John Lennon pitching laptops

It's for charity, thankfully: through the use of digital technology, the former Beatle urges people to support One Laptop Per Child's efforts to reach the poorest corners of the world.
(From Reuters)

The story "John Lennon pitching laptops" published December 27, 2008 at 11:46 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[getwired]

How sick and campy. It doesn't sound like John at all, and the video quality is horrible (since I'm sure they were very limited for source video to work from).

[ckurowic]

Also, how about we spend $200 on some inoculations or fresh water versus a POS laptop??

[tarzieboy]

would have been nice to have heard john sing "imagine"

[ckurowic]

Disgusting. *** is this crap? Not only is this disrespectful to Lennon, but that one laptop per child thing is bullsh**. You know exactly what some kid in Africa would do with one? Tear that thing apart to sell the copper and gold out of. Like they give a crap about the Internet.

[Real23]

*** is up with your post???? I think your absolutely wrong.... Research OLPC, I think you will change your mind. Education can save anyone.

[gdmaclew]

And I think you are wrong Real23.
You don't need a laptop to educated children.
What these children need is food, water and a safe place to grow up.
I don't are if they claim to be "non-profit", there is always a commercial angle to these programs.
If you can find teachers to show these children to use a laptop, you can find teachers to really teach these children with conventional methods.
Why does everyone think that computers are the answer to everything and that the Internet can solve all the planet's problems?
It doesn't feed people, it doesn't stop rebel gunmen from raiding my villiage and killing me and it certainly can't give me fresh clean water to drink.
Try spending the money on that.

[holyhope]

No, they would become awwad sawwadog and try to enter the world of money from the banking end, instead of through malaria or hiv statistics ends.

[holyhope]

gdmaclew is so wrong in his comment, 1. the internet can certainly help you dig a well for fresh water with a solar powered pump to or manual pump to retrieve it. 2. when invading Iraq, one of the devices used against us was the cell phone, same with internet, raiding party headed for vill, leave or set up ambush. 3. knowledge will set you free, you wont think you can give your aids to a young girl to get rid of it, knowledge, not superstition.

[slack7639]

People are enslaved by ignorance. The idea is to get as many people as possible educated, so that they can be free from the dictators.

To do this, get them a laptop, wireless connection, and free education, like with OpenCourseWare.

Pioneered by MIT, this is an innovation of the early 21st century. A consortium of colleges and universities video record their lectures and put them on the internet (YouTube, Itunes, other), free of charge.

****************

http://www.youtube.com/user/MIT

The mission of MIT is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.

The Institute is committed to generating, disseminating, and preserving knowledge, and to working with others to bring this knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges. MIT is dedicated to providing its students with an education that combines rigorous academic study and the excitement of discovery with the support and intellectual stimulation of a diverse campus community. We seek to develop in each member of the MIT community the ability and passion to work wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of humankind.

[holyhope]

I only wish I had the opportunity of a laptop connected to the library of congress and all mans knowledge growing up in the 50's in Oregon. It would have been more entertaining than watching huckleberry hound on cartoons, and would have helped me produce a nuclear device much sooner, with inertia-less drive.

[slacovdael]

I think the point of this is not to say, "give them a laptop instead of food and water, or protection." I think maybe they are just trying to do something useful with old laptops...I mean it definitely won't hurt them, so why not?

[getwired]

The point is that there are tens of millions of starving children in the world. If the money being spent on this well-intended initiative were spent on water and food assistance, the real long-term gain would be far larger than short term "empowering" children with a computer.

Yoko Ono should be ashamed of herself - John would have seen through the OLPC initiative and pushed for solving the real problem.

[figmo2000]

Imagine....a few billion more Nigerian scam emails every day. The majority of these laptops will be siezed by the people in power over there and either sold or used to commit fraud on westerners. The profits going - not toward a new well or aids drugs - but toward weapons and terrorist training camps. John, I say you're a dreamer.....

[Enough Already]

Very true about those 419 scams. You can't force-feed technology to people who don't inherently want to learn, and are too obsessed with base desires to make honest use of it. They might try to create knives from metal parts in the case after the laptop is broken after 2 weeks in some overpopulated shanty town.

If laptops ARE delivered, the browser home page should be preset for a search on contraception. That's the technology that will really empower these people, if the backward Muslims would only let women use it.

[Enough Already]

The most pragmatic technology for overpopulated poor nations is birth control. Population growth is one of the biggest reasons they continue to starve and live in squalor. Food-aid has only served as intermittent welfare and a skim pot for religious groups.

Learning to read, write and do match doesn't require a laptop; it could end up as a hindrance until the basics are learned. But teaching programs have already been tried with limited success in chronically poor areas. If the people aren't intrinsically up to it, they will fail without constant supervision.

If they get hooked on the Internet before learning basic skills, they'll just crave more of the foreign bling-bling they're missing, making them even less patient for "old fashioned" learning that takes effort. Also, keeping a laptop functional requires a clean environment without dusty/muddy floors and insect infestations. Day to day life in squalid conditions doesn't accommodate for technology in the first place.

What has become of those BayGen crank radios that were supposed to enlighten poor Africa? Most are probably broken, if not being used to listen to shortwave rebel propaganda.

[Enough Already]

I meant math, not "match" of course.