generosity

Another reason why fiscal conservatism doesn't work.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2005, Nicholas Negroponte, supreme prophet of digital connectivity, revealed a strange tent-like object. It was designed to change the world and to cost $100. It was a solar-powered laptop. Millions would be distributed to children in the developing world, bringing them connection, education, enlightenment and freedom of information.

And then some of them tried to kill it.

Microsoft, acting in their logical self-interest, felt threatened by the prospect of a drastically cheaper laptop in the hands of millions of children, seriously undercutting their currently dominant product. As Bryan Appleyard points out in his Times Online piece, "Computers only cost as much as they do because the makers of the software – primarily Microsoft – go to enormous lengths to make their products necessary and expensive." Microsoft was also concerned because the new laptops would not use the Windows operating system but instead the free OS, Sugar.

Intel was upset because Negroponte's computer, the XO, uses an AMD chip, AMD being the second largest chip-maker in the world after Intel. This could cost Intel their status as the number one computer chip producer in the world, costing them their "market leadership."

So the two companies both set out to kill the XO. Intel created a cheap laptop called the Classmate and along with Microsoft founder Bill Gates, set about trashing the XO in the press.

Obviously it is in Microsoft and Intel's best interests to destroy the XO, this computer that could bring tons of new information, education and communication technologies to communities that are in dire need of it. The XO, and projects like it, should be aided by the US Government, they should be well funded and protected from these corporate madmen.

It would be a great thing for the world to further connect people and strengthen our global community, introducing a new generation to the intellectual, cultural and economic marketplace of the future. Getting all the information and ideas that one can find on the internet out to the developing world is important as a cure for extremism and push for democratic thinking.

Appleyard comes to an interesting and accurate conclusion:

Computers are like drugs, literally. If the drug companies wanted to do the most good in the world, they would divert all investment from the illnesses of the rich – cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes – to the much more catastrophic ailments of the poor, primarily malaria, but also Aids. But they don’t; they sit comfortably on their high-margin drugs. Equally, if the technocrats really believed in the human value of universal connectivity – and all of them say they do – they would find ways of wiring southeast Asia and Africa. But they don’t; they sit comfortably on their high-margin laptops.

For all these reasons, we can see the that the best interests of a few corporations can often disregard or even seriously oppose the health and livelihood of individuals, the economic success of a large part of a world, and the moral welfare of our Nation.