[lug] One laptop per child

[Sean Reifschneider]

On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 10:13:09PM -0700, Michael J. Hammel wrote:
>> If you were living in the middle of a military zone would you choose a
>> laptop over peace?
>
>Ditto.  You presume that the resources spent in providing easy access to

I have to agree.  "Choose peace" is nothing more than a slogan.  An
individual can't just choose peace.  You know, I *LOVE* my laptop, but I'd
give it up in a second if it brought about world peace.  It's just not that
simple...  That's not the choice being made here.

The OLPC project is a bunch of guys who are doing something that excites
them and that they hope will make the world a better place.  To be
honest, I think people putting them down because they aren't solving
another problem is, at best, rude.  These people have picked something
THEY CAN DO, which they hope makes things better.

Ian Bicking, one of the (only) people I know on the OLPC project, is a
really smart guy.  He can work wonders programming in Python.  He can do
relatively little about producing potable water.  Is potable water
important?  Absolutely.  But sometimes you have to pick your battles based
on your strengths.

That is why on Friday I spent 45 minutes automating a task that was
currently taking a volunteer the better part of a day, down to less than a
minute.  Sure, I could have been trying to learn how desalination systems
work...  Or I could use my existing power for good!

So, yes, I agree that potable water and freedom and food and peace are
important.  I just hope that this discussion ends in us figuring out what
we can do to further the goals that are important to us, rather than just
devolving into arguing for or against OLPC.

Sean
-- 
 "A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
Sean Reifschneider, Member of Technical Staff <jafo at tummy.com>
tummy.com, ltd. - Linux Consulting since 1995: Ask me about High Availability