Submission + - PCMag's Dvorak Sees OLPC As Elitist Insult (fastsilicon.com)
mrneutron2003 writes: "To say that John C. Dvorak is soft spoken, unopinionated, and "PC" would be ridiculous right? Well we say that is ridiculous with a capital "R". Today at PCMag , John chimes in with a rather scathing rebuke of the One Laptop Per Child Project .
So what to do? Let's give these kids these little green computers. That will do it! That will solve the poverty problem and everything else, for that matter. Does anyone but me see this as an insulting "let them eat cake" sort of message to the world's poor? "Sir, our village has no water!" "Jenkins, get these people some glassware!"
Though we ourselves wouldn't mind to have one of these in the lab to review and test, we're equally in agreement with Dvorak on this one. Giving "gadgets" to children in locales where basic nutrition is a big question mark seems extremely foolish, elitist, naive and borderline insulting. Read his article in it's entirety here . http://www.fastsilicon.com/off-the-wall/pcmags-dvorak-sees-olpc-as-elitist-insult.html"
So what to do? Let's give these kids these little green computers. That will do it! That will solve the poverty problem and everything else, for that matter. Does anyone but me see this as an insulting "let them eat cake" sort of message to the world's poor? "Sir, our village has no water!" "Jenkins, get these people some glassware!"
Though we ourselves wouldn't mind to have one of these in the lab to review and test, we're equally in agreement with Dvorak on this one. Giving "gadgets" to children in locales where basic nutrition is a big question mark seems extremely foolish, elitist, naive and borderline insulting. Read his article in it's entirety here . http://www.fastsilicon.com/off-the-wall/pcmags-dvorak-sees-olpc-as-elitist-insult.html"