[iDC] One Laptop Per Child - MIT/Negroponte Initiative

Thu Dec 27 13:11:05 UTC 2007

I wanted to contribute a quick followup on the OLPC thread from a few 
months ago.

There are some success stories out about the OLPC (one referenced here):
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/24/196240

My take home point from the article and the comments in the section 
"Having visited Arahuay in October" (from a beta test period) indicates 
the importance of the camera and the video capabilities of the OLPC as 
the 'killer app' - the OLPC will usher in YouTube-literacy I guess. Not 
a bad idea either, with state-run TV stations being predominant in many 
of the OLPCs target regions [... unverified statement ...].

The timing for these feel-good articles are right on the mark as well... 
I actually did order my G1G1 on Christmas day after finding out that the 
promo was still running (until end of the year). Too bad they don't tell 
you where the donated device finally ends up - I would love to send an 
email ... oops video-clip, to the kid who will get the donated one.

One more thing I would like to point out which I find highly interesting 
is the "Sneakernet" developments documented on their wiki: 
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sneakernet ... I wonder if this is just some 
retro idea from the'technophiles retro' or actually practically usable. 
The cost is certainly in line at $3 per school and it has an interesting 
GNU precursor in the "Information without Borders" project.

--AS

john sobol wrote:
> this is a short excerpt from the middle of my one-man show, 2 Million 
> Years of Technology. The work is a poetic manifesto that illuminates 
> the urgent need to build alliances between oralists and digitalists to 
> help digitalists overcome the attempted literate colonization of the 
> virtual sphere, and to emancipate oralists from the economic oppression 
> of literate capitalism...i strongly support the OLPC initiative because 
> i fear the monster in the box less than I respect the collective 
> creative intelligence of the African and Aboriginal children using 
> it...
>
> _________________
>
>
> it is impossible to overestimate the degree to which literacy has 
> subverted, usurped, conquered orality
>
> whenever and wherever oral cultures and literate cultures have met
>
> they have fought to the death
>
> and in every case
>
> every single case
>
> it is the oralists who have been defeated, destroyed, assimilated
>
> because literacy is more efficient
>
> and evolution rewards efficiency
>
>
> it’s that simple
>
> *	*	*
>
> The truth is that we are experiencing
>
> The end of uncompromised orality
>
> The very end
>
> In our lifetime
>
> Of pure primordial oral consciousness
>
> The original linguistic killer app
>
> With which our species has shaped itself over 99.9% of its history
>
> While we cram our ears with Britney Spears
>
> Thousands of languages are dying
>
> Each containing sacred songs, spells and secrets
>
> Vocabularies that have unlocked for countless generations
>
> the mysteries of self and space
>
> Self and soul
>
> Self and so much else
>
> Magical consciousness
>
> Shamanic wisdom
>
> The ancient sounds of being beyond the bookish world
>
> Lost
>
> All lost
>
> Never to return
>
> It is a moment of epic significance for our species
>
> And for all that
>
> Largely unacknowledged
>
> And utterly misunderstood
>
>  
> *	*	*
>
> But even more remarkably
>
> this extinction of orality occurs during the very same lifetime
>
> As the birth of the next evolutionary killer app
>
> the dawn of a new knowledge sharing tool
>
> this epic conclusion occurs
>
> alongside a beginning
>
> of potentially vast evolutionary significance
>
> Digitopia
>
> The interactive internet
>
> Currently linking a billion people around the world in real time
>
> the next storytelling bomb
>
>  
>
> So, the three linguistic killer apps of human evolution
>
> Are the spoken word, the printed word and the electronic word
>
> The logos of the body, the logos of the book, the logos of binary data
>
> And we are living today at the epic conjunction of these three eras, 
> these three technologies, these three cultures
>
>  
>
> But in just a few decades
>
> We - soft and grey
>
> Will be the only ones left who remember
>
> A time before the Internet
>
> A time before home computers
>
> Before everything
>
>  
>
> And then
>
> What is lost
>
> Will be well and truly lost
>
> And the wisdom of the elders
>
> Will either become utterly obsolete
>
> Just another played out killer app
>
> laid to rest on the slagheap of evolution
>
> or
>
> it will survive –
>
> not unchanged
>
> but vital
>
> rooted
>
> absorbed
>
>  
>
> yet here is the astounding irony of our age:
>
> the literate hegemony
>
> that has so quickly and completely established itself
>
> and is so busy driving the last nails into the coffin of orality
>
> is itself in deep shit
>
> and things are only going to get worse for the literate capitalists
>
> clinging to copyright
>
> like a leaden life preserver
>
>  
>
> because just as the efficiency of literacy enabled the slaughter of 
> oralists
>
> pitted roaring tanks against charging horsemen
>
> machine guns against machetes
>
> pipelines against calabashes
>
> so is the hyper-efficiency of this new killer app
>
> about to massacre literate capitalism
>
> at 100 gigaflops per second
>
>  
>
> welcome to the end of bluesology
>
> the crisis of printopolis
>
> and the dawn of digitopia
>
> ___________________
>
> (excerpted from 2 Million Years of Technology)
>
> By John Sobol
> Copy with Love
> www.johnsobol.com
>
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