Well as nice as it is for kids to have things, and I'm sure someday humanity will be wealthy enough in all locations on the globe to afford this, we should probably start with basic sanitation, vaccinations, nutrition, and education, ... (500 other things more important) ... and then microscopes, in about that order.
Great inroads have been made in those areas. Lets not fall victim to the 'false dichotomy' - because we're doing one thing, we shouldn't be doing another thing. "Why go into space when we have problems here at home?" We'd all never get out of bed with that philosophy.
It's not a false dichotomy, it's an actual dichotomy. Handing out microscopes vs handing out malaria medicine. If you can do both, that is wonderful, but we aren't even doing the malaria medicine very well, it's probably not time to start figuring out our microscope plan.
But lets just be honest here, getting every kid in the world a microscope is a dumb idea. Most kids that have microscopes don't use them, they collect dust, and then get thrown away eventually. For the handful of kids that actually use them, the kind of microscope you would be able to afford to give out to everyone would be a piece of crap.
Again, when your favorite charity is not doing well, to lash out at other successful charities is disingenuous. We could all be handing out malaria medicine personally, no? But instead to choose to try to deconstruct other successes instead - I call hypocrisy.
Both of you are right (or wrong). Microscopes for kids are good no matter the access to more basic needs, but not all the children should get them - only a small percentage.
Author, as well as many other smart people, got consumed by his own world and his activities and mistakes them for everything that matters. Actually, what author, or programmers, or other specialists, are doing is but a fraction of things people should do. So not all kids should have microscopes, not all kids should be taught how to program etc.
