[lug] One laptop per child

[George Sexton]

Michael J. Hammel wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-12-01 at 17:58 -0700, dio2002 at indra.com wrote:
>   
>> If you had a chance to have a clean water or a laptop which would you choose?
>>     
>
> Would I choose to drink today or learn to have clean water everyday?
> Knowledge is power.
>   

If you die of a waterborne disease, then I guess you don't have much 
choice. Clean means free from disease and pollutants, not Evian versus 
tap water.

> OLPC tries to bring knowledge to a world where the lack of it keeps
> children and their families prisoners of poverty and despots.  Is that
> such a bad idea?  Should we wait for clean water and peace before we try
> to bring knowledge of how to keep these things for longer than a day?
>   
It's a matter of priorities. You have to meet people's basic physical needs before you can start meeting their other needs. The Declaration of independence said

"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"

It doesn't make sense to do them out of order.



-- 
George Sexton
MH Software, Inc.
Voice: +1 303 438 9585
URL:   http://www.mhsoftware.com/