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Gates Mocks MIT's $100 Laptop
QuietLagoon writes 'Reuters is reporting that Bill Gates is making fun of the one laptop per child initiative to revolutionize how the world's children are educated. 'The last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk ... and with a tiny little screen,' Gates said at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum in suburban Washington. 'Hardware is a small part of the cost' of providing computing capabilities, he said, adding that the big costs come from network connectivity, applications and support. 'If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband connection and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to type,' Gates said.'
While I think Gates is right to mock these laptops, I don't think he understands the realities of the problems of helping others around the world. The only thing that helps others is letting them find or create their own opportunities to better their futures. Taking care of people today is counter-productive and can destroy opportunities in the future.
Computers don't make opportunities. Teachers don't make opportunities. Public funding of projects, businesses and markets doesn't make opportunities. Opportunities come when a given community finds that is can accomplish something that others in a market want.
The Internet won't help here -- it isn't here to educate, it is here to help people meet each other's needs. The people using the Internet to better themselves are already living in an economy that enables them to find opportunities to better themselves. That realization is enough to give the average person the desire to make their lives better.
Gates is right -- the $100 laptop is useless. The people it is being built for do not understand opportunity because their community leaders have robbed them of any chance to better themselves. Many of the world's poor live under the thumb of a small group of elitists who think they can help the poor through force. They attempt to provide what their poor needs today, without realizing that just giving someone something doesn't offer any hope for the future. This is especially true if what you're giving them today doesn't really help them enough.
The Bible offers the old fish cliche -- give a man a fish and he'll eat today, teach a man to fish and he'll eat forever. This is very important when making a consideration towards helping another person. I hate helping others through tax-and-spend wealth redistribution: there is no accountability in how the money is spent. I give all my charitable dollars (in the past few months, over 50% of my income) only to those I can hold accountable. This sounds like a "quid pro quo" situation, but it would be no different if it was my own brother or child or best friend. If the person I am helping is not making attempts to support themselves, then my help is wasted -- time, money, love or support. There are others who want to help themselves but are in a position (for whatever reason) that they just can't. These are the people I help.
I would never fund anyone in another country, never again. When I was younger I funded some Ehtiopian charity group, and a few years later had the opportunity to visit Ethiopia. The charity group's office was luxurious and the people working for it lived a very nice life. They found an opportunity: take advantage of idiots in other countries who can't hold the charity accountable. The people the charity was meant to help received very little of the finance and support promised, and what little they did receive did not give them any hope for the future.
It is this hope that creates opporunities. I've seen poor people climb out of poverty with no help from anyone, just because a simple opportunity opened up near them. I just visited Europe and Asia, and I saw thousands of very poor people taking advantage of opportunities that we in the U.S. would never consider doing. Many of these people realized their time investment could offer them the chance to save for the future, to give their children a better chance, to even save some money so they can better their own lives -- in the future. I would never give a homeless person a home, a car and a credit card. I would never give an uneducated person a computer or an education. I would never give a hungry person money to buy food. I would never fund health care of people who don't care about their lives or the lives of their children.
But I would open my home to the homeless person, if they were willing to make steps to find how they can house themselves in the future. I would (and do) spend time with poor families to give their children a chance to learn in some way so that they could take on
'The last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk
Fscking rich snob. You know, this git travelled around the world, donates money to fight diseases in 3rd world countries, but seems to have this wild belief that these backwaters are going to have telecommunications to each school and house, let alone broadband.
He SAW the crank handle, what part of "they use this because they don't even have electric" doesn't he understand? It's crap like this that gives the west a worse reputation, never mind invading oil countries, but doing bugger all for poor african nations. Geez, Bill, go back to feeling all warm and fuzzy inside about your Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, or maybe you could free up $100B and give people in these developing backwaters with shite infrastructure some electricity, running water and telecommunications. Then maybe the destabilizing wars will settle down, which actually go a long way towards contributing to the diseases you like to fund the fight against, and the people won't be on the move so much and they can all get down to the business of e-commerce.
Cripes... I can just see some kid sitting in an adobe house in a rural village looking at his bright shiny Dell laptop with Windows Vista installed, 2 GB memory, 200G HD, whizzy graphics, and wondering if he could use it as a hard surface to practice his writing on.,
Bill's probably really spiteful because it doesn't spread the market penetration of Microsoft. So where's his effort? If he hasn't got one, he shouldn't be spitting on others.
we give money to underprivileged congressmen to help develping strategies for them to look the other way.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
You would hope with his experience in the public eye, that he would have learnt that nobel efforts to help the less fortunate should be encouraged. Good luck to MIT and anyone associated with the project.
__
Funny Porn @ Laugh DAILY
Slashdot made fun of this. Now Gates made fun of it. Now we will see Slashdot slam Gates for making fun of it.
But he has put his money where his mouth is concerning helping needy children. He hasn't sold them $100 computers, but he has given away for free various medicines worth billions of dollars over many years. So I think his criticism should be seen in that context. I think he's expressing genuine concern.
This article is clearly flamebait. So allow me to participate in the opening salvo.
I think it's interesting how Gates proposes a solution where we need to put people to support the product, thereby charging money indefinitely. Keep your customers dependant, it's his tried and true component to his business model.
Perhaps Gates (and his wife Malinda) are satisfied with vaccinations and hand outs. Things like food, clothing, water, etc. While these things are very helpful in the short run, they unfortunately result in the poor remaining dependant on you for more hand outs. This is convenient if you wish yourself to be seen as a provider.
What's more valuable to you, food or a tool that could possibly help you learn how to procure food indefinitely. These laptops could be very valuable communication devices. Sometimes, it's just an open dialogue with someone intelligent that sparks the learning process.
