.

Among things she told me, everything breaks, it doesn't get fixed. Especially computers. Computers are nice tools, especially for computer related topics, email is a mediocre way to communicate, there are far more important, and realistic things, to do.

But I'm sure the blackmarkets of those countries where they spread these things will figure out something to do with them, those windup radios became like that, a status symbol, would get you laid if you could get one.

What is it they say? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I can just see it now, some home grown group realizes that with these cheap machines they can establish a network of terrorist cells that floats under the radar, whatever. Not that I'm paranoid about that type of thing happening, or buy into the hysteria put out along those lines, it's just a likely outcome if they ended up getting used at all, that's what happened when satellite cell phones hit the second and third world.