‘Given Tablets but No Teachers, Ethiopian Children Teach Themselves’
November 2nd, 2012“For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”
—Sun Tzu, The Art o War
Update: Nicholas Negroponte Is the Brother of John Negroponte
Reader DW tipped me off to something pretty remarkable that I hadn’t noticed before:
I saw your take on that amazing story about OLPC program in remotest Ethiopia as well as your reaction to it. I think you are on to something there and something else you should know is that Nicholas Negroponte is the brother of John Negroponte and at this point I think you probably know more about that latter character than anybody else I check in with. Now put John N. together with your Sun-Tzu-esque suspicions and I think you are on the right track, regrettably.
Negroponte speaks five languages (English, French, Greek, Spanish, and Vietnamese). He is the elder brother of Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab and of the One Laptop per Child project.
Ok, so the person mainly responsible for the One Laptop Per Child operation is the brother of a guy who: was linked to atrocities in Honduras and activities supporting U.S. covert operations in Nicaragua; was a key figure in getting NAFTA done; presided over the Iraq WMD scam; served as Director of National Intelligence from 2005–2007; and who now is a Lecturer at Yale in International Affairs (John Negroponte Brady-Johnson Distinguished Fellow in Grand Strategy and Senior Lecturer in International Affairs).
More from the same Wikipedia link above:
He was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity, alongside William H.T. Bush, the uncle of President George W. Bush, and Porter Goss, who served as Director of Central Intelligence and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Negroponte from 2005 to 2006.
Thanks, DW, for noticing the elephant in the room for us!
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Wow, on the one hand, it’s incredible to see what happened here given the lack of instruction. On the other hand, the materials were in English! So, whatever positives can be ascribed to this, it’s also war against these people. If you doubt it, see The American Culture Bomb:
Contemporary American culture is the most powerful in history, and the most destructive of competitor cultures.
…
America has figured it out, and we are brilliant at operationalizing our knowledge, and our cultural power will hinder even those cultures we do not undermine.
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The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.
If you’re at war, what’s cheaper and easier? Using flying terminator robots to kill your enemies, or repurposing potential enemies (that is, anyone who isn’t already like you) from an early age into wanting to be like you?
Via: MIT Technology Review:
With 100 million first-grade-aged children worldwide having no access to schooling, the One Laptop Per Child organization is trying something new in two remote Ethiopian villages—simply dropping off tablet computers with preloaded programs and seeing what happens.
The goal: to see if illiterate kids with no previous exposure to written words can learn how to read all by themselves, by experimenting with the tablet and its preloaded alphabet-training games, e-books, movies, cartoons, paintings, and other programs.
Early observations are encouraging, said Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC’s founder, at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech conference last week.
The devices involved are Motorola Xoom tablets—used together with a solar charging system, which Ethiopian technicians had taught adults in the village to use. Once a week, a technician visits the villages and swaps out memory cards so that researchers can study how the machines were actually used.
After several months, the kids in both villages were still heavily engaged in using and recharging the machines, and had been observed reciting the “alphabet song,” and even spelling words. One boy, exposed to literacy games with animal pictures, opened up a paint program and wrote the word “Lion.”
The experiment is being done in two isolated rural villages with about 20 first-grade-aged children each, about 50 miles from Addis Ababa. One village is called Wonchi, on the rim of a volcanic crater at 11,000 feet; the other is called Wolonchete, in the Great Rift Valley. Children there had never previously seen printed materials, road signs, or even packaging that had words on them, Negroponte said.
Earlier this year, OLPC workers dropped off closed boxes containing the tablets, taped shut, with no instruction. “I thought the kids would play with the boxes. Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, found the on-off switch … powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child, per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs in the village, and within five months, they had hacked Android,” Negroponte said. “Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera, and they figured out the camera, and had hacked Android.”
Related: Top U.S. Colleges to Offer Free Classes Online
“so, whatever positives can be ascribed to this, it’s also war against these people”
No, it is not. And I think it is dangerous to characterize it as such.
Look, how is this story a story of war? Because the children are — supposedly — being culturally subverted? Selling their Manhattan Island of cultural allegiance for a handful of technological wampum?
First, stop and consider: just because these kids like our iPads doesn’t mean they won’t fly airplanes into our buildings, someday. Let’s not declare a Culture War victory just yet, OK?
