OLPC’s $100 laptop was going to change the world

The hope was that we could export a lot of knowledge in a very small package to people who were susceptible to its uptake. We might not see the benefits of OLPC until these children become adults.

One of the problems with providing charity in Africa is the ridiculous amount of superstition that pervades every aspect of African life. If we can remove one or two of these superstitions, then uplifting African society will be so much easier (perhaps it is ethnocentric of me to assume that African society wants and/or needs to be uplifted, maybe that's why the program failed?).

There was a video posted a while back where the students of a South African university were mad that they weren't learning about magic. Yes, magic. They had "seen magic" in their villages and were upset that the university was teaching them that magic wasn't possible (It didn't help that the lessons were coming from white people, but that's another issue).

You can't fix adults when they get all the way to university with those kinds of superstitions, you just need to start on the next generation and hope the lessons stick.

As an African, born and currently living in Africa where I develop and deploy ICT solutions to the most remote areas, I would like to say that what you are saying is utter uninformed bullshit.

The superstition that is prevalent is one person believing neighbors and relatives are bewitching them or using them somehow to fuel their success. Having come from such a background, that has not stopped my education. Secondly if you spent 1 hour in any African village, you would realize how highly people think of their own governments, white people and people from towns. The challenge we have is that due to corruption by our own people (who the multitude trust) who fail to bring us the books, pens and pencils, we fall victim to the west's kindness and sometimes propensity for such uninformed nonsense as you have written above.

Also, absolutely no one would take any of those South African students seriously, it's a joke. We are not as backwards as you think. Unless you also believe thoughts and prayers will stop your mass shootings.

Lastly, the west's general belief in the superstitution of praying to a guy who was nailed to a cross then resurrected after 3 days seems NOT to have had a negative bearing on your development. How do you suppose witchcraft has held back Africans?

Sort of like the superstition that some populations of people lack basic human traits like normal IQ.

I am just sharing what I experienced when I was part of a program providing health care services to under served areas of Africa (specifically one part of Ghana). It was markedly different than when I was part of a program to provide health care services to Canadian indigenous communities (which are also under served in very similar ways to African communities).

Perhaps I was wrong to target superstition, but there is something there that made it much more difficult to operate than the program for Canadian indigenous people. I really hoped that OLPC would bring some truth to these communities, I personally felt that's what we fought against the most - the lack of truth.

Call it uninformed, but you look at your situation differently than an outsider does. Just because you were able to get through the bullshit doesn't mean that millions of your neighbors will as well.

If millions of my neighbors get the same education and are given the same opportunities as I was, whether by chance or other's efforts they too will "get through the bullshit". And as a bonus, they will be less superstitious because they will believe in their own agency and not that of invisible gods or spirits.

My central point is that superstition is not the cause of our relative backwardness in world standards of wealth/health and equality, neither is it a contributing factor. It's merely a symptom.

Superstition is a symptom of poor means, not a cause of them. Therefore the central point of your statement being that "If we can remove one or two of these superstitions, then uplifting African society will be so much easier" is ridiculous.

Take any African child, give him food, shelter and an education (Hello Maslow). See how fast he will drop his belief that his uncle or grandfather bewitched him. I wish I had a better argument to make than saying that I am a product of that transition and I see it playing out everyday in every corner of my country and the neighboring countries with the same start and end.

To expand a little on that, we do not need "truth". An African child in my experience needs food first, then shelter, then books and pencils which in my corner of the world cost $10 for one child for a year. When that child has the basics of education pat down, he will now seek knowledge(truth?), he will now have use and time for the latest rasberry pi powered widget and so on.

One of the best things I have seen to work wonders around these parts are the school feeding programs we have in very few locations. You see these programs take care of the food aspect and the poorest of parents are inspired to take their children to school, chiefly because the child can now have food (priority 1) while also learning (priority x based on the parent's education level/social beliefs and so on).

OLPC atleast from my take on it is the equivalent of throwing a suitcase of money to a drowning man. Yes, once he is out of the water he will love it, but it is of little utility when his priority is just the next breath or the next day in the lives of African kids.

> Unless you also believe thoughts and prayers will stop your mass shootings.

There are certainly enough people in the US who believe just that.

My point indeed. They believe that, but it does not somehow make them immune to education.

Actually you are sharing your beliefs, which are as valid the university students who believe in magic. We have those in Europe as well, that is also why there are religious universities in the US.

Cultural differences, and language barriers would likely have been a much bigger problem for a project in Africa compared to Canada. I can only look back at my time doing such project and think how stupid an naive I was, too much my way, but we did have some very experienced folks living in the larger cummunity who grounded the work.

Doing intercultural things is wonderful work, but sometimes you do not have the tools to handle it I know I didn't.