$100 laptops coming to the westernized world, is it a good thing?

The hand crank powered $100 laptops have been in and out of the news for the last year or so, with a lot of interest from just about everyone. Today the BBC reports that one idea is to have us westerners who want one, to buy two of them, each at $100 and the 2nd one would go to a developing country. The goal being, one laptop per child.

This is good and this is not so good. Many of the countries that these may go to include poverty stricken places where there is no money and no real economy to speak of other then trade. It could be that these $100 laptops turn into the next drug and wars could be started over them. Ok, maybe not wars, but if you have nothing but the shirt on your back and you get to eat maybe once a day if you are lucky, what is a laptop really going to do? It is going to give you something worth $100 that you can trade for food and shelter.

My thoughts, let them be available to those who can afford them in the western world, sell them at $150, give the other $50 towards food and economic relief, not a luxury item that isn’t needed.

A second thought to this would be to give the 2nd one to someone who needs it from the same country it came from. So if you live in Ireland and pay $200, you get one and the 2nd goes to someone who can’t afford one in your own country, or schools.

Lastly, what if they were $150 and the extra $50 went to provide books to the country you are from. If you live in the USA, you pay $150 for the laptop and the extra $50 goes to a school district in the states that needs new text books.

Similar articles that might also interest you:

Comments