r/technology • u/lurker_bee • 23h ago

Biotechnology Burkina Faso says no to Bill Gates’ plan of creating modified species of mosquitoes

https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/burkina-faso-says-no-to-bill-gates-plan-of-creating-modified-species-of-mosquitoes/xyk7xm8
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471

u/Clbull 22h ago

I think it's more like Ibrahim Traore doesn't trust the West...

177

u/belizeanheat 21h ago

Why not trust his own internal science divisions then, who also support the effort? 

This is purely posturing and politics

126

u/Clbull 21h ago

I agree but also, there's a lot of distrust around GMOs in general, and the West and IMF have generally screwed Africa.

13

u/Sryzon 18h ago

The West has been doing projects like this successfully in Central and South America for decades, though.

5

u/PsychologicalSet8678 7h ago

With lots of coups, political intervention, enforcing soft power. South Americans don't like the US (and its western alies) one bit.

15

u/Jensbert 13h ago

The ones screwing Africa are their leaders. Put every cent from foreign help or investment into their own pockets, neglect infrastructure,keep people uneducated and motivate them to have as many kids as possible. No way out for the people

8

u/GulDul 10h ago

...To the benefit of who? The countries in Africa were created in the west. Their leadership and governments were created by the West. The type of democracy and corruption in Western Africa is a relevantly new phenomenon, and they dont have the tools to fight it that well.

2

u/Serious-Molasses-982 6h ago

Let's see how they like getting fucked by Putin and Xi instead. At least the west tries to pretend we give a shit

2

u/axxo47 4h ago

Like Africa need help getting screwed lol

3

u/light-triad 13h ago

Africa is screwed because of it’s lagging economic development. Blaming international financial aid organizations is like blaming doctors for people getting sick.

With the recent coups in the Sahel, people will get to see how much more screwed they can get without that aid. Russia and China aren’t going to provide that much financial aid.

1

u/-The_Blazer- 11h ago

Yeah, in terms of public perception, the greatest enemies of GMO technology are GMO producers. Which is a pity because the technology is pretty good.

Politicians and silly people also play into it of course, but a company that wants to operate in such a critical field ought to know better than behave like a generic locked-down mystery megacorporation that runs on industrial secrets. This is an important industry, not Generic Market Product n.969032242, earning trust should be first priority at all times.

It's always weirded me out that companies like Monsanto never did any real stakeholder outreach or public partnerships. At the end of the day, the money they've lost from bad publicity certainly trumps anything they'd possibly lose from having one less patent or one more obligation to a government.

-10

u/_jams 21h ago

In the post war era, the West and the IMF have reduced African poverty and aided development with impressive success. Notice that it is the Russians and Chinese who are toppling democracies and using predatory loans to take over countries' critical infrastructure. Not saying the track record of the West has been perfect, far from it, but on net Western nations have had huge operations to try to improve things.

Now magats are destroying huge amounts of that. Dismantling USAID, PEPFAR, shutting down informative news broadcasts, shutting down anti corruption programs, shutting down human right reporting, etc. etc. all by someone who loves the authoritarian dictators in Russia, China, even NK.

Be careful what you wish for

5

u/Sad_Equipment_3022 16h ago

Nestle literally posioned African babies. They have no reason to trust the west and we have no business infantalizing an entire continent and giving our opnions from across the globe. We aren't there, its not our place to say what those people should or should not allow especially since the west literally destroyed their continent and continues trying to keep a silent hold over it. Let them be for fucks sake. 

28

u/Expert-Diver7144 20h ago

The west caused their poverty, Africa is in fact not poor! They have billions worth of oil, minerals, and resources that have been leeched by the west for centuries.

-4

u/doitinmybutt 19h ago

Now china will do it instead

6

u/Expert-Diver7144 18h ago

China never colonized them. In this world you have to ally with a superpower and if America doesn’t work China or Russia is your only other option.

-9

u/_jams 18h ago

The West absolutely did not cause African poverty. Everyone in the world was about equally poor until the industrial and agricultural revolutions which took off first in Europe and Anglo America. Colonialism was very bad for many reasons, but creating poverty was not one of them. Raw resources are an extremely poor way to generate societal wealth. The fact that you are focusing on them goes to show how little you understand what generates economic growth. It's all about human capital (and thus the west's significant investment in education programs in these countries).

Many will blame lingering colonial institutions for continued poverty. That's definitely not wrong, but I prefer to blame the people who continue to use the lingering colonial institutions to enrich themselves and impoverish their fellow citizens. As we see in this country, institutions don't mean all that much outside of the people occupying them

3

u/Expert-Diver7144 16h ago

Lmao at your first sentence. Will assume the rest is just as crazy.

0

u/sagethewriter 12h ago

it’s all about human capital

Read: slaves

1

u/_jams 7h ago

This is such insane bullshit I wonder how you navigate day-to-day life. Here I am talking about advocating for more education and investment in people's lives, and you try to claim I'm advocating for slavery. You're a real piece of work.

