I actually kind of agree with that, to a degree. The problem in very poor places such as Africa often go beyond mere poverty into severe issues with infrastructure. If you can't grow food efficiently, can't transport food to various locations, don't have a decent supply of water, and don't have proper medicine and nutrition... a laptop will merely be a nice gesture, that won't solve the biggest issues facing the kids over there.
For countries that are "third world", but fairly well developed ones (like India and Thailand), the low-cost laptops are probably a good tool to boost their knowledge economy. I do agree that we need to remember that we have impoverished people in the United States or other developed nations, where $500 for a computer might be unaffordable; I imagine if this laptop becomes a reality, people may take the technology and sell it here. Nations which do not yet have proper infrastructure (e.g. much of Africa) probably need to work on that first; it is, alas, a much harder problem to solve.
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Date: Oct. 4th, 2005 10:55 pm (UTC)From:For countries that are "third world", but fairly well developed ones (like India and Thailand), the low-cost laptops are probably a good tool to boost their knowledge economy. I do agree that we need to remember that we have impoverished people in the United States or other developed nations, where $500 for a computer might be unaffordable; I imagine if this laptop becomes a reality, people may take the technology and sell it here. Nations which do not yet have proper infrastructure (e.g. much of Africa) probably need to work on that first; it is, alas, a much harder problem to solve.