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/timbomcchoi 20h ago

When I was living in Ethiopia I saw so many people refusing to vaccinate themselves or their kids, because that's just Bill Gates trying to make them sick.

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u/HaLLIHOO654 20h ago

Effects of social media

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u/Pure-Drawer-2617 19h ago

Also the effects of the US actively doing fake vaccinations in third world countries in recent history, and doing it to black people on home soil as well. No wonder people don’t trust them.

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u/En_CHILL_ada 17h ago

Exactly. It's like everyone here has forgotten all of the history that these people have lived through. They have extremely rational and logical reasons to not trust western intervention or "charity."

I see a lot of people in this thread bringing up the jihadist problem Burkina is facing. Where did this spread of violent jihadism in north Africa come from again? Was it the western intervention in Libya? Libya was the most prosperous nation in Africa at the time. We turned it into a hell hole of warring jihadist militias.

If you look at all the other terrorist groups that the west and Israel have funded throughout post ww2 history (hamas for one example with current relavence) it's a pretty rational conclusion to think that maybe these terrorist groups were created by the west to destabilize the region and ensure that this wave of self-governance and anti-colonialism in Africa fails.

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u/Professional-Error-3 4h ago

There was literally a civil war in Libya at the time of western intervention. And both the Arab league and the UN were in support of stopping Gaddafi's slaughter

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u/En_CHILL_ada 3h ago

Why was there a civil war?

My understanding is that they were the most prosperous nation in Africa and enjoyed social benefits like healthcare and education. So why did a civil war break out?

Without any knowledge on the history there, my blind guess would be that western governments and Israel fomented the war because Gaddafi was promoting a pan African currency, trading oil in that currency, and was highly critical of Israel and US. But that's just a guess. I could be wrong.

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u/Professional-Error-3 3h ago

Why was there a civil war?

Because people weren't too happy about the ethnic cleansing, oppression and random disappearances of their friends and family

Just do a quick read of this wikipedia article and I'm sure you'll understand that it was in fact not started by jewish mind control, but for very real reasons.

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

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u/Logical-Breakfast966 15h ago

That is fair and I’d understand why these countries would be hesitant because of it. But also things are much different now. As bad as shit like that was I’d hope we were making up for it with all the good USAID was doing. And even if your sentiment is true, we should be encouraging people to accept help rather than excusing them turning it away

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u/Pure-Drawer-2617 15h ago

And how do you propose we encourage people to accept help without acknowledging the times they’ve been burned in the past? If anything they’d be the idiots to assume things are different now based on “because we said so”.

If they asked you what reason you have to believe things are different now, and that the US isn’t involved in underhanded clandestine action in third world countries, how would you convince them?

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u/-CosmicCactusRadio 6h ago edited 6h ago

Why are you proposing this while offering no answer of your own?

"How would you convince them? Other than playing devil's advocate and making the situation worse, like I'm doing?"

You're not even from the US. Why arbitrarily paint the efforts of someone born in the US, not affiliated with the government, as being insidious?

Aside from you regularly scrubbing your comment history, these comments are incredibly suspect and could very well be the work of Russia's shitty disinformation campaign, considering that they helped give power to the leader currently pushing this same narrative.

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u/Pure-Drawer-2617 6h ago edited 6h ago

“You’re not even from the US”, no, I’m from the Caribbean. I’ve seen the anti-vax/anti US sentiment there first hand, including my own family members (because of US interventionism in the region) so I’m speaking from a place of experience. At no point did I say his efforts are insidious, I’m explaining WHY people don’t trust the US or US affiliated aid anymore, rather than it just being “well social media is making them stupid”.

I’ve also literally never scrubbed my comment history what are you talking about? Do Americans genuinely assume everyone who criticises their country is Russia at work?

Also I did offer an answer. “Acknowledging the times they’ve been burned in the past.” Even an official admission of guilt for past actions and apology would go a long way to restore trust.

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u/throwuk1 18h ago

Or actual fucking history.

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u/snoozieboi 1h ago

Yeah, I think all parties are to blame.

The west often comes in ruining stuff with good intentions, but also have the long backlog of slavery or dubious business practices (wasn't there mother's milk replacements that were worse than regular mother's milk, oh it was Nestlè) . Then also in modern times aid comes in with "free food" and tanks whatever economy they had.

Vaccines could come in rather late too so all they saw from their perspective was that all that got the vaccine (too late) died. It was how ebola looked for the survivors. Your family member got sick, western people came in strange white protective suits and soon after your family member died. From their view the westerns were at it again just like in the past.

The only long term solution I have ever seen most of our problems as humans is free education everywhere. It teaches scrutiny of information and also the ability to absorb new info and alter world views.

Ironically we see this ability declining in select regions of the west now too...