1

u/sagethewriter 7h ago

My bad for opening a book or two

5

u/CapableCollar 19h ago

For IMF loans they will mandate privatization policies their own internal studies show are economically regressive.

1

u/_jams 18h ago

There's always improvements to be made, but the past 20-30 years have shown that the long term growth effects of liberalization have drastically improved economic conditions. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.35.3.133

2

u/CapableCollar 18h ago

GDP doesn't measure anything but GDP.

1

u/uncle-iroh-11 17h ago

Interesting. Source for this?

-1

u/CapableCollar 16h ago

IMF Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard was an author on a paper about it like 10 years ago.  He also did a bit of speaking explaining some of the issues in their perception on long term results of austerity.

-6

u/ImperatorUniversum1 21h ago

No need to be a fucking idiot about it. He’s just a political hack talking to Russia. Fuck him

5

u/NorysStorys 13h ago

You highly overestimate the science community in places like Burkina Faso. Anyone who comes from a rich enough family to study the sciences probably isn’t staying there, where they can go to America, Europe or South Africa and do much better financially or they are talented enough to enter academia elsewhere, brain drains are very real things.

Which means the very few that do remain are either the not as talented or they are grifter yes men who court favour of the dictator in power.

36

u/No_Reindeer_5543 22h ago

He's busy with ISIS and Russian mercenaries

9

u/Zetice 20h ago edited 17h ago

ISIS has gained more foothold since he seized power. He’s not doing anything.

-24

u/RevolutionAny9181 21h ago edited 15h ago

ISIS in West Africa are literally supported by Ukrainian and Israeli mercs, as well as the French who recently attempted a coup against Traore from their stronghold in the Ivory Coast.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/5/mali-breaks-off-diplomatic-ties-with-ukraine

15

u/eggnogui 21h ago

Lay off the Russian propaganda, bro

12

u/No_Reindeer_5543 21h ago

Don't be so russophobic, this guy just rotted his mind on krokodil and bad backyard vodka.

/S

-14

u/Icy-Consequence7401 21h ago

There are no Russian mercenaries in Burkina Faso.

15

u/No_Reindeer_5543 21h ago

https://www.google.com/search?q=burkina+faso+wagner+group

Orlly?

-10

u/Icy-Consequence7401 20h ago

Using ai as a source is funny

17

u/No_Reindeer_5543 20h ago

Wow, you don't know what a Google search is? Ai comes up on Google searches as the first thing if you don't have that disabled, but like most searches there's multiple results. I'm not suggesting the AI answer, keep scrolling. Take your choosing. There's a plethora of evidence that Wagner group and Russian forces are involved in Burkina Faso.

I mean what search engine do you use?

Edit: lol this twat posts on r/ thedeprogram, what a bunch of pathetic edgy children

-7

u/Icy-Consequence7401 20h ago

Yea and if you only use the ai and don’t look at the articles that pop up in the search then your using ai as a source. You look at those articles and there all talking about Mali and Africa Corp, a completely separate sovereign nation from Burkina Faso

42

u/ashrafislit 22h ago

Why would he tho?

I mean the West never did any harm to Africa right?

82

u/Chance_Warthog_9389 22h ago

... France kinda backed the coup that killed Thomas Sankara

36

u/rationalsarcasm 20h ago

Hey now! We (The USA) also helped...

50

u/irishitaliancroat 20h ago

Its crazy how many people on this thread are saying hes dumb for not signing up for a western oligarch to mess around in his territory.

Even if bill gates was doing this out of 100% kindness of his heart, which we know he is not, it would be a total boy who cried wolf situation, and quite understandably.

Also bill gates has a bunch of very bizarre and troubling writing about how we need to keep Africans from over reproducing for the climate, even tho they have like a sliver of the impact of Americans.

6

u/24675335778654665566 16h ago

which we know he is not

Why is he doing it?

5

u/irishitaliancroat 13h ago

He is majorly invested in Monsanto and large corporate ag, oftentimes global majority countries become cheap testing grounds for new tech

3

u/DrivenDevotee 9h ago

It's not new tech though. we've been doing this in the isthmus of central america for a while now.

-1

u/irishitaliancroat 7h ago

Ultimately theres no reason for Burkina Faso to trust western governments or oligarchs, they have their own domestic ev manufacturing and a lot of other things. Even in the deal he made with Russia for the gold mine, I think he Ultimately negotiated a great deal for his country.

3

u/malisadri 4h ago

Yeah sure, 1000 USD per capita GDP sounds great.
And only controlling half his nation even after three years in charge sounds even better.

But I agree, just leave Africa alone. There are many other countries where Bill Gates help would be welcome.

19

u/Puzzleheaded-Coast93 16h ago

This thread is just a bunch of Americans who don’t know anything about Africa.

  • Traore is not a military leader who overthrew a democratic government. Traore overthrew the previous military leader who had led a coup against the nominally democratic but still extremely corrupt government of Burkina Faso. Since Sankara’s death Burkina Faso has generally been ruled by a series of military dictators and corrupt “democratic” leaders, neither of which are particularly different in the eyes of the average African.