It seems like Gates is walking up to someone who desperately needs just basic transportation and telling them that a $1,000 junker isn't what they need. They need a high performance Dodge Viper with a personal mechanic to maintain it. Broadband connection? Why? I thought I read that these $100 laptops were going to have radio frequency repeaters so that information could be sent from laptop to laptop and act as routers for each other.
You know, even if these laptops are mediocre or even a complete failure, at least someone tried to provide the tools to escape poverty permanently.
Either Gates thinks that poor equals stupid or he's got something against MIT. These must have been some very hastily made remarks--think before you speak no matter how rich you are. It also doesn't help that the article implied he recommends a Microsoft "Ultra-Mobile" laptop instead (costing 6 to 10 times more).
My work here is dung.
Gates was never a real visionary. Excellent business man right from the very beginning but he never really had the visionary spirit. It brings up the debated comment about memory, it is dumb to most people, but really it isnt that dumb of a comment, just a lack of vision in what could come next. He knows business, not technology, he just happens to be in the tech business. He could have just as easily been in a different business and been very successful
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
He's donated billions of dollars worth of medicine to children all over Africa and elsewhere. If anyone in this world has "put up or shut up," it's Mr. Gates. He is expressing genuine concern.
They're running Linux on these things aren't they? No market share for Microsoft.
Gates has valid points, but they're overshadowed by his oafishness. And it's really strange given the amount of money he pours into Africa every year. Bizarre.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Slashdot didn't make fun of the computers, it was more of disbelief - the project is very ambitious and $100 price tag seems to be unreachable. Lots of us, /. nerds would love to get that thing, but we see it as vaporware, a dream that won't come true.
On the other hand, Gates is mocking the strengths of the idea and shows real shortsightedness. He says the cost is network and software, which is bullshit. The software is to be Linux so no real cost here. The network doesn't need to be broadband, and likely won't be - and the bandwidth can be donated by country using existing data lines, HAM radio and different other really cheap options. A single broadband line for whole school, it's neither expensive nor impossible. The remaining BIG cost is the hardware and only a guy with several $bln on his account can consider it negligible. Gates imagines this: OS: $150. Broadband line: $300 installing, $30/month. Other software (MS Office, antivirus, anti-spyware etc) $200. So why not round it up to $1000 with the hardware. The guys at MIT think: OS: $0. Software: $0. Network: old HAM radio: $0 (donated), old 2nd hand modem $5, bandwidth govt-sponsored. Hardware: $100.
$100 may be a year or two of hard saving for an average family in some countries. $1000 is for most of them completely out of reach.
So either aim at this unrealistic $100 (and maybe laugh with us about how vaporware this is) or just give up.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Which is a great saying in hindsight. If you won, before you won they probably fought you, before that they ridiculed you and before that they ignored you. However, very few reach step 4 and many fall off at each step. So what does step 2 get you? A clown can get to step 2. That doesn't mean he's ever going to win, only that he's good entertainment. If I decided to throw a punch at a bodybuilder I'd be at step three. Wohoo so much closer to victory - not. I get really really tired of people that talk like there's some sort of automatic progression which will eventually end up at victory.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Well, yeah, it's useless for Vista. It turns out that poor people don't need eye-candy or bloat.
Bill Gates is just annoyed that this laptop isn't running Windows. Microsoft was originally trying to get involved in this project, but they were not accepted, so now they're FUDing it.
Did you see how he's saying that the hardware is cheap, but what is costly is connectivity, applications and support?
Oddly enough, the exact reasons Windows was snubbed on the project. With an open source OS, the applications are free too, and the internet is your helpdesk.
Oh, and hardware IS expensive, especially for the people the thing is targetted at.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
adding that the big costs come from network connectivity, applications and support
Applications don't have to have big costs associated with them.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I reckon if anything that Bill is scared because if these things ever did become consumer devices that his shitty Origami project would go down the tubes just like all their predecessors. After all, how many would buy some lousy pen device costing thousands when something costing a tenth could do all they need.
It's not just consumers either. I can well see these things being useful in warehouses and other places where you need computer access but not the bother of having devices on charge all the time.
Anything you've seen calling this an attempt to "solve the problem of 3rd world technology and computing" was market speak. This is no different to anything else - a step forward.
Infrastructure? These laptops are infrastructure. And I can't think of anything more "from the ground up" than KIDS.
Wireless broadband infrastructure? And what do you propose they connect to this wireless broadband? Sounds like your fantasy world is a step ahead of the rest of us.
I'm sick to death of smug Slashdotters pissing on this project as if they know better than MIT and the UN.
If Mr. Gates thinks kids won't sit typing into too small a screen, I'd suggest he take a look at the kids texting madly into their phones.
It is we who are the dinosaurs, Mr. Gates.
Shocker! Bill thinks this is a bad idea. Raise your hand if you're surprised.
What he's really saying is this:
"Hey, this has the potential for bringing computer use to a large population that cannot afford the current solution model. Microsoft is not part of this answer! Worse, Linux IS part of it. I better crank out some FUD or this idea may catch on elsewhere.
First off, 'poor people need broadband and a proper machine to run it on...' Yeah, that sounds good! Now, what else..."
Normally, my opinion is that complaining about spelling is a sign that a person has nothing of substance to argue, and thus is really admitting defeat in a debate. I think that when the original poster gives the "I'm right because I'm educated" argument, and then specifically discusses how they would solve poor spelling, AND makes spelling errors, we have an exception.
Gates sez: "The last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk"
Bill does know that OLPC stands for One Lapop Per Child right? Where's the shared use there?
Kevin Fox