[lug] One laptop per child

[Daniel Webb]

On Sun, Dec 03, 2006 at 07:33:38PM -0700, dio2002 at indra.com wrote:

> fwiw, understand that corruption is often two-sided.  sometimes we have a
> tendency to blame the recipient for the corruption or the results attached
> to donations.  but the giver of the funds is often as culpable.
> 
> in the case of africa, much of the money given to africa over the years
> really had nothing to do with helping anybody (actually it was given to
> help the giver).  it wasn't really about peace, or clean water or any of
> "those things". it was political money sent to actually keep dictators we
> favored in control knowing full well what was going on.  it was more about
> the cold war then helping any one on that continent.  money was also given
> to exploit that continent's natural resources and benefit the givers (and
> increase debt for the recipients). and this only compounded the fact that
> africa was decimated after centuries of colonization by these same
> outsiders that now are percieved as donors.  That's the unfairness of the
> whole thing.  Colonization virtually created the predicament africa is in
> today. And out of that situation, should we say void, stepped in the
> corruption that exists today.  And in that sense, africans bear as much
> responsibility for perpetuation of the corruption and problems that exist
> in more recent times.
> 
> Recent monetary aid to africa is more about creating real change.  And
> helping in meaningful ways. I can say for sure but i beleive it has more
> oversight as well.    Big problems though.  Whoppers.  You often wonder
> what actually can be done there..

I think we agree on most points.  Notice I don't say "Africans are to blame
because Africa is so corrupt", I will just say that I believe reducing
corruption is a necessary condition before Africa can climb out of the hole
they are in now.  I don't claim to know the best way to do this, I just know
that the old ways don't work.  My understanding is that some (many?) of the
current aid agencies do nearly everything themselves to avoid the corruption.
 
> As you said, corruption is endemic.  Nothing is immune. Whether it be the
> giver or the reciever.  Governments or non profits.  Explore the options. 
> Use them all. Scrutinize them.  Monitor and tweak.  Get something done!

Even though my original post was one of skepticism towards OLPC, I think
what's really cool about the project is that it is actually an attempt to get
out and do something new to help the third world in a new way.  Their
intentions are good.  I hope they spend enough time on software robustness
that it isn't a moot point.  As others in this thread have pointed out, the
way they are going now seems to be a thin-client over the internet model, and
I'm skeptical how well that will work.  

Also, having played with ad-hoc wireless quite a bit, I can tell you it is not
trivial, especially when you start talking about the "real world", and not
just nice high masts with directional antennae pointing at each other (like I
do now because of all the problems I had).  I haven't looked into their
project much, but I sure hope they have improved wireless networking over what
I know about.  The news articles make it sound like a self-organizing mesh
network, and I'll believe that works robustly when I see it for myself.  :)