Setting that point aside…
Despite the citation of Sun Tzu at the beginning of this story, I would argue that war — to remain a meaningful term — requires violence, or at least some form of somatic destruction / subjugation (i.e., killing people with a weaponized virus, sowing salt into fields, relegating a population into prison camps, etc.). Such is war.
Enticing people to alter their cultural norms by assimilating parts of another culture, including its technology… this is no longer warfare.
Is it a form of subtle domination? Yes, of course. And the ethical dimensions of that reality can be debated. But it’s not warfare. Period.
If you don’t appreciate this point, go back and read some books about war (e.g., Hemingway’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”; Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” about the Nazi camps; Him’s “When Broken Glass Floats,” about living under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; West’s “No True Glory” about the battle of Fallujah, etc.) A kid sitting in the ashes of Dresden during WWII or Mai Lai during the Vietnam War would be utterly unable to grasp your characterization of a village of Ethiopian kids getting free computers as somehow victims of warfare. Such a concept of warfare is eroded to the point of intellectual decadence.
Getting the upper hand on a competitor without resorting to some form of violence or subjugation — for example, converting them to your way of thinking such that they no longer plot to blow up your kids out of pure cultural enmity — this is an example of good *strategy*. Good diplomacy, perhaps. It is not an example of successful *warfare*.
Giving kids computers so that they don’t want to lob bombs at your kids when they grow up — this is what we do *instead* of war.
My point is, if we broaden the definition of warfare too much, we water down its meaning, and that is dangerous; it allows us to create concepts like the endless and futile “War on Drugs”. (Which actually does incorporate violence and subjugation, but is not a war — but that is another very long conversation…)
Perhaps the problem is that war is such a central and powerful part of the human experience, it has become a ubiquitous metaphor for conflict of every kind.
But wouldn’t you agree that winning a cultural confrontation via soft power and cultural hybridization is, unarguably, better than winning it with smart bombs and depleted uranium bullets? Surely we can all agree on that? I mean, if we have to choose between a world torn to pieces by terrorism and WMDs and one in which there are McDonalds in Tehran, surely that choice is a no-brainer? Yes, the world of McDonalds Tehran will have its disappointments (cultural diversity?) — but let’s not lose perspective.
Me, I’m in favor of the scenario that doesn’t involve kids growing up with missing limbs or senses, having to beg for a living because they can’t work, glowering in despair and praying every night that Allah brings low the Great Satan.
I’m in favor of the scenarios that involve people learning to cooperate in order to solve mutual problems, leading to lives that are both more comfortable and also meaningful for all members of our species. Surely that is our best possible ambition?
Giving kids computers is not warfare. If we start characterizing it as such, then I’d argue we’ve arrived at the center of Crazytown.
CitizenK – I would call it warfare… in the context of cultural warfare.
If you believe that two cultures can attempt to destroy each other, then any overt, or covert, act to impose one culture upon another can be seen as cultural warfare.
You should read “Constant Conflict” it’s an internet classic.
“just because these kids like our iPads doesn’t mean they won’t fly airplanes into our buildings, someday”
Do your homework. They didn’t need to fly a plane into World Trade Centre 7 to reduce it to rubble.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=da1_1349060495
CitizenK – I have no idea why you start from the assumption that people elsewhere will just naturally grow up to “lob bombs at your kids” and “plot to blow up your kids out of pure cultural enmity”. Not even our elites who push that kind of crude propaganda actually believe that, but it is certainly used to justify the need for the kind of cultural subjugation you set out. And why should they be seen as “competitors” anyway?
I have a great deal of respect for our Cryptogon host. But obviously I feel quite passionately about the point I made in my posted comment — and it does not surprise me that some (most? all?) Cryptogon readers find my perspective somehow stupid or offensive.
RBNZ:
First, what is “cultural warfare”? What does that term even mean? Are you implicitly bemoaning the loss of indigenous norms/ values? Well, what does “indigenous” even mean, in a world in which Michael Jackson cults exist in remote northern Africa? No offense, but welcome to human history: when we started planting crops, hunter-gatherer norms and values were also marginalized.
Culture is in a constant state of flux; that does not mean it is in a constant state of *warfare*. And if you characterize it as such, then, well, go back and read my first comment again. 🙂 I’d say you are very very wrong about what constitutes warfare.
