Erik Moeller wrote:
On 9/8/06, Robert Scott Horning
<robert_horning(a)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.
--
Robert Scott Horning