Talk:Dating and the OLPC

Silly page. Delete it.

Since the OLPC computers will be deployed in school classrooms, it would be extremely unlikely for people to meet and marry via their computer. After all, they can simply meet directly.

This is a SILLY page. Please delete it. 81.158.248.157 9 September 2006

Sign your entries.

Please identify yourself when commenting. The entire point of the OLPC computers is that they will become a means by which the family will become computer literate.

That said, I do think this is a bit far fetched -- but then I reflect on the use of mobile phones to run dating services and less scrupulously legal activities.

clarka 13 October 2006

Everybody here is wrong.

This wiki is insufficiently instructive. I think we would have better compliance with the rules if they were at hand on each page. This is not hard to accomplish in one place.

This particular entry is signed in the usual MediaWiki way, using four tildes at the end of the entry after logging in.

The first entry is a little off topic, but not much, since some of the initial OLPC material shows kids with pictures of each other on their screens.

I suggest that making an application which makes it easy for each student to build a personal page which others can visit would be a good thing. Such pages are popular in the USA, but they are very popular in Korea, for example.

But I predict that the first OLPC generated marriage will happen before any of the students are even using their laptops. Indeed it may have happened already among folks who met online while pursuing OLPC related projects, possibly on different continents.

The second contributer failed to log in and gave no hint of identity. Whoever it was suggested removing the page. This is not the wiki way. Wikis prefer to evolve by continual improvement. If something is wrong, then fix it. Even remove it. But if it is merely silly, let it suffer the indignity of being ignored by serious readers. Disk space is rather inexpensive these days so we need not be harsh in controlling wastage.

Even the third contributer, who provided some ID information, failed to log in and failed to use the tildes method for signing.

Further, I believe clarka is quite wrong about the point of OLPC. Teaching the whole family about computers is quite peripheral to the central point of improving the education of students. It is the opportunity to foster more personal involvement by the student in their own education which I see as the motivation and intent of the OLPC project.

On the other hand, the fourth contributer is obviously self centered, obnoxious, tedious, and pedantic. He is ill suited for any role in any educational project, especially an experiment. This completes my argument that everybody here is wrong.

Even the wiki itself is wrong. For yet another example of that, there is no hint near the summary box either of how or why to sign your entry or even of to whom it will be attributed to by signing it in the text or in the history. In contrast to the problems apparent with the contributers, these are correctable flaws. How shall we approach fixing them? Nitpicker 02:50, 2 December 2006 (EST)

Everybody, Includes You!

You say "Further, I believe clarka is quite wrong about the point of OLPC. Teaching the whole family about computers is quite peripheral to the central point of improving the education of students."

You appear to be poorly traveled and unaware of family dynamics. The target of the OLPC project is not highly industrialized Western cultures where the cult of the individual reigns supreme.

Children are not isolated social actors -- they exist in and as part of the family. Setting up the OLPC as a wedge between the child and the parents dooms the entire project to failure.

Corruption of the youth is a crime everywhere. Socrates drank hemlock for less. If the perception takes root that the OLPC is a device that drives a wedge between children and parents, or between children and obedience to established authority, I can see the OLPC getting smashed with a rock.

Don't believe that a parent isn't capable of sabotaging behavior? Look at the history of female circumcision, for one example.

You also say "It is the opportunity to foster more personal involvement by the student in their own education which I see as the motivation and intent of the OLPC project."

The problem is NOT whether students want education. Children are sponges for information and will seek it out given even minimal support and resources -- to the precise extent that their environment rewards them, directly or indirectly.

One of the problems that OLPC is trying to solve, is to supply these resources -- an information appliance, the equivalent of an enormous library even if it just contains the Project Gutenberg CD and a third-rate translation engine.

To do this, the support of not just Ministers of Education and digiterati is required . . . but also that of village elders, businesspeople and last but certainly NOT! least . . . the parents themselves, who want a better life for their children but know that survival must take precedence over gimcrackery.

I think the social implications of the OLPC deserve extensive study, and that if the OLPC fails, it will be for SOCIAL and not technological reasons.

Even from the engineering perspective, you need to admit that people in positions of authority not being willing to allow the use of your device is a guaranteed point-source failure!

clarka 30 December 2006

Silly Pages should be deleted!

This is a silly, silly page. Some of the discussion about social issues is good and should be elsewhere on the wiki, but the basic concept of schoolmates relying on a computer to meet mates is just ludicrous.

A request has been made for this page to be deleted. If you disagree with its deletion, please explain why on its talk page. Before deleting verify that no links will break.

Shouldn't you tag it? ;) --Xavi 20:27, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Maybe instead of deleting "silly pages", we should have a section in the wiki for "off-beat" ideas? --Walter 08:45, 2 January 2007 (EST)