And because we are talking about resource allocation with fixed funds - it is absolutely a choice between giving a child a $1000 laptop and giving them a $300 laptop and $700 towards clean water, sanitisation and nutrition.
And if we just say "do both", then we are just talking about solving world hunger. Sure it's easy to point at the money spent on defence and then infer that solving world hunger will be easy, but again that's a little overly simplistic too (and if it's that easy - you can be the person that solves world hunger once and for all!).
As a matter of theory, your argument goes "B is more pressing than A, so we should allocate resources to B rather than A." But you present no comparative advantage between the two versions of solution A. Either we give three $300 computers or one $900 computer. Your argument does not help to make that decision. Clean water is important. But if we are to provide computers, what is the most growth-inducing and impactful way to do so?
As a matter of practice, families in the third world tend to prioritize things in ways that make sense to them but may not make sense to an outside observer. For example, I met a family with several children for whom the father had purchased the latest smartphones, but the family home lacked an indoor toilet. Access to internet and social media is a basic social imperative and it ranks as a high priority.
If the governments of the US and Canada really wanted to, they could foster growth and advancement in the rest of the Americas. The resources are available. What's lacking is a desire to help, rooted in a sense of friendship or Pan-American kinship. That defense money could be spent on devices, sanitation, and the other things you mention. We choose to spend it on warfare and cool stuff from Raytheon and Lockheed instead. The resources are available, but we spend them on less fruitful pursuits.
More generally, there is a certain equilibrium point where dividing up the treatment no longer provides as strong an individual benefit. Even the collective benefit may be less. A pretty good Acer may make a great impact, but what about the following?
Assuming there were 270 million children with no mobile devices, I would rather give all of them a Samsung Galaxy A01 that gives them all access to the information they need, than give 90 million of them a pretty good Acer or decent Chromebook and the other 180 million of the children nothing.
From an individual donor perspective, one factor I haven't mentioned is that it's easier to get one Macbook Air through customs in a foreign country than it is to get three identical Acer Aspires. Some countries are more permissive than others, but at a certain point all customs officers have to make inferences about you and your intentions to sell goods without paying import duties.
Yes, investment in better education equipment for some of the population will inevitably have externalities on the others. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's money well spent - but it will have positive externalities.
> This is especially true if you look for variables that correlate to success, rather than instituting a pure lottery. For example, a child who has already demonstrated an interest in science or mathematics may be primed to make greater use of a device.
My scenario was that 90 million need laptops, so I don't think it's useful to say "well I will assume only 30 million actually need laptops" - That's just a get out of jail card.
But even accepting your scenario - there is a bigger question - why are 60 million children getting nothing, when the government could just give the 30 million kids adequate laptops and spend the difference (54 billion dollars) investing in education for the remaining population.
The idea that it is a good idea to spend money on macbooks while some of the population still doesn't have access to primary schools, and where the difference between buying a macbook and an adequate laptop for one child could pay for another kid who can't go to school at all (and is working in subsistence agriculture), is crazy to me...
> Assuming there were 270 million children with no mobile devices, I would rather give all of them a Samsung Galaxy A01 that gives them all access to the information they need, than give 90 million of them a pretty good Acer or decent Chromebook and the other 180 million of the children nothing.
I don't think that's a useful comparison - it's like comparing an expensive pick-up truck ($30k), a lower cost pick-up truck ($10k) and a car ($3k). The expensive pick-up truck can do the same job as the lower cost pick up truck (hold c1000kg of cargo) but maybe doesn't have the same quality, while the car cannot hold 1000kg of cargo so can't be used in the same way.
Similarly, while I can write an essay or write software approximately as easily on a macbook as I can an entry-level windows laptop (I own both, and the difference is fairly small), I cannot do either of those in a practical sense on a mobile phone.
> From an individual donor perspective, one factor I haven't mentioned is that it's easier to get one Macbook Air through customs in a foreign country than it is to get three identical Acer Aspires. Some countries are more permissive than others, but at a certain point all customs officers have to make inferences about you and your intentions to sell goods without paying import duties.
Customs is not usually an issue, all laptops share the same commodity codes and customs fees are on a per-container basis managed by a freight forwarder. You will need to pay the same import duties on both (probably on WTO terms) because they will have the same commodity codes. (My day job is logistics consulting and I do some work in East Africa!). One exception to this is China which can be more difficult to import into and operate in.
One peculiarity of parts of Africa for instance though compared to the west though that does make an impact is theft. Theft of high-value items is very common, mainly because $1k in America is worth $10k-$20k in Africa relative to earnings. Stealing a few laptops from some kids, and stripping them and selling them for parts, is something that will happen with higher priced laptops. There is a good chance that this will also be done by organised crime.
First, inspiration.
If you give three children $300 PCs, you may not inspire any of them. Give one lucky kid a Macbook Air, however, and they may feel so special at having something beautiful and unusual that it draws them into a lifetime of working with devices and technology. That kid may grow up to generate more utility for his community than the other three kids combined. Additionally, the presence of a Macbook Air may inspire other children or motivate the parents of those other children. Think of your first experience with the most important activities in your life. Often the first blush was a small encounter that sparked an inextinguishable passion (metaphorically). For a musician, it may be a particular concert. For a pilot, it may be a first passenger flight. For an engineer, it may be a first time dismantling an old radio. I suggest that the more nuanced that first experience, the more substantial its impact on the rest of your life.
Second, frustration.
A utility function that overvalues quantity over quality is obviously not workable. For every device costing $X we can imagine a device costing $X/k that could be purchased in greater quantity by a factor of k. However, at a certain level of cheapness, devices will frustrate users rather than empowering them.
My viewpoint is that the resource constraints are not as tight as they have been drawn to appear. Rather, it's a question of priorities. Governments prioritize other things. The US government spends >$700 billion annually on defense. People prioritize other things, too. Many engineers who live in, say, San Francisco (one of many tech hubs) go on vacation in the third world. They could buy a Mac or PC before every long vacation, tuck it into their suitcase, and spend a day finding a poor family that seems deserving. That act would most likely change one or several lives for the better while costing a small fraction of the giver's annual salary.
The resources exist, but we pretend that they cannot be apportioned for certain things while over-apportioning them to other things.
I'm a firm believer that when we want to help someone, we have to help them in light of their needs and potential, rather than our own. Children are typically easier to help than adults, because they readily accept assistance as a matter of necessity, and they are less aware of the possibilities of gaming a system designed to help them. The number one challenge to affecting a child's life positively is not their buy-in, it's our own. We have to commit to helping individuals fully and meaningfully, rather than diluting the help down so much that the likelihood of lasting impact diminishes.