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Dvorak Slams OLPC As 'Naive Fiasco'
theodp writes "PC Magazine's John C. Dvorak has a unique take on the cute One Laptop per Child XO-1, deeming the OLPC project a naive fiasco waiting to unfold that sends an insulting 'let them eat cake' message to the world's poor. When it comes down to a choice of providing African kids living in absolute poverty with access to Slashdot or a $200 truckload of rice, Dvorak votes for the latter. Buy ten OLPCs if it assuages your guilt, says Dvorak, but 'I'll donate my money to hunger relief.'"
We have space, hardware, your rights online, apple, etc...
Can we have a john dvorak section so I have a shot at filtering out all his crap?
You know, I was a little nervous about giving them money, but now that I know Dvorak's against it, I'm convinced it was the right thing to do.
Slams Linux in 94 and says that it will never go anywhere ESP. on servers. Says that it will never replace unix (took ray norda to task for letting go of Unix and moving to Linux). IIRC, said that SCO was dead on WRT Linux stealing code from Unix. So on, and so on.
I long ago quit reading him, because he long ago became worthless.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...but above all don't teach them how to fish!
That's not a unique take, that's the same old tired objections that we've been hearing since the project started.
The XO is not intended to go to children who can't afford food. How dense can some people be?
Oh wait - it's Dvorak, silly question.
Advanced users are users too!
Looks like Dvorak--as many others--are totally missing the point of the OLPC program. It's not for places where people are starving to death. It's for places where kids are able to go to school and get some education. The OLPC program is designed to get kids in developing countries access to technology where they otherwise wouldn't have it.
Not all third-world countries are starving to death. Quite a number have the basic needs covered, but they need effective education, and the OLPC program aims to supplement that education.
...a free laptop destroys their pc hardware industry. ;-)
After all, can you think of a single project Dvorak has claimed as a failure that didn't succeed spectacularly? His criticism is a strong hint that OLPC is no longer a niche player and is about to make major inroads.
On a more insidious note, Dvorak is an analyst-for-hire. He only comes out with an opinion when somebody pays him to have that opinion. That means one of the big players has decided they want bad PR about OLPC. I wonder if it was Microsoft, Intel, or somebody else?
You know, there are lots(like tens of millions) of people that get enough to eat most of the time, but still live in poverty. These laptops give them the opportunity to learn, and to share good ideas amongst themselves, ideas that may help them run their farm at a greater profit, or save time and labor.
One thing is sure, it wouldn't work if no one bothered trying.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Give a man a fish, and he can eat for a day.
Teach a man how to 419 and he can fish for a lifetime.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
"Of course there's no reason it can't be both."
Considering that the OLPC isnt intended for demographics who have no food, people like Dvorak would be that reason...
There's a large and emerging segment of 'semi-poor people' who have food and most other necessities, but for whom educational material is a significant cost. One of the main points of the OLPC is to cut educational material costs while creating a load of other capabilities.
Personally I think the OLPC is already a huge success; I'd attribute the interest in it as a large part of the driving force for low-cost laptops such as ASUS Eee.
"Yeah, sometimes Dvorak's nothing more than a grumpy old man who rants."
Yeah, well, no different this time.
I have some criticism here and there of OLPC, and I wonder if it will ever achieve what it hopes to achieve.
That said, I find Dvorak's comments to be horrifically offensive. The ignorance and pretension with which he is critical of OLPC and, by extension, any project that does anything other than ship limited, non renewable resources to countries where it can be stolen by corrupt bureaucrats is frankly disgusting. And the assumptions underneath! That you'll only ever make a one time charitable donation to a third world country in your life! If I didn't know that Dvorak was doing this only to be contrary, I'd say that his rhetoric belied someone who had never deeply considered the problem in third world nations before writing the damn article.
The truth is that third world countries desperately need infrastructure and education. They'll never be able to compete in the world wide industrial market, even if they have natural resources, but given sufficient education they can compete in the world information market. Is Dvorak really so short sighted as to not see that? Kids who grow up with computers can become information workers, and that requires no more infrastructure than a cheap laptop and bandwidth. But apparently that's a long term investment that Dvorak can't see - though I doubt he would be so critical of a similar education initiative in the US, which already has established resources in computer education. How hypocritical.
And there is more - a single laptop can service a large number of children, technology like the XO-1 that could let kids onto the internet can foster a generation supportive and understanding of democracy and free markets without growing up in one. I could go on and on (for example, that the nations themselves are sometimes purchasing these laptops), but I think around here I'd be preaching to the choir.
