Message-ID: <1.5.4.32.19960510042513.008538d8@monmouth.com> Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 00:25:13 -0400 From: Wilbur Streett <mailto:wstreett@MONMOUTH.COM> Subject: Re: Computers to Africa To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Direct message to Chris.. I'm sorry about the tone of this message, but this guy needs to be straightened out..At 08:34 AM 5/9/96 EST, you wrote: >This same subject was brought up months ago, when some wanna-be
>development expert believed that we should send old TRS-80 machines
>to Africa. I said it before, and I will say it again........"When
>will we stop treating Africa like some backward colonial state full
>of unintelligent people?"
Perhaps when you look in the mirror and realize that you are treating them like they are some backward colonial state full of unintelligent people, unable to make decisions for themselves, there will be one less person fostering this attitude. People have a right to make their own decisions, and they are smart enough to figure out if they would like old equipment or not. Not that old equipment means that the technology is out of date. Last year I used "second hand" technology in the form of an old PC. I loaded Unix on one of the hard disks, and Windows and Netscape on the other. I used that old technology to write a proposal for a MIB Compiler to Netmanage, Inc. The proposal was accepted, and using a somewhat blurry monitor, and the old by anyone's standard AMD 386SX/20 computer with 4 MB of ram, also using Lex and YACC and an old C compiler, (technology over 20 years old), I wrote the MIB Compiler (which is state of the art) and was paid quite a bit of money for it. With the money that I earned, I bought a new Pentium and a new monitor.. I replaced the motherboard in the old computer with a 486/33 motherboard, (for $125) and gave it to my brother in law. He bought the new RAM, ($200) which he is now using to learn about the Internet and creating music with the computer so that he will make a wise decision when he goes to spend his money to buy a new system.. So I guess that I wasted my time working with less than "State Of The Art" equipment, and the "State Of The Art" technology that I created doesn't count since I used old equipment?
The computer industry works to preserve the image that old computer technology isn't worth very much, now else will they ever get us to buy the new generation of technology when the current one works just fine. Haven't you ever heard of "Planned Obsolesence?" Today I printed out a manual for new technology from Intel on a printer that is 8 years old, is the information on state of the art software on the printed pages any less valid because the printer is old?
>When will we be smart enough to break the cycle of dependancy we create by
sending trash overseas?It seems to me that the only dependencies that are in place are caused by people like you with arrogant, prideful attitudes that don't understand that technology isn't something that comes in the bright, shiny new packages but is learned by doing. Your great college education has created a consumer mentality in you which condemns those that don't have the benefit of of that education to a "lower" social status. Too bad it didn't teach you about the real world. It does seem to have taught you something, perhaps you should examine what that is.
It seems to me that people with your sort of arrogance are what is holding those in Africa down. If they want to use the (what you call trash) technology, to useful ends, who are you to try to stop them? In case you haven't figured it out yet, poverty is usually created by pride. I don't know of any case where it has been caused by used computer equipment.
Haven't you ever heard the saying "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth?" How much technology will you prevent from helping those in Africa that could use it with your checking the gift horse's teeth? How many people have to do without technology because of your arrogance?
As to breaking the cycle of dependancy, how do you think that new equipment will make any difference? If only new equipment will do, and only new equipment is easy enough to use, then you'll get to pay the bill for the new equipment. That financial burden will create real dependencies that are much greater than a bit of surplus equipment. Not that the new equipment will provide better Internet access, word processing, or spreadsheet usability than 4 or 5 year old equipment does.
Wilbur --------------------------------------- Putting a human face on technology. ;-) ---------------------------------------