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I do hope you realize that ultimately a venture has to make money - even if it isn't a great amount. In economic terms an accounting profit (as opposed to an economic profit) can indicate if something is economically viable.

If it isn't, then it likely should not be done. Considering the massive scope of this sort of project, if it was not economically viable I would not expect them to be involved in anyway.

Depends what you mean by 'venture' - space travel, mass warfare...have these things ever shown even an accounting profit? They are still committed though since money is only a means to an end, not a measure of worth. Materialists and capitalists often confuse these two.

Space travel, I would argue is not that same as OLPC in any realistic way. OLPC is to produce millions of units. Whereas, the travel in space is ultimately a scientific advancement (regardless of the original purpose).

Like filling the world with millions of pieces of plastic junk?

I, and I suspect a good number of the other people here, grew up without a laptop. Somehow we turned out OK. I would think that a computer lab with 50 decent machines, regularly updated, would not only be at least as cost effective as giving a thousand students personal laptops, but also produce a lot less waste.

True enough - but if you're trying to imply that that means the OLPC is a *bad* idea, that would be an example of a post hoc fallacy.



There are advantages to laptops in a school environment. For one, they could be used to help reduce text book purchasing costs - I would guess that electronic versions of text books are less expensive than printed copies (and shipping costs - especially to remote areas - should be much easier to afford with electronic textbooks). Electronic text books also can be updated much quicker - important for scientific subjects, where an out-of-date textbook can result in students being taught things that aren't correct. And there shouldn't be the same sort of physical shortage problems with electronic textbooks.

Another important factor with laptops is that the personal possession aspect leads students to have a sense of ownership of/attachment to the device. That seems to result in the machines being used much more, whereas many computer labs often sit unused a large amount of the time (at least, from my past experience working for a computer access centre located in a middle school).