Comments on: Differing Priorities

By: jdasilva

jdasilva — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 03:12:08 +0000

I think that this example illustrates how few of us are Renaissance men (and women), and the vast difficulty in being in charge of any little part of how the world works is taking the genius of the MIT folks and converting that into something that actually functions in the real world.
Two notes on the computer stuff…I love Firefox, but it’s Mac-type app in the sense that point-and-click computer users won’t be able to “handle” it. I don’t know that Linux, beyond the basics, helps that at all. However, being that it’s not controlled by a giant corporation or the state (sorry, I sounded like Lew Rockwell there :P), Linux is probably the best option for any type of Third World computing.

However, I think that they could survive without everyone having computers. Honestly. I did so until halfway through high school, and I find that time to be a nostalgic period of reading many many books and playing outside, as opposed to the overconsumption of electronic devices that I partake in now. With that, I’m off to treadmill a bit and then read about the Civil War. Small steps, small steps.

By: -keith in mtn. view

-keith in mtn. view — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 20:59:21 +0000

This to me goes to the problem of what really is the point – subsidizing technology, or creating wealth and prosperity?
Give a man a $100 laptop and he can surf Internet porn all day. Teach a man to build a laptop from $50 worth of parts and a free OS for a market that he understands, and he can sell it in the marketplace for years…

By: Mark Olson

Mark Olson — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 13:28:27 +0000

Observing local culture on a business trip here in the Philippines, while not scraping the bottom of the human wealth barrel, I note that almost everyone has a cell phone, the $12/day income with wife and 8 kids taxi drive to the actual wealthy. A $100 laptop hasn’t sold … yet. Note most people in the lower income levels don’t actually make calls … for “texting is free”. That laptop probably won’t sell, because they don’t need it for e-mail … they already have it.

By: Bob Runensfeld

Bob Runensfeld — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 11:53:22 +0000

You know, of course these laptops wouldn’t be sold in the US. Just like illegal drugs and pirated DVDs aren’t sold in the US. It’s quite easy to control these things. The market can’t do a damn thing about it either.

By: Zach

Zach — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 02:30:30 +0000

I’ll concede that installing Linux used to be quite a bit harder than it is currently. (although repeating that it’s irrelevant, since it will come preloaded) Even in the bad old days, it was amazingly stable, though. In six years of daily use, I’ve never managed to crash it.

Linux gets quite complicated if you open up the hood, but from the perspective of a day-to-day user (especially one who’s never used Windows before) there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between it and any other GUI-based system. You point the mouse, click, and the program starts up.

By: James R. Rummel

James R. Rummel — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 02:13:59 +0000

Honestly, I don’t see where you’re getting the “putting a great deal of strain on the intended users.”

It’s been some years since I looked into Linux as an alternative to Windows. At the time you had to know a great deal about your machine to get it to work, although enthusiasts insisted that you could get a huge boost in performance as soon as you jumped through all the hoops. I passed because I have better things to do than spend a few weeks learning how to tweak code. (Although I’m sure that the Linux boosters I talked to way back then couldn’t imagine what would be a better use of my time.)

If the OS has matured to the point that it’s stable and can be pre-loaded, then my objections disappear.

Mozilla is quite a bit better than IE,…

Not in my experience, and I run both of them on my PC.

So far as which Email program is the best, I haven’t the foggiest. I have a free Email account through Yahoo.com that serves my needs, and I’ve never bothered with all of the other accounts that have been offered to me. (Even the Email services provided through the blogs I write for, though I’d like to thank Jonathan for making sure that I knew about the one through CB.)

James

By: David Foster

David Foster — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 02:03:03 +0000

There may be some applications where computers can make a real contribution in impoverished areas; see my post Rural Tech in India In general, though, computer technology is much less important than mosquito control or irrigation. I think Bill Gates made this point with regard to vaccination.

By: Zach

Zach — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 01:54:20 +0000

I ran Linux on a machine very comparable to what you’re describing a few years ago, and it worked fine.

Honestly, I don’t see where you’re getting the “putting a great deal of strain on the intended users.” Mozilla is quite a bit better than IE, the various Linux email programs are better than Outlook, and the office programs are acceptable, although in my opinion, they’re still worse than Office. With all the programs preloaded at manufacture, there’s essentially no difference from the perspective of the user.