So, sure, if you're only ever going to spend $200 dollars in charitable donations in your lifetime, spend it on food for starving kids. If you don't mind giving a little more then consider investing in the future of these children, rather than just hemorrhaging money into life support and hoping the situation gets better on its own.
He also raises good points... computers are hardly more than advertising pipelines, and unless you're already savvy, it's hard to suppress an rid the experience of the deluge of ads. Also, how many sites are in SiSwati or isiZulu these days?
That is bullshit. The OLPC project includes Squeak, a Smalltalk programming language, and has simple sensor and control devices available that can be used to have Squeak programs interact with the real world. A child who can program in Squeak grows into an adult who can solve problems, think logically, develop and use technology and compete globally. I've been guiding my 7 year old in it, and she's already made her first object oriented game, so clearly, it's suitable for the task.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I've got a question. Does everybody on Slashdot believe that all of Africa is starving babies with flies covering their mouths? That's a serious question, by the way. Because whilst there are certainly places where that is still happening and it's terrible, there's a fuck of a lot of places where it isn't like that.
The OLPCs won't get into the hands of people under an oppressive government, because oppressive governments won't buy them for the people they are trying to starve.
The OLPCs are for people in developing countries who have governments that are trying to improve their people's conditions, and have already solved the immediate food problems, and are now moving onto problems like lack of education, health, and wealth.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
1. Teach a man how to fish
2. Lend him a crapload of money under the condition that he buys the fishing boat, fishing equipment and fuel from you
3. Wait until man can't pay off the debt due to disastrous interest rates, and invoke the default clauses such as taking ownership of his business, and diverting the fish to a Western market
4. Profit!
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
I'm merely a hobbyist geek. But I AM a professional sustainable economic development consult who has spent twenty years living and working in developing countries. In my opinion, the OIRP is not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination, but it is not the ideal use of resources either. At best, it is an important part of the total socioeconomic development package that must be deployed in order to alleviate the plight of penury and destitution that is the lot of hundreds of millions of children living in developing countries around the world. Are there more important individual components within that package? Yes. Access to potable water is more important than access to information. Access to food is more important (although as many posters have pointed out, it is not the biggest problem). Access to electricity is more important. Access to transportation is more important. And, of course, security and health are more important. But does that mean that access to information is unimportant? Of course not.
It may be that the hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of man-years put into the development of this project could not possibly have been better spent address one of the more critical issues I just mentioned. I honestly don't know. What I do know is that the always-hyperbolic nature of the discussion on slashdot shows that the vast majority of readers are not well enough informed about issues of international development to legitimately engage in reasonable and nuanced debate on the subject.
A-Bomb
The problem with the phone is not that it's a phone, but that the service provider purposefully locks it down and restricts access to developer tools. The XO most emphatically does not have this problem! In fact, it's the opposite: everything about it was explicitly designed to be easy to develop for (even by the children themselves), and that is why it is useful.
On the contrary, what you call "compromises," I call "necessary features." The XO is less powerful? That's a good thing -- it means better battery life. The XO doesn't have a hard drive? That's a good thing -- it means better reliability and better battery life. The XO has a "weird" screen? That's a good thing -- it means it's readable in conditions where a "normal" screen is not, and, yes, better battery life.
It doesn't matter if you could make a "conventional" laptop for the same price (e.g. the EEE or whatever). It doesn't even matter if you could make a Core 2 Quad, SLI, 20" TFT screen laptop for the same price! It would still be fucking useless for the intended purpose because it would neither have the battery life to get anything done, nor even stand up to the expected environmental conditions in the first place!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
INTERVIEWER: Tell us how it works John
DVORAK: This is the formula for pissing off Macintosh users, for getting a lot of links or attention, and this has been deconstructed but never accurate, let me give you the deconstruction.
First I'd write something that would be semi-innocuous with just enough insulting stuff to get a lot of attention from the Macintosh community. So then they would write in, and by the way it would always be done in such a way that I would have outs, in other words I would write in kind of a weasel way. I would then, then I'd get one column with a lot of numbers.
Then I'd get a lot of hate mail and all kinds of Macintosh reaction and then I would react to it as though I was flabbergasted, that everybody misinterpreted me and they hated it and I don't get it and what was wrong with these people, which would piss them off even more. So I'd get huge hits, after that..
INTERVIEWER: What was the point of all this?
DVORAK: Now wait a minute, for the numbers..
INTERVIEWER: Which numbers exactly? What numbers are you looking for?
DVORAK: And, believe me, lots of numbers. Now then I let it simmer down for a while and when whatever position I had taken originally I would change the position exactly the opposite, and tell the Macintosh people I was completely wrong and they were right all along and the numbers would go through the ceiling! (laughter)