[geeks] $100 One Laptop Per Child - grist for the mill

[William Kirkland]

On Nov 18, 2006, at 1:12 PM, geeks-request at sunhelp.org wrote:

> On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 09:43:54 -0800, William Kirkland wrote:
>> The difficulty here is that those people have more basic needs which
>> must be addressed before providing inexpensive laptops becomes  
>> useful.
>
> I think you're possibly making the same mistake that Dvorak makes.  
> It's
> easy to assume that 'all those people' just need food. As most are
> dependant on subsistence farming, most can actually feed themselves
> (perhaps not well) for much of the time. It's only during the bad  
> years
> that we get the kind of atrocious TV pictures we're so familiar  
> with; in
> the worst areas the bad years become nearly constant because of bad
> governments.

no, you have missed my point, food, water, shelter and basic security  
(the security to know that food water shelter will be here tomorrow  
too) have a much higher priority, without which education will be  
difficult.

Education *is* important, though there are basic needs which have  
priority, just so that the potential students will learn. Until those  
needs have been addressed, one may find a tree would make a better  
student.

--
bill.kirkland at gmail.com