  • Bill Gates is pretty widely hated in Africa as a result of essentially using the content as a giant laboratory for vaccines, pesticides, GMOs, etc. with no oversight or regulation from corrupt governments. Not to mention blocking the COVID vaccine patents from being waived, resulting in thousands of unnecessary deaths.

  • Russia (and China) is far more positively viewed in Africa than the west because they have generally taken a far more cooperative approach with African countries, whereas the west uses the IMF and NGOs to keep African countries open to exploitation and reliant on foreign aid while preventing them from developing their own industries.

8

u/Sensitive-Orange7203 8h ago

Russia has also been running massive anti west disinformation campaigns in the Sahel for years

-1

u/PsychologicalSet8678 7h ago

It's not disinformation when you live in a country that was colonized and pillaged by the west. Many of the people were looking for alternatives to western powers for years.

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u/Sensitive-Orange7203 7h ago

It was disinformation, they would post about Russia helping out the Sahel by giving them weapons and military gear and post unrelated images from years ago as proof. Just plain false disinfo

6

u/KeithClossOfficial 13h ago

In what world is Traore not a military leader lmao?

He was a member of the Army, was part of the officer group that organized the coup that installed Damiba, then overthrew Damiba along with many of those same officers later in the year

2

u/Puzzleheaded-Coast93 13h ago

That’s not what I said.

1

u/KeithClossOfficial 11h ago

Ok. And Traore was a part of that same military coup against Kaboré, so what was the point of that?

-2

u/Puzzleheaded-Coast93 11h ago

The point is that Burkina Faso has had a deeply corrupt government and constant coups since Sankara (who also came to power in a coup) was assassinated, so using the fact that he led a coup to paint him as illegitimate is stupid.

2

u/Tacky-Terangreal 13h ago

Ikr. This guy would be stupid to trust bill gates. Who know what kind of havoc this untested stuff could cause? These freak billionaires just see Africans as guinea pigs for their sick projects so their leaders are correct in not trusting them

1

u/Vanaquish231 14h ago

Because I've seen no answer, what are the alternatives exactly? It's not like pesticides don't come with their own can of worms.

1

u/Childoftheway 12h ago

Maybe that's because the birth rate has plummeted everywhere but Africa.

1

u/irishitaliancroat 9h ago

Africans contribute a disproportionately small part of global emissions.

Birth rates fall woth economic development, its a pretty widely documented. Africa being underdeveloped and reliant of foreign aid is very profitable for the west. The current situation with congo and Rwanda is a great example of this. I do think europe and america owe Africa a transition to renewbles, but current foreign aid is very colonial most tinds.

1

u/ProfessorEtc 9h ago

It was the North.

2

u/sluuuurp 21h ago

I think you’re confusing “Bill Gates” with “European slave trading kings in the 1700-1800s”. Different people, if you can think a bit harder and look past people’s skin color.

1

u/BrokenEggcat 17h ago

Glad Western powers are very good to Africa nowadays!

1

u/sluuuurp 17h ago

Anyone can sue anybody for anything. Those children didn’t work for any US companies.

1

u/BrokenEggcat 17h ago

Good thing I didn't specifically say the US?

-1

u/sluuuurp 17h ago

Obviously my point applies to all western countries, although we were talking about Bill Gates who is American. The point is that those child laborers work for African companies.

1

u/BrokenEggcat 17h ago

"their children were working illegally at mines owned by UK mining company Glencore. The court papers allege that cobalt from the Glencore- owned mines is sold to Umicore, a Brussels- based metal and mining trader, which then sells battery-grade cobalt to Apple, Google, Tesla, Microsoft and Dell."

At least read the article before talking

1

u/sluuuurp 16h ago

It’s very deceptive to cut out “The families argue in the claim that […]”. Also cutting out the fact that Glencore denies the allegation.

-1

u/BrokenEggcat 16h ago

You said the mine was African owned

It is factually not

It's "very deceptive" to literally say a flat lie about the mines not being Western owned and then try to pivot when it's pointed out that you were talking out of your ass.

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u/AshenMonk 16h ago

Cool, so stay with malaria mosquitoes that kill how many again?

-1

u/ZelezopecnikovKoren 22h ago

as a Slovene NATO EU Microsoft Windows user born in Yugoslavia and against malaria, am I the West now too I'm so confused

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u/Remote_Cantaloupe 20h ago

What is "the west" even defined as?

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u/BrokenEggcat 17h ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world

0

u/Remote_Cantaloupe 10h ago

Complete nonsense. For instance, Greece isn't "Western" yet their philosophical advances are some of the foundations for Western philosophy. This was a complete miss.

1

u/BrokenEggcat 8h ago

Most people consider Greece to be "Western", I'm not sure where you're seeing otherwise

1

u/ianlasco 5h ago

More like he is a russian lapdog.

-1

u/Remote_Cantaloupe 20h ago

Why is any conversation about "the west" treated like it's justified racism? If black people attacked you earlier on in your life, would you be justified in not trusting all black people?