The incredible irony that Behar significantly overestimated the independence and intelligence of children, while also giving them an intentionally toy-like and more limited device rather than a more standard laptop with a more standard Linux OS than the custom one they went with.

Surprisingly, I deal with people everyday who don't use email or know how to use the web. They aren't really that old, late 70s early 80s which mean they were in their 30s when PCs hit the world. They just saw no used for the devices and never adopted the technology.

Hillay's Husband :'D love it

Man this video deserves more views. Thanks for the essay, I'm glad I watched it.

This is a very interesting video. You raise so many issues about elite designers assuming too much about their clients. I think your main point can be summarised in the following statement - people who invent a tool and try to impose it on a need they think exists. They do not start with a precise need.

omg it's a maurice in the thumbnail

The netbook program was a success in Argentina. Then those kids went voting the people who says they shouldn't be given any to begin with... just because they wanna have iphones and full-blown gaming workstations. It seems we still don't get concepts such as "Troyan horse" or "Plato's cave"... or "divide and conquer" for what it's worth... Colonialism is perverse... and pervasive.

There are a few ideas I have for sustainability... Firstly, and the most important, MAKE THE COMPANY PRODUCING SOMETHING responsible for its recycling. You made it, I bought it, it broke/was used up, I return it to you, and you recycle/refurbish/reuse it. If you don't, you'll be heavily fined and/or forbidden to produce this thing further. This would get rid of that "Welp, it's not my problem what will they do with it" manufacturer mindset (read about Coke switching from glass bottles to plastic lol), AND it would take care of the "bUt ThIs PaCkAgInG iS rEcYcLaBlE - said Company X about something made of a non-recyclable plastic, and walked away, leaving you with the guilt and responsibility for recycling something that cannot be recycled" Secondly, standardisation and return systems. Look, I understand that there are things that NEED to be made from plastic - I am an electrician, and I cannot imagine having to go back to oil soaked paper insulation for cables (which, btw., was not recyclable anyway), or have my insulated tools be made from metal and wood (wood is wayyyy too hydrophilic and has unstable insulation properties). But... Drinks in plastic bottles - total waste. WE DID USE GLASS FOR THAT AND IT WORKED, COCA COLA YOU F*****G GREEDY SONS OF B*****S! How about we go back to that? Look at Germany, with its Pfand system - simply a cash incentive for returning the bottle is enough to make people bring em back - and if they don't out of laziness or any other reason - there's plenty of people who will just take the goddamn bottle and bring it back to the shop to earn some "free" money. How about we did that with food packaging as well? How about buying a salad, that instead of being packaged into a thin, plastic lunchbox, is packaged in a thin, aluminium lunchbox, that has a barcode laser-etched onto it, and you just return it in the shop into a Pfandautomat? How about glass jars being standardized and returnable? How about buying chips in little sheet-metal cans made of stainless steel? Butter in a little stainless steel can, or a glass jar? Literally almost everything I can think of, that is food, can be packaged in a steel, glass, or aluminium, and, to combat the "but if it's recycled, then it doesn't have the same properties" argument... Just DON'T recycle. REUSE. STANDARDIZE. If Company A used the same packaging, as Company B, C, E and D, they just all would collect the same packaging type from the stores (and don't tell me, that the transport would not work, because the wares ARE transported from factory to the store, it is literally a reverse process), wash them (which wouldn't be that hard to do without harmful or toxic chemicals, literally a boiling water with vinegar under high pressure would be enough to wash most of the containers, just imagine a huge dishwasher filled with hundreds or thousands of those at the same time, and perhaps ethanol disinfection afterwards), and then reuse them to package new wares. The only reasons they don't do that yet, is because they aren't responsible for their packaging (they shifted the blame to the consumer), and they just save money by using the cheapest possible (yet the least sustainable and ecological) option available to them, ergo, it's their greed that is our undoing. And lastly - FORBID THE ADVERTISEMENTS THAT FUEL THE GODDAMN CONSUMPTIONIST CULTURE, FOR F***S SAKE! We're literally brainwashed to crave more and more new, shiny and totally useless crap, always want the newest phone, laptop, car, et cetera. Why the f**k is that still legal in any way, shape or form? In that regard the communism was at least a tiny bit better, because people wanted simply "a car", in a more utilitarian sense - not the shiniest, newest, best car there is - simply "a car" was enough. Yet, now some people change cars after a YEAR of use - just because it isn't "newest"... Same with clothes, smartphones, any single f***ing thing... Aight, rant over.