To be more blunt, you throw out the phrase “cultural warfare” with the confidence that the term means something, while I would say — in an attempt to be provocative and get people to stop for a moment and question their assumptions — that “cultural warfare” is not warfare. Yes, when kids in Ghana stop learning their native lullabies and watch imported Euro TV shows instead, something is lost — but this is not warfare.
Meanwhile, you really didn’t respond to my arguments. Do you think a kid sitting in the ashes of Dresden would consider those Ethiopian kids getting free computers as “fellow” war victims? Well, do you?
To anyone who disagrees with me: post a response that makes that argument, will you? I’d love to read it.
Second, my comment about flying airplanes into buildings was meant broadly. “Do my homework”? Do my homework about what, exactly? The niggling details of the destruction on 9/11? My turn of phrase was meant metaphorically — but, you know, good for you that you are intimately familiar with all the details of 9/11. “Cool story, bro.”
Third, I did happen to read Ralph Peters’ “Constant Conflict” essay, some years ago, after 9/11. I re-read it before I made my post, via the links.
Peters makes some good points, but: he is still importantly wrong, for all the reasons I point out in my comment.
But besides Peters, I have also read Andrew Bacevich’s three most recent works on warfare (good, but repetitive), Chalmers Johnson’s trilogy on the end of the American Empire, John Robb’s “Brave New War,” and am currently about a third of the way through P.W. Singer’s “Wired for War”. I also re-read Barber’s “Jihad vs. McWorld” a few years ago, and am familiar with the theories of Samuel P. Huntington.
My point? I’ve spent a lot of time in the last decade thinking about terrorism and warfare (and TCOs, but that is a different topic). You may think I’m a jackass or strongly disagree with my perspective, but I am well-read. Meaning, if we don’t agree, it’s likely not because I haven’t been sufficiently exposed to the “right” ideas. I just don’t agree with them.
Having read Peters’ essay… Look, there are those who see a village of kids getting free computers as a form of warfare. Some of them would consider this morally repugnant, others — like Peters — would high-five themselves and declare it some kind of military victory.
Either way, I say it’s bunk. Cultural confrontation and change is not warfare. Even if I agree with some of the views of Survival International, again: this is not warfare. It is cultural *change*.
Forcibly removing a native people from their homeland so you can strip it for resources? That is warfare. Kids getting free computers? Nope, not warfare.
But many of you out there believe the world contains Illuminati-like groups that are trying to control the rest of us, maybe even eat us as food (David Icke) — therefore you buy into the idea of cultural “warfare” and see the global monoculture as a willful form of intentional subjugation — right? To which I would respond, “Do not assume malice when plain human nature will do.” Go watch the Farley Mowat film “Never Cry Wolf” (1983). The native guide kills wolves and trades their skins for dentures. We all feel bad about this — but tell me: do you, personally, have enough teeth in your head to chew your food? You do? You’ve always had access to a dentist? Huh. Well then, maybe don’t judge the native guide character too harshly for embracing a “decadent” technology that lets him chew his food. It’s really just a case of “Human, All Too Human,” as Nietzsche would say.
In other words, maybe we’re not seeing a grand conspiracy unfolding. Maybe we’re just seeing people being people. Maybe we’re not seeing kids being subjugated. Maybe we’re just seeing a very human appreciation for shiny gadgets. Don’t you like shiny gadgets. Well OK then. Maybe not a conspiracy.
Again: giving kids free computers is what we do *instead* of warfare. If you don’t agree with this, then I’d say you’re out of touch with reality and need to go visit a real war zone, with real violence and real victims. Hopefully that will cure you of your inadequate conception of what warfare really is.
Yes, I am aware of what the Chinese are doing to the Tibetans. I visited Tibet, I saw it with my own eyes. It made me hate the Chinese. What is happening there is bad. Why? Because the Tibetans generally don’t want it. Therefore I would argue it *is* an example of warfare: it is compulsory subjugation and domination.
It is also importantly different from handing out free computers to Ethiopian kids.
afterhours:
I have met children raised in madrassas. Have you? In a couple cases, I was the first American they had ever met. In person, they liked me, but with the total innocence of young children, they told me they hated all Americans, and wanted to see America destroyed. Hatred is not necessarily logical.
If you don’t realize such places/cultures actually exist, what can I say? You are sadly naive. They do. I’ve encountered them. That they exist, however, does not mean our only sane response is a war of total annihilation. It just means we have to be *aware*. We have to see things as they are, not as we wish them to be.
