"We left the boxes in the village. Closed. Taped shut. No instruction, no human being. I thought, the kids will play with the boxes! Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, but found the on/off switch. He'd never seen an on/off switch. He powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs [in English] in the village. And within five months, they had hacked Android. Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera! And they figured out it had a camera, and they hacked Android."
Ethiopian kids hack OLPCs in 5 months
I like this story. So OLPC decides to try something different, and just dumps off a thousand touchscreen tablets (modded to have solar power) for the kids in an Ethiopian village. No instructions and no one in these villages had ever so much as seen a printed word. Just dumps off the boxes and wait to see what happens.
"ATTENTION: Customers browsing porn must hold magazines with both hands at all times!"
Heh. Oops. I really meant to link it.
http://dvice.com/archives/2012/10/ethiopian-kids.php
http://dvice.com/archives/2012/10/ethiopian-kids.php
"ATTENTION: Customers browsing porn must hold magazines with both hands at all times!"
And they have never heard of an "Apple Product," but they intuitively hate it.TheCatt wrote:Give a man some food, he eats for a day. Teach him to hack Android, he, uh... writes a tech blog?Troy wrote:How many of them were actually sold for things an Ethiopian village really needs? Like... food?
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
But seriously, even Bono has figured out the just throwing food at them doesn't help.Troy wrote:How many of them were actually sold for things an Ethiopian village really needs? Like... food?
http://www.forbes.com/sites....d-nerds
They need to learn how to help themselves, and capitalism is the only way to do that. But capitalism doesn't work without a trusted, innate sense of private property... how do you build and sell what can be taken from you on a whim? So, Africa has serious problems. The scarcity of food is just a symptom of the bigger problem.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Africa needs infrastructure more than it needs food at the moment. That shit gets shipped in crates all day long to get sent over there. You can't just unload a modern sewage, electrical, water, or road system off a ship and install it in a week.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Once people have private property and start creating wealth by building shit to sell, they start getting interested in protecting their shit from bad guys, and they get civilian police, and security. Then the peeps who have created wealth start thinking they would have more customers if everyone were healthy with seeage and sanitation and stuff.
But you have nothing without the concept of property ownership.
But you have nothing without the concept of property ownership.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
I bet they're all interested in that. I furthermore bet that only a few get to do it.TPRJones wrote:Well, at least in two villages there are now a bunch of kids that might grow up to be interested in more than just struggling to survive day by day.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
GORDON wrote:Once people have private property and start creating wealth by building shit to sell, they start getting interested in protecting their shit from bad guys, and they get civilian police, and security.
But you have nothing without the concept of property ownership.
People who have large amounts of private property over in Africa generally maintain and get more by shooting or hacking others with machetes. Property ownership isn't enough, it's who owns what and what the fuck they decide "owns" means. I'd like to add that the gov't entities in the U.S. can take your shit whenever they want with a good enough excuse.
Edited By Malcolm on 1351882223
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."