[lug] One laptop per child

[Daniel Webb]

On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 05:58:45PM -0700, dio2002 at indra.com wrote:

> Lets change this topic to:
> 
> one guaranteed safe place to live per child
> one guaranteed shelter from the local elements per child
> one guaranteed drinking water source per child
> one guaranteed souce of healthy food per child
> one guaranteed access to clean air and environment per child
> one guaranteed right to a number of rights (freedom of speech, religion,
> etc) per child
> 
> if one laptop can do any or all of that, then i'm for it.
> 
> When expressed this way though, it makes the whole thing ironic and
> somewhat shows how skewed the priorites are.
> 
> If you had a chance to have a clean water or a laptop which would you choose?
> If you had a chance to have all your rights taken away or a laptop which
> would you choose?
> If you were living in the middle of a military zone would you choose a
> laptop over peace?
> Etc...
> 
> It just doesn't seem right...

We've spent billions of dollars in Africa since the 60s trying to achieve
those things, nearly all of it wasted.  I say "wasted" in the sense that the
level of poverty in many of the areas where much of the money was spent is the
same as it was before we started spending the money.  Why not try something
else for a change?

The real problem in much of the world, in my opinion, is corruption.  As long
as corruption is endemic, those things in your list at the top are impossible.
That's my opinion anyhow.  A laptop, on the other hand, can possibly be
something you could successfully give to these people to help.  In that sense,
I suspect is has as much potential to acheive those noble goals at the top as
traditional methods of aid, considering their success rate.