[Air-l] One Laptop Per Child

[J. J.]

Hi Ellis,

I think that "giving" cannot be equated with "empowering." Thus "inequality" 
and "stratification" are by default wrong and harmful in this context.

Best,
Jarek

>From: "Ellis Godard" <ellis.godard at csun.edu>
>Reply-To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org, ellis.godard at csun.edu
>To: <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
>Subject: Re: [Air-l] One Laptop Per Child
>Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 15:49:55 -0700
>
>Christian Fuchs wrote:
> > If
> > the $100 laptop is widely diffused in the Third World,
> > Western actors selling these computers will derive profits,
> > and a global divide in technological progress and standards
> > will emerge that separates advanced Western technology users
> > from users of less-advanced technologies in the Third World.
>
>How does diffusing technology across a divide which already exists, enhance
>rather than diminish it? How does giving them computers inhibit their
>"technological progress", or have any deliterious effect on their
>technological standards?
>
> > ...what
> > is needed is an advanced $0 laptop with free software for
> > people in developing countries as well as criticism of the
> > logic that has caused the divide between developing and
> > developed countries and solutions to the social, economic,
> > political, and cultural inequalities that underpin the global
> > digital divide".
>
>What is "the logic that has caused" of which you speak?
>
>The implication that inequality and stratification are necessarily wrong,
>much less demonstrably eliminatable, is very very close to absurd.
>
>-eg
>
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