*This seems like an interesting example of contemporary tech-lash revisionism.
*It's easy to blame the activists involved in this project (because they themselves were, and are, pretty charismatic) but "the technological sublime" is common with powerful technologies. The printing press, railroads, radio, aircraft, they all had charismatic aspects of spreading universal enlightenment with cheap gizmos. They even kinda did that. The OLPC was a conceptual rival of the smartphone. If you think a smartphone is merely "charismatic," try throwing yours out the window. It's not just one cellphone per planetary person – it's more than one, LOTS more.
*If this OLPC scheme actually worked, probably the modern Chinese Communist Party would be its technical and cultural leaders. Maybe we're kinda lucky that it fizzled.
