Yet another reason to get angry with Bill...

[Eric Dunbar]

On 18/03/06, Pete Ryland <pdr at pdr.cx> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 17, 2006 at 05:43:51PM +0200, Michael Shigorin wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 09:48:03AM -0500, Jonathan Jesse wrote:
> > > I don't understand the whole point of providing 3rd World
> > > countries a $100 laptop when there are greator problems, food,
> > > water, electricity, sanitation, disease, etc that should be
> > > taken care of before people start
> >
> > wasting time
> >
> > > surfing the internet.
> >
> > instead of fixing the situation.
> >
> > Agreed.
>
> No.  Education is *key*.  In whatever form this comes, this will always be
> true.  Without education, and the knowledge and belief that there is a
> better future, there will always be poverty.

Yes, education is key (and, I say this as an educator). However,
computers are a bottom-of-the-heap luxury. First and foremost is
access to clean drinking water and a stable food supply. Then comes
literacy. Then comes access to some form of infrastructure. Then comes
leisure time necessary to learn how to operate a computer, let alone
keep one running (even if it's a simple one).

Computers are great things, but, they are a technological gadget that
can divert badly needed funds away from real education (reading &
writing). You only have to look at the aid budgets of those two large
(predominately) English speaking countries in NA for examples of how
"tech" and consultants chew up aid (Canada has gotten better -- their
focus has shifted to small-scale projects (less likely to constitute
corporate welfare)). The big 'un to the south is perhaps the worst of
the developed world. They budget a scant 0.15% of GDP for foreign aid
(ignoring the "aid" delivered in the form of military (which is
nothing more than a corporate welfare check for US companies anyway
;-) and much of that aid is in the form of aid that feeds right back
into US companies (plus, tragically, their populace over-estimates the
real aid contribution by up to 30-fold). That said, I'm not sure how
the N European aid budgets compare (NL, DK, etc) that are hovering
around the 0.7% -- whether their aid is designed to support
development or partly to act as yet another gov't corporate welfare
subsidy.

Anyway, this isn't a forum to discuss aid per se -- merely what can be
done with it ;-).