Re: [Marxism] One Laptop per Child

[ehrbar <ehrbar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Les, it is easy to find faults with the OLPC project.  A whole cottage
industry of detractors has sprung up.  I think much of this is the FUD
from intel and microsoft who are threatened by it.  The children don't
need much access to the web.  They can write their own computer games
in python and play them with each other on their local wireless mesh
networks.  They can read books from project gutenberg on their
laptops.  The laptops are designed to be self-teaching.  I stand by it
that in a few years this will make a big difference.

The masses in Caracas used cell phones to organize the defeat of the
coup against Chavez in 2004.  Modern IT is going to make a huge
difference for the rising popular upsurge around global-warming.  I
started an interactive internet portal for the Utah environmental
movement at

http://gaia.econ.utah.edu

This will eventually be a platform for participatory planning.  Every
maneuver by the Bush administration (biofuels, liquid coal) will make
it clear that the grassroots activists who are educating themselves right
now about climate change should be democratically controlling the
means of production.

Hans.

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