Brand of all brands = trump.

Kaepernick is man. Rosa Parks is woman. The rest of you are just riding on the backs of those who made the sacrifice - get in line because you are a rat in a cage ....

I'm almost 30 and from Kenya. We've always had access to computers and Internet in schools. So this video feels like it has some racist undertones but then again, I don't know what happens in other third world countries. As a kid in mid 2000s, I remember going to cyber cafes to play computer games, learn to type and do printing of school works. I was barely 10. Second, my primary school and high school had computer classes for kids who were really interested in computers. To date, we use the same model. Giving computers to kids who are interested in them and have them take tests at the end of the year like you'd take a maths exam. If you are wondering about everyone else, we simply learnt how to use computers in the streets and our homes. Also, after high school, kids can take a short 1-month computer course to learn how to use Microsoft Office, access the Internet, basic video and audio editing, and at the end, get a certificate. Also since about 2010, you can rarely get any job in Kenya without being computer literate.

this is a toy, not a car I suppose

I hate all of these projects. I could see the problem with them as soon as I saw them. It's not about cultural differences, it's about understanding the actual needs of the people you're designing for. (I'll admit, I didn't expect the fishing net one, but you could easily get one's priority is eating rather than protecting yourself against a disease)

I can't say a lot about my work, but it does involve working in developing countries. This video didn't show anything I didn't already know subconsciously. But has strengthened my personal thoughts about the work we are doing. Amazing work and research on this video! 10/10.

.... Not what country can do for you, whet you can do for country ..... & the big one - FREEDOM ... You are still a rat in a cage .... fall in line .....

The Philippines used to have a school year that lasted from June to March, with April-May being the summer vacation months. About 10 years ago, the government made the bizarre decision to "synchronize" the calendar to the "international" school year beginning in August. It didn't improve the educational system at all, and was incompatible with our own country's climate. For a decade, students had to attend school during the hottest months of the year. Following the 2024 summer which had several dangerous heatwaves, the government has finally given up on the new calendar and is switching back to the old one.

I'm in Ukraine right now, which is not a developing nation but it does have several areas that have been, shall we say, developed in reverse. All of the things you talked about are on full display in the volunteer community here, especially those who havent actually been to Ukraine. SO MANY terrible ideas that would never work, pursued at breakneck speed and with tons of funding, while I'm out here at the front trying to scrape together $700 for a new power supply. C'est la vie, I guess. I try to be sanguine about it, but it's frustrating.

Porsche is more consistent with their styling than most auto manufacturers though!

I have been living in canada most of my life. I was born in china. I eat KFC and pizza with chopsticks. Everyone thinks im weird including my siblings. I dont care. Whatever suits you matter the most.

Most of the explained concerns are valid to the most extent solely for the US, not for any other country, including both developed and developing countries. For example, in the US I have to purchase mineral water bottled in Germany and transferred from there, but in any European country I would buy any local mineral water ten times cheaper. But, alas, there is no such thing as mineral water in the US -- although there are some carbonated water which is artificially produced from tap water, and it just tastes bad. And the gradient of labour costs between the US and the rest of the world is enormous: before moving to the US, I always repaired my shoes at least one time before throwing them out. But in the US, I was explicitly told by an employee in a repair shop that repairing of a pair of shoes would cost $200 -- although I bought them for $150. Same for garment repair. It is economically more viable to employ vastly more amounts of labour outside of the US to produce a piece of garment anew than to perform a minor repair of the same thing inside the US. It's not the Western society in general, it is the peculiar state of the US economy.

