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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u/Zeikos 22h ago

Not necessarily, I doubt taking Gate's offer would be a free lunch.
Given Burkina Faso's recent efforts in building infrastructure and investing in local industry I would guess that they have internal plans in place and they don't like the tradeoff of taking aid from the US.

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u/Whatsapokemon 21h ago

It's literally a free lunch. The Gates foundation has been doing charity programs for decades.

Gates is the rare breed of people who actually wants to leave a positive mark on the world.

It's also not "aid from the US", it's a private charity.

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u/Loeffellux 20h ago

I'm taking an alternative approach to this issue. My problem is not that Gates is a secret villain but simply that good intentions don't automatically make for the optimal outcome.

I can't recall the specifics but the AstraZeneca corona vaccine was actually invented by Oxford University who pledged to donate the rights. They were then convinced by the Gates foundation to sell the rights to AstraZeneca instead.

I'm not saying there weren't real and understandable reasons for this like ensuring an orderly and safe rollout by a company that's well established in the industry and so on. But at the very least, this decision has had negative consequences for people living in poorer countries that often had to buy the vaccines for higher prices than richer countries. In the end, a lot of them had to wait for China's vaccine.

I'm also not saying that I can be sure that more people would've survived had the rights been granted for free like Oxford originally planned but at the very least it seems likely.

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u/Nauin 19h ago

Please educate yourself on Bill Gates before making statements like that. He's not as bad as most of the other billionaires but he is still plenty problematic and these charity donations more often than not completely destroy the economies and job markets of the places they're donated to.

Behind the Bastards has a multi-part series on Gates that goes into a lot of his history and what he has done to influence the world. Some good, a lot bad.

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u/Moifaso 17h ago

but he is still plenty problematic and these charity donations more often than not completely destroy the economies and job markets of the places they're donated to.

Citations needed. Most of the stuff he donates either involves local labor or are things that locals aren't equipped to do - like genetically modifying mosquitos.

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u/Nauin 14h ago

There's a ton of citation out there, but really use the source I recommended in my original comment; The two part Ballad of Bill Gates by Robert Evans.

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u/Derbloingles 25m ago

He gave a citation

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u/Lonyo 14h ago

Fighting malaria isn't a charitable donation

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u/Fireproofspider 14h ago

Charity programs aren't a free lunch when talking about long term economic and developmental outcomes.

I'm not familiar with this particular program but one of the issues in my industry (pharma) is the lack of actual protection capabilities. This was especially hard during COVID and now with USAID pulling out.

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u/brunckle 4h ago

"He who gifts gives with strings attached."

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u/VonBeegs 1h ago

Did the whole COVID vaccine IP thing not open your eyes to Bill Gates being just another asshole billionaire whose "charity" is just a method of regulatory capture?

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u/AbhishMuk 20h ago

Just a question, were you familiar with Bill Gates back in the 70s till maybe the 90s?

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u/B_Roland 20h ago

People change

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u/AbhishMuk 20h ago

Sure, they do. But you don’t make a billion dollars from being a nice guy, and I am genuinely not sure how you can go from one of the most shrewd, ruthless, and cutthroat people to a “nice guy”. (PIf you or someone else in this thread knows how such a radical transformation is possible, I’ll be happy to have my view changed.

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u/Etzell 19h ago

I mean, making your life's work the eradication of malaria and spending billions of dollars to do it is probably a good step, yeah?

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u/B_Roland 19h ago

He was a young(ish) guy obsessed with his own company that he poured his life into that had to deliver numbers to keep his own prestige and more importantly, keep shareholders happy.

Now, decades later, he's a retired guy who has no incentive to think about profits and shareholders, has a different outlook on life since stepping out of his corparate environment and what's left of his ego is now invested in building a philanthropist legacy.

Something along those lines probably covers the gist of it. Those are 2 very different people with very different motives, yet they are the same guy.

Now I'm no expert on Bill Gates and don't feel any need to defend him or whatever, so please don't try to debate me on that cause I don't care. But people can genuinely change a lot. Even if plenty don't.

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u/ImAnAlternative 20h ago

The same Bill Gates who's friends with Epstein? That's your rare breed idol?

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u/Fluffcake 20h ago edited 20h ago

Free is never free.

There is a reason why half the US is cheering for kicking out people who are crushing them in the job market by working twice as hard for half the pay, charities have the same effect in many areas, because nobody can compete with free on price.

Charity should be limited to disaster relief, otherwise it is just economic terrorism.

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u/Popular_Brief335 20h ago

lol half the us? You mean like 1-2% maybe cheering the rest don’t give a fuck. 

If the USA and its citizens stopped giving out aid many nations would crumble. 

