Slashdot Mirror
Testing Technology on a Veritable Army of Children?
"The idea is to bring together children ages 10 to 15 years old from around the world at 8 or 9 centers scattered about all continents except Antarctica. The children will congregate at these centers for two days in 2005 to participate in creative technology workshops both virtually between centers and hands-on at their particular center. There will be a heavy emphasis on community building and shared information, in many ways similar to Slashdot. The entire event and all the projects it entails are designed to live on after the kids go home when the two days are up. How this will be done is as of yet uncertain, but will most definitely involve net connectivity to some extent (whether through the village kiosk's 28.8kbaud line in Cambodia or the living room broadband line in NYC). Naturally, issues such as language barriers will have to be addressed. In the particular case of the language barrier, there is talk of designing a custom written language (again, think mediaglyphs from 'Diamond Age') for children to use, build upon, and shape. What other projects are worth considering?"
Or does it seem as though a 2-day conference full of children speaking different languages is an awfully short timeframe to train them to reshape the world? In the case of Crystal Age (neal stephenson,) this was only possible because the technology was so powerful as to be able to train the user how to use it without any interaction... are you guys able to do that?
BEN
It would be interesting, I think, to be that young and share in the world culture. It's a powerful idea that things like laughter are so universal, despite cultural and linguistic barriers.
Is it me, or does a point to this gathering of 3000 children escape anyone else? I read over the blurb twice, and noticed the reference to Stephenson, PDAs, and something about a million dollars, but, I didn't read anything about what it is leading up to, or what it is all for.
Anyone have any hints for me?
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
No. It should absolutely not be cultural based. "cultural" programs have a long and sordid history of complete failure. What I mean by "cultural programs" is programs who's focus is specifically and by design on the interaction of groups from different usually arbitrarily defined social groups, for example, the Camp David experiment with the Israeli and Palestinian children.
Cultural exchange and interaction is an incidental effect of lots of other things. It's only possible when people already have an interest in each other for more personally motivating reasons.
Example? Chess. Lots of cultural and philosophical interchange happens between chess players because they share a passion. When they meet people who share that passion with them and who in interesting within that context they naturally try to enlarge the context: who are you, where are you from, what's it like to be Swahili or Pakistani or American, or whatever...
But placing the focus on cultural interchange is dooming a project to failure. Firstly, it does so because most people (let alone children) do not identify strongly motivational level with their cultural groups. How often have you heard a programmer say, "I program because I'm a Jew", or an athlete say I wrestle because I'm Chinese? Secondly, because if that "cultural" is the context, people - regardless of intentions - will try to find things that motivate them. Their stereotype themselves in order fit with what they perceive as their grouping (ethnic, cultural, national). This results in talented programmers not talking about programming because they're a Cossack and Cossacks are warriors and programming is beneath any good Cossack. And thirdly, once you've established that context you make it irrelevant by claiming equality and just confuse everyone.
Base it on soccer.
Base it on chess.
Base it on a proper appreciation of falling snowflakes in summer.
Whatever, but don't force a "cultural" basis.
Old truckers never die, they just get a new peterbilt
For heaven's sake, don't pit them against each other across cultural/national dividing lines. If you must divide them into teams, make the teams cross-cultural. Even better would be to make them all one team.
Then come up with a dramatic demonstration of what they can accomplish as a human swarm if they ignore cultural boundaries and all cooperate. Concentrate on drama. Give them an experience that will imprint on their minds the power of letting go of nationality and attacking problems instead of each other.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
There are cultures where nodding your head means no, and shaking your head means yes. So much for that idea.
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Specifically Hungary. When the Turks invaded Hungary they basically barged into every village and put swords to people's necks. They asked the villagers, "Will you convert to Islam?" If the villagers nodded, they would survive. If they shook their head "no" their throat would get slashed by the sword's edge. Hence the switch of the nod for no and the head shake for yes.
Cultural imperialism is FUN!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Yeah, pictures are good, right after you figure out what they mean. Example: Chinese. 60,000 (or so) pictures. Not that easy to learn all of them :)
:)
Japanese is better with about 2000 commonly used, 6000 less commonly used, and several thousand antiquated/infrequent characters.
Still a pain in the ass to learn all of them
My point is that pictures are nice, but too many of them are hard to learn; too few and you can't communicate.
My other car is first.