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Comment by azinman2 | Hacker News Reader

I haven’t read this new book. But I was at the Media Lab when all of this was going on (without directly working on it). Reading the reviews of this book, all I can say is if “scholars” ran this world, nothing would be done. Inaction is far easier than action, and no one has all the answers before big leaps are taken (and this was an insanely ambitious project). I also say that as a fan of some of the reviewers.

No doubt mistakes were made, and likely some where called out back then (including critiques I did hear at the time). But it’s also a very different world in 2022, where things like cell phones and Facebook have taken over the planet… I hope the book contextualizes this.

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I'm pretty sure mine were some of the criticism you heard ;-) My critique largely focused on the imperialist attitude of the project: Negroponte described the project with hope that it would be as impactful as the "Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria" without any sense of recognition of th negative impact of those ships. When the first technical bring up touted OLPC developers running Doom on it, it was a reminder of how, no matter how much we claim technology is absent of agenda, it is many ways a reflection of the values of the developers.

Hi Seth!

Everything done by anyone is a reflection of them, their needs, constrains, ideas, and knowledge. Intention matters, and inaction is intention-less.

However I don’t think your metaphor is apt — OLPC didn’t intend to be a conquest in any way that was about extracting resources let alone bring resources those back home.

The OLPC didn’t replace something, it created something. It pointed a way.

> Intention matters

Does it really? We all know the saying about the road to hell, and I suspect the people on the receiving end didn't particularly care about intentions, especially if the result was a net negative.

Was the OLPC a net negative?

I seem to remember Carlos Fuentes narrating an entire series "The Buried Mirror" starting out with that (he immediately follows it with "[Columbus put his newly-discovered] noble savage in chains") but I don't see anyone calling him racist.

> if “scholars” ran this world, nothing would be done. Inaction is far easier than action, and no one has all the answers before big leaps are taken

Do you mean to defend the OLPC folks as action-takers, or criticize them as scholars?

Surely defend.

> "I also say that as a fan of some of the reviewers."

I'm saying OLPC folks were action takers. They sought to do an ambitious project to bring computing to the developing world, close the digital divide, bring up a new class of digital natives into an economy they'd otherwise be left out of, enable a suite of educational materials that otherwise wouldn't be available, tackle problems of electricity and internet access in these contexts, and find generous donors & governments to help fund it all.

Without economies of scale that eventually came from cell phones, this was a pretty amazing and ambitious project!

You're confusing "action" with "outcome". Yes, OLPC generated a lot of buzz, and created a cryptocurrency-like hype machine. Yes, OLPC was probably very friendly to you when you were working right alongside them in MIT Media Lab. But what did they actually achieve?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child#Criticism indicates not much at all. The project was a beautiful boondoggle; their users didn't enjoy the product but the rich folk who donated could pat themselves on the back for looking like they cared. Even Bill Gates had the sense to walk away 5 years before OLPC even started: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2000/nov/05/billgates...

Let's also not forget that the founder of OLPC, and the chairman of MIT Media Lab, has gone on record praising a convicted, child sex trafficker: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Negroponte#Epstein_... and tried to cover-up their dirty money trail soon after: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-univer... .

> [Wikipedia criticism page] indicates not much at all

You shouldn't take criticism uncritically.

> Even Bill Gates had the sense to walk away 5 years before OLPC even started

Bill Gates didn't “walk away”, he used Microsoft to actively sabotage OLPC, by directly targeting their intended market to prevent it from getting hold, since it was seen as an existential threat to the Windows desktop monopoly.

> he used Microsoft to actively sabotage OLPC, by directly targeting their intended market to prevent it from getting hold, since it was seen as an existential threat to the Windows desktop monopoly.

You use such strong words and make such enormous claims but I don't see you citing any evidence. Has that become the norm on HN?

"Let's also not forget that the founder of OLPC, and the chairman of MIT Media Lab, has gone on record praising a convicted, child sex trafficker"

In the world of ad-hominem this is like a drive-by shooting with a nuclear bomb.

"In the world of ad-hominem this is like a drive-by shooting with a nuclear bomb."

But is it inaccurate? I wasn't sure. So I googled. Here's what I found: "Nicholas Negroponte, who co-founded MIT’s prestigious Media Lab in 1985, admitted to encouraging director Joi Ito to take Epstein’s money and even hanging out with the late pedophile back in the day"

At first glance, it appears to have substance to me.

I read the book last year.

While it is definitely a critique -- and while Ames provides a debatable framing of her overall thesis -- the accounting of the actual, on-the-ground uses of OLPC laptops is invaluable. Assessment is not the same thing as inaction. It is worth understanding what happened and attempt to frame why it happened. In fact, one could argue that the "action takers" in computing today might do well to familiarize themselves with a bit more scholarship in the first place.

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