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u/Impossible-Topic9558 20h ago

"Free is never free"

r/iamverysmart

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u/Fluffcake 20h ago

If charity worked, there wouldn't be any developing countries anymore.

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u/Whatsapokemon 10h ago

Charity should be limited to disaster relief, otherwise it is just economic terrorism.

How about development charities who build infrastructure?

How about charities that distribute vaccines or who run education programs?

How about charities that promote sexual health?

How about charities that attempt to solve huge-scale environmental problems like dealing with mosquitoes?

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u/dnyank1 21h ago

I doubt taking Gate's offer would be a free lunch.

Are you confused what a philanthropist is? or...

Gates is retired from business. Over the next 20 years he wants his wealth redistributed to the global poor.

He really is doing it all for free.

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u/DevilishlyAdvocating 20h ago

Altruism aside, aide can be problematic by giving developing nations a crutch that prevents them from developing the skills, economy or infrastructure to provide for themselves.

No opinion on this particular case but that can be the tradeoff of the "free lunch".

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u/Lonyo 14h ago

Trying to deal with malaria isn't exactly a crutch.

Polio was almost eradicated by concerned global effort. Smallpox was eradicated

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u/DevilishlyAdvocating 9h ago

It's a fair point, like I said I'm not commenting on this specific issue, moreso responding to:

Are you confused what a philanthropist is?

Since that is a flawed argument in this space.

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u/ABHOR_pod 13h ago

I mean, sure. That might be true for many things like donating clothing or building roads or whatever.

I don't think there's a local industry for curing malaria in Burkina Faso. Might be an industry in treating the symptoms, but "Curing an endemic disease that has killed more humans than literally any other cause in history, for millennia." isn't exactly a local industry kind of endeavor. It's also not exactly something the free market is champing at the bit to solve.

I don't think that specific argument applies to the Gates foundation.

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u/MrAngryBeards 20h ago

Also you really have to fully ignore the history of Africa to not see why one would be resistant to foreign aid, especially from ultra rich people from the US

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u/DevilishlyAdvocating 20h ago

Exactly. Just because Gates might not get anything out of it doesn't mean it's a total benefit without tradeoffs. Extremely ignorant to suggest otherwise.

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u/MrAngryBeards 19h ago

Under these circumstances, even some perfectly spotless no-strings attached aid could still be non-ideal in the long run. A lot of African countries have no proprietary solution to some of the issues they face, because foreign aid most often comes in the shape of band-aid solutions. Rarely do they make direct injection of money into government projects. When that occasionally happen, it's not no-strings-attached.

I don't entertain the thought too much because it really ruins my day but it's not hard to see why so many critics see the Gates Foundation as just a tax write-off scheme. Bill Gates is literally worth more money now than he was when he co-founded the giving pledge, even with all the hundreds of aid programs across Africa over however many years.

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u/ThroawayJimilyJones 19h ago

Maybe because nobody would be stupid enough to put money in a government project, when the said governement has high level of corruption and constant power fight?

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u/MrAngryBeards 19h ago

You don't have to inject money directly into the government. Ask for a plan, check the service providers involved, pay them directly, follow the development of the project. It's possible to help while being truthfully supportive instead of patronizing

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u/Moifaso 17h ago

I'm sorry this argument is just insane in context

You know what famously is also a massive hindrance to development? Malaria.

More than half of BK's population are minors and half the country is under jihadist control. They have bigger fish to fry with their very limited resources than trying to homegrow an inferior malaria intervention.

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u/Happycricket1 21h ago

Apparently, people mistake Bill Gates for China.

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u/iamthewhatt 20h ago

Are you sure it isn't just people not trusting the global ultra rich after what we see happening right now?

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u/Ok-Self5588 20h ago

Insane thing to say when the IMF and World Bank exist. Chinas foreign aid comes with unitedly fewer strings attached than western aid but keep lying to yourself that China is the imperialist hellscape in this equation

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u/Dic3dCarrots 20h ago

Its the paradoxical enemy trope, belt and road is both a tragic economic blunder of the sad poor planned economy, and a hegemonic debt trap that the Chinese will use to steal what they will. Turns out theyre more 1950s American than anything else where they will work with any friendly regional power to develop their economic gosls even if that juices otherwise unsavvory political organizations. As long as the illicit activity doesnt happen on Chinese soil, they'll make any friendly want to be industrialist very wealthy, they just have to be willing to take direction from the ccp on global affairs and keep the local situation friendly, no matter how. China benefits from modernizing Brasils ports as much as Brasil does, the only loser is the US.

