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i think dropping computers and internet access on poor countries is a great idea for them to bootstrap themselves into the 21st century. i mean as long as thei

• netcan 18y ago
  I wonder what the effect is though. I think a lot of people romanticise the world. Hungry childhood, unappeasable drive, learning to read from a half burnt book, learning to engineer by sneaking into a junk yard at night, every thread that can be used to claw out of poverty pulled, no opportunity missed. All those novels. All those biographies. All those stories. It's easy to believe (as I write this, I do) that there are thousands of brilliant minds bursting with potential that can be unleashed with just the smallest scrap of opportunity. A thousand OLPCs dropped on poor children could do the trick. But I think reality is harsher. I am not trying to put down efforts. And I certainly believe there are things that can be done. The internet as an agent of globalisation, certainly has a lot of (yet unrealised) equalising power. But tapping it might be trick & take time.
  • ram1024 18y ago
    yes. i believe the reality is there's a lot of mediocre people waiting to happen in hungry nations as well. while striving to help is awesome, and people should be commended for their efforts, the individuals that arrive to change the world will still be few and far between no matter how much assistance is lent. it's truly a hard matter to gauge accurately