g

g

😆😆😅

中國人用筷子的歷史超過2,000年 。我們放棄使用刀叉時間也很久，目前可以看到的痕跡，就在新疆和蒙古身上配的切肉小刀；至於，用手扒飯？那就是2-3歲小孩在做的事情。畢竟，文化進程不一樣，沒有什麼好討論的。

hju

what's it say about me that i instantly saw it as both concave and convex? i actually struggle with this a lot when working with 3d and normal mapping in particular - *i* can't tell head-on if something appears concave or convex to most other people. and if this optical illusion, which is a basic element of 3d design, is seen differently by different cultures... shouldn't normal mapping then work differently between the two, too? But it doesn't. given the other input on this video, i wonder if it couldn't have been better thought-out and researched, as much as i enjoy these. also i'm preeeeetty sure a japanese rice cooker is just more complex because Japanese folks use rice more often and in a wider variety of ways over there, it's a cultural staple for them. it's not in some way our brains are wired. it comes down to the very same stuff presented in the designing for "developing" countries video - it's a design influenced not by different thinking but by different need outright. what average american needs 20 ways to cook rice? far less than the number of japanese folks who need it for the meals they know to make with what's available there. i'm sure if i put thought into it, i could fathom an american equivilant that matches our own diets... perhaps the microwave, since fewer Americans even cook at all lol put an other way: if you had talked about aspects of native culture and how it differs from the culture of america or europe this way, wrt making the spiritual aspects part of the argument especially, i'd be really personally offended right now lol. that's working backwards - if anything, i think the spiritual appreciation for how wood compliments each other is probably born of the physical reality of it's necessity more than anything, which is how most religious outlooks happen. in europe we started teaching children to use the right hand and deemed using the left literally unholy bc we used to wipe our butts with it before washing your hands was recognized to prevent disease - we just knew you got sick if you used it. similarly, if you don't pay attention to the wood your using and how, it's probably not going to work out very well, and so a spiritual belief on the matter is born. i also just kind of think most of the japanese designs are plain... better, tbfh? as in 9/10 times i'd prefer the japanese version of a product vs the american one. i suspect there's more at play there than simple linguistic or cultural reasons; i think our economy often benefits people who kneecap us a society most on this end of the pond, and that a lot of things they design there would actually be just as nice here and they either haven't had economic incentive to be imported or parroted yet, or there are economic interests against those things being widely adopted here. which objectively kind of sucks for everyone but those handful of people and imho is a big part of why america is falling very, very behind.

shocked that you didn't mention that after they essentially invented the standard for the controller, their first 3d console's controller is still clowned on to this day for being completely, utterly weird (even if i personally like it and find it to be a very pleasantly versatile design for playing emulated games, as you can still get these but made for usb ports instead of for n64 hardware... it is a really really weird controller), went back to basics and then tried to reinvent it again with the wii - for which they still had to provide a classic controller and let gc controllers use. like it's a wheel that's very much tried to be reinvented by it's original makers, and they just. fail. every single time they try it lol. in the end, they just merged a 2 nes controllers with a joystick and the console itself into one thing.

Feet.

I was so worried riding with my sister through Kansas with a can of Liquid Death in my koozie because of the open container laws in that state. My sister thought I was being paranoid about it.

11:10

Hmm... critical medical equipment made of filthy junkyard waste? And a lead-acid battery salvaged from an ancient UPS... What could ever go wrong?

I call bullshit on "safety regulations." Sure, let's make cars that you can't see out of unless you rely on proprietary technology that is doomed to fail. You know what never fails? A transparent window and a neck that can fucking turn. These new cars are enabling bad drivers.

Great work!

18:11 The children yearn for the call centres

Counterpoint: the riskiest ventures also have the worst losses.

Giving laptops to African children makes about as much sense as building a skyscraper starting at the 33rd floor.