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u/AccomplishedFail2247 20h ago

But then China owns the fucking ports, thats the problem. And 99% if all the serious news coverage is about the hegemonic debt trap side of the operation, no one’s talking about it in a negative sense. China owning most of Africa and South Americas critical infrastructure is not a good thing

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u/el_muchacho 19h ago edited 19h ago

Once again, the debt trap is a lie. And no, China doesn't own "most Africa and SA's critical infrastructure".

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u/Dic3dCarrots 19h ago

Lol hegemonic debt trap as if rogue states care about law suits. These include nations with with active human rights violations, CCP having an "ownership stake" means a lot less in the countries they're building ports in. and the ports that matter today are what they are funding in Brasil. Also, again, compare that to anything offered by the west, maybe WE dont like it, but some of these countries have no other options than China, and China has already forgiven some of the loans, but like everything, these are complex issues with people involved. There are 155 countries with BRI projects in them. I think ypu could find plenty examples of fraud waste and abuse in any human system. Some possible third of the countries have more debt due to chinese loans than they would from what analysts predict they would from Paris Club countries, but there might be other benefits for former colonized countries to take assistance from China instead of the West.

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u/el_muchacho 19h ago edited 19h ago

This post is so replete with falsehoods I don't even know where to start. I guess $1.6 billion of anti China propaganda has a toll on minds.

1) Claim: "belt and road is a tragic economic blunder of the sad poor planned economy"

Truth: BRI is a widely successful policy, that made China the first trade partner of more than 120 countries. There are 195 countries (including Palestine and Vatican). It's in fact so successful that the US tried to copy it, but it predictably fell flat.

2) Claim: ... and a hegemonic debt trap

Truth: there is simply NO chinese debt trap diplomacy. That's just another lie that has been debunked for years.

3) ... that the Chinese will use to steal what they will

Americans used to say that about their black slaves. And colonizers used this slur all the time.

4) Claim: Turns out theyre more 1950s American than anything else where they will work with any friendly regional power to develop their economic gosls even if that juices otherwise unsavvory political organizations.

Truth: Even on US history, you are wrong, that's not how the 1950s USA operated. The US would use the CIA to depose local leaders (sometimes democratically elected), like in Guatemala in 1954, to impose a pro- american business puppet. China does no such thing, quite the opposite, it doesn't set political conditions, it works with the government in place without interfering in interior politics as a principle. You may disagree with this principle, but the western policy which imposes their conditions is hardly ever better,

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u/Dic3dCarrots 19h ago edited 19h ago

Your reading comprehension sucks. You're not disagreeing with my comment. My comment was that those false statements propogated in the west to hand wave away BRI are paradoxical. My point about 1950s america is that we built in countries friendly to our interests and used dollar deplomacy to fund unsavvory regimes, just like China is.

Do better ai

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u/el_muchacho 19h ago edited 19h ago

Do better ai

Cool, now you are insulting me. I didn't use AI. You realize how much time I spent to write this post ? No you don't. Reddit is an international website, perhaps you could figure out that not everyone's mother tongue is english. And your post is badly written as if that was your point, it doesn't come across clearly.

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u/Dic3dCarrots 19h ago edited 18h ago

What ever ai translator you used tragically failed you -.-

Maybe next time, dont skip the first phrase of a post when responding. Pro tip, when reading English, the first phrase is generally important :)

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u/Qu1ckShake 21h ago

I would love to be as hideously, disgustingly naive as you.

Must be peaceful.

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u/ArkhielModding 20h ago

We don't buy the OnlyFree

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u/tlm94 21h ago

for absolutely no ulterior motive whatsoever, right??

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u/Popular_Brief335 21h ago

Sure to make his name immortal. Gates does more for the nations of Africa than then the nations of Africa do for each other 

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u/fred11551 21h ago

I mean the ulterior motive is good publicity to make people forget all the scummy things he’s done to amass that fortune and maybe distract from any news involving him and Epstein. But like, that’s not a problem for Burkina Faso. They get free help with Malaria and Bill Gayes gets to pretend that good he’s doing now outweighs the bad he did in the past

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u/dnyank1 21h ago

Yes. Genuinely, if you think Bill Gates is part of some global cabal trying to influence power dynamics, you've been force fed propaganda.

I've met the man! Heard him speak. He's genuine and passionate about leaving the world a better place than he found it.

Why is it so hard to believe someone might want to act altruistically, to you fucking ghouls?

Can you not imagine doing something out of kindness for other humans (or maybe even a little guilt? remorse? Who fucking knows, who fucking cares - but it's obvious his motives are not "ulterior", power or profit driven)

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u/Cool_Lab_1362 21h ago

Typical cynical person. To the average person they wouldn't have personally met Bill Gates and that public figure is a stranger to them. So no they wouldn't assume Gates not having any ulterior motives, it's a given by default to distrust the utmost elite rich and powerful nowadays regardless of public perception.

