[wsfii-discuss] olpc presentation

Wed Jan 11 03:02:13 UTC 2006

Paula a écrit :
> Poverty tends to be experienced as an endless struggle against a sea of
> obstacles and wealth reduces resistance (you can "throw money" at
> problems and get someone else to shovel the shit for you), so naturally
> the wealthy don't consider themselves oppressed/unfree whilst the poor
> usually do.
It usual to say that rich are rich because they have stolen the others.
The poverty is deeply felt like a rob, even if there is several
generations between to make the facts fall into oblivion. Justice had
failed anyway.

In your sentence: "It might works OK in a village, if properly
supervised by local community groups", you imply that "underdeveloped"
local community groups are sometime working very well, but you're not sure.

To "shovel the shit" is the job of some individuals who have realized
that the shit was created by "civilized" countries in most cases. And
it's not really old. Those who are doing something, trying to fix
problems on site, are aware of what's happened. It's not too difficult
to make people talk and remain. Dramas leave local vibes, marks that you
can forget only by leaving.

Those who are giving money feel guilty somewhere. But guilty is deeply
unbearable. You can drop out of it by facing the truth. And discover
that your "civilisation" is to question. And the feeling to be
oppressed/unfree comes. The "reduction of resistance" disapears. So
"naturally" is not the term I would have used.

People who don't care are richer than the others under noeliberalism and
it's far to be the majority.

> politics will change Jessie Jackson". This is inevitably true, 
He's already changed, fashioned by our Western civilization now. He's
the result of slavery and destructions of villages in Africa but he had
actually forgotten his roots. He become integrated even if he bears
racism. And his black skin won't change anything if he doesn't come in
Africa to recover them. Whom american black leader have ever tried? That
would be interesting.
> but I'd still rather Jessie Jackson's ilk was in power than the current crew.
His failures prove that you're right. But he's talking with the voice of
"real" oblivion, facing the denial of a lot of black people today that
can be worse than a feeling of guilty.
> you don't need much education to perform *that* feat.

> It's very hard to get a real sense of what's
> practicable or desirable through the lense of one's own desires and
> disappointments from my own relation to a different cultural context.
There is villages in the hillside of Atlas were women and men are
equals. They are still living in harmony into nature. You "would not be
at all charmed by thrashing your laundry in a river" but who's charmed
by a washing machine of a launderette in the center of a pollued town?
By a flat on the 17th floor? By a fast-living which gives you the
impression that live is too short? Forgetting your children, eating alone.

Do you know this sentence of St Exupery? The Little Prince had in his
hand a pill of water that prevents you to lose 10 minutes per day in
drinking, and he said: "If I had 10 minutes to lose, I would walk slowly
towards a fountain". In a near future, the one who will have the chance
to drink in a fountain will be rare (and rich? quite possible). Because
we are destroying the Earth.

By wanting to save time, taking it as money.
Most of our medicine isn't as efficient as natural's one. And the power
of mind - if you've learnt to use it - is quite like aspirin. But some
of our knowledges are good to be shared. The first question we have to
ask ourself before reaching those countries with laptops is why.

I agree that
> involving kids in engineering tasks which will immediately benefit their
> communities will often be the best way to provide effective training as
> well as localised solutions to well-understood problems.

The boys would, of course, figure out some new narrative
> which makes it seem OK to exclude girls from resources on grounds of
> propriety -- cos that's what ideology is.
Our ideology is.. the same patriarchy which maintains noeliberalism
which forsees 12 milliards of people on our (more than tired) Earth to
make their industry growing at short term because they age. Women have
to wake up right now. And men have to share the knowledge that they were
entrusted in our "civilized" countries before giving laptops to children
outside. We're not ready, I'm agree.

> 
> Power and resources are not divided along a smooth horizontal and nor is
> morality or practical hope. Solutions need to be flexible, locally
> determined and practicable to local needs.
The succes - for exemple - of the tanzanian prostitute in programing,
her "Hello World" and the free software she will chose to develop could
learn us a lot about local needs. I can make the film.

Yours,
MM.