>Granted, though it can still be compared to other "teach a man
>to fish" proposals. You could donate books. You could fund a
>Peace-Corps-esque program that sends teachers to staff free
>schools in impoverished areas. You could do like Oprah and
>fund your own school. You could fund a need-based scholarship
>program to allow students from these countries to attend U.S.
>universities. Etc. One could argue that these would all be
>less effective than OLPC; my point is just that the "teach a
>man to fish" aspect of OLPC doesn't render it immune to
>criticism.

I don't think it's immune to criticism. It just seems to me like Dvorak in particular lost sight of that, or chose to ignore it because he makes a living by making the kind of half ass informed rants against or for something that inspire conversation and piss people off enough to tell their friends 'You have to go read this idiot's article.'

Basically, he's the Howard Stern of tech journalism.

>>2) People are transformed by the ideas they're exposed to
>--
>>even if they're warlord lackies with computers forcibly
>>removed from the clutches of starving children.
>
>More kids (and/or adults) hooked on pr0n. Just what the world
>needs.

Well, you'll get that. No avoiding it really. (Although, better pr0n than ethnic cleansing, if it comes to that.)

It's kind of like growing crops or flowers. You toss out a lot of seed, and a lot of it never grows, but your plan is such that if some/enough of it does, you still consider it a win.

>>3) Because many people have gotten fired up about the OLPC
>>idea and donated that would never donate to the Feed
>>the Children fund or what have you, the choice isn't really
>>between give starving children food or give starving
>children
>>laptops -- in probably most cases, it's between give
>starving
>>children laptops or give starving children nothing.
>
>Sure. And in that sense I guess I support it. But it still
>makes me want to slap the people who'll pay $200 bucks to buy
>someone a crappy laptop, but not to help them in any other
>(arguably much more tangible) way. It's the "computers are a
>silver bullet" attitude that irks me.

I think you'll see that kind of attitude frequently in the slashdot kind of crowd because it's disproportionately made up of the kind of people for whom it was or would be.

My life would be a lot, lot different if I hadn't had access to a very crappy computer at a young age. I wanted to play games and didn't have access to any, so I taught myself the basics of programming to be able to make them. If you really think about it, that also necessitated teaching myself (very basic) algebra and a few other things that probably most six year olds don't encounter of their own volition. There's an excellent chance that, minus those events, I would have a very different career and set of peers at this point in my life, and also that I would have spent much more of it wooing attractive women. Whether you call that a net positive or not I can't really say, but I can attest to the transformitive power of a computer for the right child. It won't be that for every child, and I can't say that I'm convinced that even at $100 per laptop it's worth the price, but I can understand in some small way where the people who do are coming from.