[geeks] OLPCs for sale...

[der Mouse]

>>>> Cue Poul Anderson's _The Helping Hand_.
>>> I'm failing to find a synopsis online, although I can probably
>>> guess where this is going...
>> Quick sketch: [...]
> Well, I think that there's a big difference between providing aid,
> and using the weakness of another culture to force your culture onto
> their people under the guise of providing aid.

As far as Terra's intentions went in the story, it was the former.  It
just turned out to amount to the latter, which was largely my point:
aid, even when given with the best of intentions and the fewest of
strings, tends to end up remaking the aided culture in the image of the
aiding culture.

> If the laptops come preloaded with political or religious propaganda
> (as far as i can tell, they do not)

I suspect they do, though probably mild, covert, and not intended as
such - I'm thinking along the lines of a Latin-alphabet keyboard, or
Windows preinstalled, or the language defaulting to English....

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