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/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.

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u/Sryzon 18h ago

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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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u/axxo47 4h ago

Like Africa need help getting screwed lol

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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.

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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.

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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

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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. 

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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.

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u/doitinmybutt 19h ago

Now china will do it instead

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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.

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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

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u/Expert-Diver7144 16h ago

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

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u/sagethewriter 12h ago

it’s all about human capital

Read: slaves

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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.

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u/sagethewriter 7h ago

My bad for opening a book or two

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u/CapableCollar 19h ago

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

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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

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u/CapableCollar 18h ago

GDP doesn't measure anything but GDP.

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u/uncle-iroh-11 17h ago

Interesting. Source for this?

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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.

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u/ImperatorUniversum1 21h ago

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