A lot of people in the Middle East (and other places, like Somalia) hate the West. Even if some or all of that hatred is out of ignorance, that doesn’t mean the hatred is not real. It is very real, and it manifests.
There are also children raised in places that have witnessed great Western (read: U.S.) -inflicted violence (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan). I would argue their hatred for America is actually totally understandable. If a U.S. “smart bomb” killed my mother while she was shopping, it wouldn’t take much to make me an anti-Western suicide bomber.
My point? Just because the military-industrial complex cynically manipulates Americans into a paradigm of constant warfare does not mean there aren’t people out there in the world who inveterately and unthinkingly hate the West and wish to destroy us. Both realities can be true at the same time…
All human beings are competitors; it’s merely a matter of degree. Even an embryo competes with its mother for nourishment, although her biology is geared to prioritize the baby. At a certain point that process can break down (the mother’s starvation) and the pregnancy naturally aborts.
If you are getting all your needs met, and everyone you know is getting all their needs met, perhaps even more than their needs met, then it is perhaps easy to dismiss this idea as an exaggeration. It is only when you spend time in places of resource scarcity that you have the opportunity to see that we are all competing to survive — against nature and, often, against each other.
In California’s Central Valley, farmers — who have always gotten all the water they need practically for free — are now competing against cities that need the water for their populations. It’s a pretty stark example of how we are all in a sense competing. Obviously, we need crops *and* water both, right? But the solution to the water shortage is going to create winners and losers (likely some farmers having to sell because their margins are so thin they can’t afford to pay for irrigation water…)
Me, I would prefer a world where we see the cmopetitove reality, and then work cooperatively so that everyone gets their needs met, sustainably. But first we have to recognize the essential reality. People should be seen as competitors because that’s what they are.
You throw out the term “cultural subjugation” quite freely, and I simply don’t buy into your implicit argument. So you truly believe that those kids getting free computers is a form of subjugation? Really? Then — and pardon me for sounding disrespectful — I think you have no idea what you are talking about. What the Chinese are doing to the Tibetans, that’s cultural subjugation. Handing out free computers to Ethiopian kids — no, not so much.
@ CitizenK
Lot of information there. Still, I disagree with your perspective. And you’ve convinced me that there’s a difference between reading a lot and being well-read.
Update: Nicholas Negroponte Is the Brother of John Negroponte
CitizenK, your world-view completely baffles me. Maybe it’s partly because your American “seige-mentality” thinking is so very different from the way we see things here in Canada – where we tend to regard others as neighbours. Some are good, some bad, but they are not necessarily adversaries.
The starting point should not be to ask how best to overcome our enemies, whether by hook or by crook, since that assumes other peoples everywhere are, by their very nature, our adversaries, and so we had best knock them out cold before they can do us harm. I agree books would be better than bombs to achieve that, but it’s a false choice, based on a uniquely warped view of the world. That’s very different from competition in the more general sense you set out (correctly), but if projects like this one are indeed a form of subtle “re-orientation”, as the precursor to a more full-fledged cultural assault, then those are the kinds of assumptions that sit behind it.
I don’t really have a strong position on whether this instance of giving away free computers is some form of insidious subjugation or not; like a lot of what Kevin puts up here it’s food for thought, part of the puzzle. Certainly it cannot compare to what the Chinese are doing in Tibet. Then again, that project is also composed of a multitude of individual actions coming together over a very long period of time.
And no, I am not sadly naive (my field of expertise is actually the Middle East, specifically the Gulf States), I just don’t happen to believe there are vast swathes of people around the world who want us dead because..well, it’s just in their genes, you know. Many individuals do of course, for what seem like rational reasons to them or not, no one would deny that. I just question the assumption that entire regions or peoples are somehow inherently “against” us, and need to be dealt with as a pre-emptive measure. But that’s the view (cynically?) propagated by our elites it seems…
FYI: CitizenK has been banned after leaving a deeply unhinged comment in which he hurled insults at me and readers of this site, and then went on to describe the type of violence he’d like to carry out on people like us.
My disinterest in his drivel, my lack of responses to his comments here, seems to have enraged him to the point that he felt the need to provoke some sort of response from me.
Anyway, so it goes… That’s the story in case you’re waiting for more from CitizenK. It won’t be forthcoming on here.