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u/[deleted] 21h ago edited 21h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/RustyGuns 21h ago

Imagine living life the way you do.

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u/[deleted] 21h ago

Happy and retired early? Yeah it’s tits.

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u/Mammoth-Dot-9002 21h ago

He is an oligarch who gained power through owning a tech monopoly. But there are still kids dying from malaria. There’s nuance here - don’t be a douche. This is why the left has no power.

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u/[deleted] 21h ago

I’m talking to bots aren’t I?

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u/[deleted] 21h ago edited 21h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/FoodLionDrPerky 21h ago

Can you not imagine doing something out of kindness for other humans (or maybe even a little guilt? remorse? Who fucking knows, who fucking cares - but it's obvious his motives are not "ulterior", power or profit driven)

Yes I can. I'm just not naive enough to think that's what's going on here. Bill Gates and others like him "helping" African nations is nothing more than a form of soft power. It's the same as foreign aid. It might genuinely help some people, but that's rarely the actual goal of the person/company/nation/whatever "helping". More often than not it's actually about gaining influence in the region.

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u/Hotoelectron 20h ago

It's Africa. If he wants 'soft power' or 'influence', he can buy it for cheaper by just paying a bribe. Like, how dumb is this conspiracy theory?

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u/dnyank1 21h ago

It's the same as foreign aid

You think actually think Bill Gates is doing this for... the bidding of the US Government? To advance some political agenda? lmfao

What "influence" does a guy whose last business endeavor was the failed Microsoft Zune MP3 player, seek? What "soft power" does he want?

Christ almighty this thread is proving I need to invest in aluminum foil manufacturers... hat sales are at all time highs

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u/Mind_Extract 21h ago

Wow your vague sarcasm in a manic tone has convinced me

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u/ProgressBartender 20h ago

Warren Buffet convinced Bill Gates to join him in committing to giving away all his wealth before he dies.

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u/Soft_Walrus_3605 21h ago

What's it like thinking there are no good people in the world? Or at least people who are able to do good?

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u/hpayandah 20h ago

isn’t he the guy who was buddy with epstein? only time will tell

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u/Tha_Sly_Fox 21h ago

It’s charity, he’s saying no bc of politics. BF recently had a military coup to overthrow their government and they new leader uses the west as a boogeyman to blame all their problems on.

They kicked out western anti terrorism units and replaced them with Russian Wagner soldiers, though I believe it’s becoming Russian “African Corps” soldiers since Wagner is being slowly disbanded.

The west is far from perfect and I understand African distrust over former colonizers, however this was part of a larger series of military coups across the Sahel over the past 5 years with military dictators taking control and kicking out western partners then replacing them with Russian troops who reportedly split their time between suppressing the locals populations on behalf of the government and taking control of precious metal mines while local jihadis groups run rampant and unchecked.

Gates is an American whose charity has an association to the US government, BF made the case the entire west is evil and can’t be trusted, ergo no charity from the west even if no string attached.

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u/Akatosh66 9h ago

Turns out when colonize,steal and rape a entire continent for centuries, their people wont trust you and will in fact favor your geopolitical enemies over you

Who would have thought 🤔 

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u/james_Gastovski 2h ago

Good luck trusting the new colonial kings

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u/el_muchacho 20h ago

it's not USAID (which has been gutted by Musk), it's the Bill Gates Foundation. Completely unrelated to the US foreign aid and policy.

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u/CrunchingTackle3000 14h ago

I seriously doubt the credibility of your statement

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u/Opulent-tortoise 20h ago

LOL you mean burkina fasos recent efforts in becoming seriously indebted to Russian and China and losing half of their country to jihadists?

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u/Synth_Sapiens 22h ago

ROFLMAOAAAAAAA

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u/Wide-Pop6050 20h ago

It's not aid from the US.

This doesn't prevent you from investing in local industry etc. It literally just limits the mosquitos. Which helps with building infrastructure and developing local industry. Much easier when you or your customers don't have malaria.

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u/Ieris19 22h ago

Roughly the same plan as Trump had when he implemented his tariffs right? Throw shit at the wall and see what sticks?

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u/Popular_Brief335 22h ago

another story of rich and powerful assholes fucking over the poor 

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u/beaucoup_dinky_dau 21h ago

what do you even mean? They are trying to combat malaria. It's meant to save lives, this is where we are at in the discourse I guess.

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u/Popular_Brief335 21h ago

In this situation gates is not the rich and powerful asshole