Erik Moeller wrote:
On 9/8/06, Robert Scott Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
For myself, I strongly suspect anything that starts with "students in the developing world" and doesn't acknowledge disadvantaged individuals even in supposedly "first world" countries to be more or less a scam and something to stay away from. If their overall goal is to bring benefits to people in specific countries but also benefit other people in the process, I'm much more likly to support such a general project.
Of course, that is why I also consider the OLPC project to be something of a scam as well, on the same grounds.
I think that's an unhelpful position. When you start by calling a project "more or less a scam", you will be less likely to change hearts and minds than by simply stating your position clearly (if forcefully). The OLPC folks I know are good people who are likely to listen to constructive suggestions. Also, we're not above making similar mistakes. IMHO, the language in Jimmy's personal appeal for donations, for example, (literally: "I'm doing this for the child in Africa") could have used considerable polish.
By calling something like this a scam, I am refering to the fact that there seem to be individuals acting supposedly on behalf of underprivileged individuals with their hands out for money, time, and other resources but seem to have a political agenda instead, not any real attempt to do good in the world. Or that the real agenda is not clear and visible, and certainly not the formally stated public purpose.
And more to the point if I see words like I stated above, that some project is for "people in the developing world", I start out automatically suspicious that it is a scam and that such a group must then prove it is something otherwise. That is all I was trying to imply. I have seen far too many of these supposedly good project ideas turn into ways to seperate people from their money than I can count. This is an opinion based on years of experience and seeing even positive fundraising opportunities turn sour and offer far more benefit to the individuals organizing the project than to the supposed targets of the effort.
The real purpose, for example, that the OLPC folks don't want to deal with EU or American states is because the laptop component manufacturer's that are offering price breaks for the OLPC don't want a competing computer product that would undercut their own sales in the USA and EU. If that isn't a political agenda, I don't know what one is. A very significant criticism that I have had about the OLPC is that they are not planning on offering these laptops at Wal-mart (or other 1st world retailers), even for a moderate mark-up in price to help subsidize their distribution to other countries. And the reasons to not offer them for sale in such a manner seem to ring very hallow and are very POV and politically motivated.
I am not denying that there are certainly some varying personal motivations for involvement in worthy projects like the Global Text Project and Wikimedia projects. If one of them happens to be an altruistic belief that adding content to Wikipedia can help my sister-in-law that lives in Accra, Ghana, then so be it. But there are other motivations beyond just working for 3rd world countries, and selling a very cheap encyclopedia to people in Africa.