This post is about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. Providing children in the developing world with access to electronic information is such a cool idea. But jump with me into the future. Every child in the developing world has a laptop. Now, tell me what they’re looking at on those laptops. Economics? Research on eliminating the AIDS virus? No. There are two possibilities that I guarantee you will find on the connected OLPC of the future: stupidity and porn.
Look around, folks. Have you spent any time lately in My Space, or Yahoo! or Flickr? Connect a bunch of hormone-fueled and not exactly intellectually-motivated kids on the Internet and you’ve got yourself a global slumber party. Lots of fun. But not much else. That’s the first point in my argument.
Second point: Globalization of media. When did it start? With the massive exportation of the TV series Dallas. Twenty years later, I bet things have improved a lot. Last I heard the best-selling shows overseas are Baywatch and Walker: Texas Ranger.
Third: My Mozambican buddy’s cell phone. I’ve been so excited about the potential for cell phones to act as the equivalent of personal computers in the developing world. So I was helping my friend set up his phone to post messages to the web. What did I stumble upon in his SMS inbox? A pornographic joke. Skip ahead six months. Yesterday morning, he was showing me his new cell phone that takes pictures. What did he have as the background? A bare-chested and bizarrely-proportioned woman.
Let’s think a little bit about the intended outcome of development. Are we trying to turn the third world into a bunch of materialistic, low-brow, porn-addicted drones like ourselves? Solving the third world’s problems isn’t a natural result of having a surplus of material goods and unlimited Internet access.
What the world needs is Jesus. Only his gospel can fix a warped human. Or a family heading for self-destruction. Or an entire society in the pits.
What the world needs is Jesus. Development is not the answer. Jesus is. The Answer. The answer.
The joyous news is that people are learning that answer at an amazing rate in Africa and other parts of the developing world. But it’s not some geeky techno-gadget that’s making it happen. And don’t get me wrong. I love geeky techno-gadgets. But what’s really winning the world for Christ is a bunch of very low-tech, very undertrained and very Spirit-filled believers spreading the news of the Kingdom at exponential rates.
Christ’s ambassadors, both Mozambicans and those from other nations, are spreading the word to the most inaccessible locations in this country. Stand on the beach in Angoche and look out to sea. In front of you is a tiny strip of an island inhabited by people that will never own a laptop or a “devotional Bible for today’s woman.” But there are believers on that island. They worship God and honor his Son.
I am so excited about projects like xoBible that are dreaming up ways to get the word out in innovative ways. And I love people like Fred and Janet who I met in Maputo last weekend. They head up Lifewater International, a group of people passionate about providing the neediest people of the world with clean drinking water. Listening to their stories, it’s hard for me to justify getting behind a project like One Laptop Per Child when lack of Internet access is the least of your worries if you’re a child in the developing world.
Michael Kruse and Tim Bulkeley have written several times about the project. Check out their blogs for more information.
[Title punctuation corrected!]
Great post! At the very least the internet is pretty much 24/7 commercialism. My guess is that the One Laptop Per Child initiative will encourage alot of envy, want, and greed without the corresponding ability to create alot of upward mobility. In otherwords the net result may be extreme frustration and relative depravation.
I think it may be a little presumptive to cast aside all development.
[...] “One Lap Top Per Child..Then What?” focuses on “third world” development projects in the context of faith. Michael Kruse and Tiim Bulkeley provide interesting insight into the future of globalization via development. [...]
My country (Argentina) is planning to buy the computers. While I don’t care too much about porn (after all, people will buy porn with or without a laptop, if they’re so inclined), I think they’re a terrible waste of money. Those computers will be exchanged for votes in poor areas. And the computers aren’t even cheap, as I can build a better desktop computer for less money. The digital divide can be breached more cheaply by other kind of technology, like thin clients.
I’d rather see the millions of dollars that are going to be wasted on fancy toys invested in public education, since our schools are in terrible condition.
That’s a great post. Thanks.
Not casting aside. Just asking questions.
Thanks, Alejandro for your perspective.
Maybe we should give people ourselves instead of laptops. Two boys (age 16 and 17) from Nigeria are staying with me this week-one Christian and one Muslim. This comment is a bit off topic, but only because your post really hits home to me. What part of American culture do I want these boys to experience in my home? None, except home cooking and family fellowship. My daughters are sleeping on the floor so the boys can have their privacy. My older sons are planning to play soccer and disc golf with the boys. This morning we took a walk after breakfast! Imagine that! Who’s culture is good for whom?
Loved this post! I agree with you completely. I often despair about the state of this country.
While I strongly agree that we need to focus on the gospel more than we do on anything else, I can see our big corporations going over there in far greater numbers and with far greater resources than missionaries will ever have.
OLPC is not about the XO computer, no matter how wonderful it is, but about reaching around the entrenched systems in those lands and our own in order to harness the kids’ own natural curiosity to help bring them out of physical captivity.
Look at it this way. Nearly every child that is exposed to contemporary video game consoles wants one. The XO is a way to harness that desire into a focus on *education*. It has the potential to become a powerful and effective tool for exposing the children and their families to the message–far better than the paper tracts that are often thrown on the ground.
Finally, I realize that few organizations can effectively utilize a huge increase in resources. As long as we continue to maintain and increase the resources (including our time and efforts) devoted to ministry and missions, OLPC is not a competitor to be shunned, but an open door to be welcomed.
[...] 8th, 2007 · No Comments In a recent article, Lingamish takes aim at the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) educational project. …. Providing children in the developing world with access to electronic information [...]
Good thoughtful comments, Walt. I also enjoyed your post on the topic.
[...] One Laptop Per Child. And then what? was my first reaction to the news that developers are hoping to create a $100 computer that they will put into the hands of children in the developing world. My wife’s reaction to the project was slightly different. “Sure,” she said, “they’re going to give laptops to children that are sitting on a log in a schoolhouse with no chalkboard.” [...]
[...] 14th, 2007 · No Comments Previous posts: One Laptop Per Child. And then what?, One Laptop Per Child. But no chalkboard in the [...]
Our kids moved with us into the computer business. We didn’t guide them. Our oldest son has a job using Macs in the film industry. My youngest son is in Seminay. Little kids aren’t interested in sex. If we can get them interested early in reading, many of them won’t jump ship to porn. Much to negative on the program. I own hundreds of computers and give them away to kids.
[...] One Laptop Per Child. And then what? [...]
Well Nigerian kids found porn, but that should be no surprise.
The only surprise is that OLPC Nigeria thinks they can control it with mechanical filters vs. a cultural integration process for computers in classrooms: http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/nigeria/pornographic_image_child.html
[...] One Laptop Per Child. And then what? [...]