What I'm hearing is that Star Trek had it right. You can't give advanced technology to underdevelop civilizations because there's no telling how they will use it and what destruction that will bring to them. And no matter how intelligent you think you are you'll never be able to predict it so don't try it

I love the simple beauty and well thought functionality of minimalist design in things like mid century Scandinavian furniture (I’m sitting on a varier balens as I’m writing this), but I think the mass production and consumption of “minimalist design” has left many of these 21st century minimalist products as soulless and lacking humanity. To again talk about the Balens, it’s simple, it’s modest in appearance, but in it’s function, you feel the designer’s thoughts, their patience, the iteration it took to get each angle just right. Even if you can’t see the object’s soul, you feel it. The care to give each object a soul has been somewhat lost in the mass production and pumping out of minimalist designs. You can’t see it, you can’t feel it, it’s a husk, just another thing that came off a factory line. These soulless objects in my opinion detract from spaces. It feels like every place we go is the same, there is no humanity that speaks through these objects. We feel nothing in just another glass and steel building. We feel nothing in another white walls, white counters coffee shop sitting on uncomfortable “minimalist” furniture. Minimalism doesn’t mean losing the humanity in objects and spaces, but in the mass produced, mass consumption minimalism of the 21st century, I feel like that humanity has been lost. A good designed object has a soul. Whether it’s something you see, feel, or experience, it has to be there somewhere. Minimalist should not mean minimal humanity.

damn bro! what a video!

This is not the first time I have noticed how the West does not care about the cultural and ethnic differences between people on the one hand, and blindly believes that everyone lives according to the Western model

stretch armstrong here 😅 also why was this recommended to me and play next?! -_-

A counter-example of a (fictional) good design for developing countries is Homer Atkins' bicycle pump in "The Ugly American"; not only does it use locally-available materials in its construction, but Atkins also hires local Sarkhanese mechanics and salesmen to help design and build it (notably, one of the mechanics designs a treadmill so that a bicycle can be used to power the pump and then can be removed from the treadmill and still used as a bicycle). Furthermore, he hires Sarkhanese sales staff and has them on commission, so they have "skin in the game" to make sure the design gets distributed. Atkins: "Whenever you give a man something for nothing[,] the first person he comes to dislike is you. If the pump is going to work at all, it has to be their pump, not mine."

The system is broken and must be fixed❌️ The system is working exactly as intended and must be dismantled ✅️

Well Children here also have great computers and nearly none is coding...but playing games an watching tic toc

Funny thing about learning about PCs at younger age is much different than 20 years ago. We actually went full circle around this with smartphones. Kids are learning about PC way less. You can ask someone who grew with phones first they wouldn't know how to use a PC. They would probably try to install some mobile game or try to touch the display thinking its a touchscreen. It would be extremely rare to see someone try to customize or mod a PC through hacks at a younger age these days. That guy probably watch too much documentaries of genius young hackers. lol When I see my niece working on the PC she way too dumb and there is a time where she couldn't open the PC and didn't bother to check the if the PC is unplugged.

Ricky, Julian and Bubbles going for a spin 2:26

I cant use chopsticks man. I tried.

While OLPC failed it's original purpose (if it even had a real purpose), but it was not all for naught. I really liked the idea of the dual-lcd which could either operate as a monchromatic reflective LCD like those in electronic watches and calculators , that consumed little energy and was perfectly visible in full sunlight, and can also be lit (I don't know if it was back or front-light) and give full-color, at the expense of poor daylight visibility and increased power usage. Another interesting feature was that the wifi card operated in mesh mode in which devices in proximity of access point forward the signal to those further, allowing to cover a larger area with a single AP. Those were obviously clever design choices with environments such as a school in a rural african setting in mind. So it wasn't all fail, some smart people sat and thought about what challenge would be faced. It's only that the overall idea was bad from the start.

People should start using these things in America

"Bro, learn to code.. bro please.. it leads to prosperity.. bro" every techbro, ever