So I’ve tried Mastodon, Pixelfed and didn’t like them. Mastodon is nice if you wanna ”tweet”, but that’s not for me. Pixelfed was dead.
I quit Meta because of tech bro fascism, and hated Twitter even before it was X because, let’s face it - nobody has ever changed their opinion on anything because of a Twitter conversation (I know I’m exaggerating, to get my point across). I was in Reddit for a few weeks, and the conversations there seem mostly friendly and constructive, but I decided I don’t want to have anything to do with social media corporations. Besides, I noticed I could scroll endlessly. And that’s not good for me.
Lemmy seems nice. There are still some topics I’m interested in that don’t have active communities, and I’m still learning on how to have my feed from multiple instances. But still, this is the way to go for me.
Against algorithms, against fascism, for free internet. Thanks for coming to my boring Ted talk and have a nice day.
Oh yeah, after Congo got independence from Belgium. Their purchasing power reduced to not even 10% of what it was at 1960 at the time of 1979.
Right now Congo is being "neocolonised" by China. (Majority stake in their cobalt for China's dominance in electric vehicles)
https://zeenews.india.com/video/news/viral-video-of-chinese-employers-assault-on-african-workers-sparks-racism-and-slavery-allegations-2746407.html
South Africa however is a whole different story. They are the most inequal country in the world.
Africa has a median net wealth per adult of 1250 USD. Mean is 8400 USD.
For South Africa this is 5200 USD median and 25000 usd average.
The approach in Congo was a lot more revolutionary while in South Africa it was reformist. In Congo, any Belgian was forcibly deported and many were murdered. In South Africa there are still a lot of descendants from dutchies.
I believe that China's investment in Congo will be good for Congo, as most investments are.
The Belgian investments were to extract raw resources from the country. But these railroads and trains are still being used today.
Nobody really wants to help Congo unless they get financially rewarded for it. Congo is quite a scary place too, for business. All that instability?
Revolutions = instability = capital flight = poverty
We'll see what happens. The west developed China. Now it's China's turn to develop Africa. About time too, fucking hell, we're so close to Africa. Become developed so that we can do meaningful trade.
The investments in china have been tremendously rewarding.
You and I view China very different. You might view them as Buddhism and the west as Christian.
But I view Europe as Judaism. America as Christianity and china as islam. 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0
The same thing, just different branding. It's all capitalism.
Yes, and that was revenge. Countries were punished for winning independence.
Those railroads are just supply lines that ship from resource extraction points to seaports. The railroads don't connect cities or provide infrastructure for actual people or act as part of the supply chain for internal production. They were built to be purely extractive. That's not real development, that's underdevelopment. The railroads ship out cobalt and ground nuts and the people of the DRC are deprived of access for their own civilian or industrial uses.
Colonizers did not develop Africa. This is a lie spread by colonizers to hide their crimes against humanity.
Yeah, because Belgians raped and tortured and murdered so many Congolese people. The sick shit colonizers did in Africa rivals the Nazis.
No no no, China developed itself by fooling the West (into selling them the rope, get it?) because the West never develops anything by choice.
Look, if revolution can be avoided that's great! Venezuela managed to do it and they'd be doing quite well if it weren't for imperialist meddling from the US. I'm not saying that revolution is the only option, only that the abolition of capitalism must be the end goal. I say "end goal" because it's not realistic to just abolish markets and commodity production and wage labor instantly and expect it to work. The abolition of capitalism will take time.
But if your goal is to keep capitalism alive forever you are not a leftist. Deal with it.
Aight but can you also talk about china on Congo and the video I showed you? I'm saying china is just the same as Europe and America.
I find that normal. China is new to having power, their government has a lot of power in their own region. People their opinions are suppressed in china. They have the great firewall of china.
What you are doing here, is not allowed in China. You'd be seen as a traitor and dealt with by the government.
You're critical of your government. You're a product of the west.
That's a specific incident, I don't think it shows some kind of widespread colonialism from China. This doesn't compare to Belgium at all, their colonial behavior was well documented and systematic.
As for China's firewall and their regulation of criticism, they have to protect themselves from propaganda that gets endlessly pumped out by Western billionaires and governments. There's a material reason for these laws, they aren't just evil totalitarians that hate freedom.
This sometimes results in people getting caught in the crossfire, and that's not good, but what else can China do? If they just allow endless Western meddling they'll have unrest and terrorism as people get radicalized by billionaires, far right factions, and the US State Department.
Nah, you didn't criticise china enough. Fail.
It's a country of 1,4 billion people. With a massive controlling government that is powerful enough to bring stability to such a huge amount of people.
Do you know how easy it is to find bad things about any country and any government?
You can always criticise governments. Their one decision will always help a certain amount of people and put another amount of people in a disadvantage.
The world isn't roses and sunshine.
My advice to you. Become a pragmatist, stop being an ideologist. I stopped trolling with this comment
Yes, their decision helps their government stay stable and in control and it puts Western-backed counter-revolutionaries at a disadvantage. They have to do this or, again, they're going to have to deal with political violence as people get radicalized by Western governments and billionaires.
I generally agree with China's firewall, of course I'm not going to criticize it that much. I like it when my enemies are silenced, because I'm not a liberal and I don't believe my enemies should have a right to speak. 😊
The world isn't roses and sunshine, after all.
That puts you at a disadvantage though. You live in the west. If we take this approach. You get executed.
Literally, we drag you out of your home in front of your family and put a bullet in your brain.
Why don't you fear this? Why aren't you going to china? It's easy, a plane ticket costs 350 euros for me to Shanghai. You're western and thus you have enough money most likely, as you've been extracting money within the imperial core.
So, immigrating in china should be quite easy.
My boss worked in Beijing and Shanghai, if he can do that, so can you.
Why are you still not within the great firewall of china?
I'm right where I need to be.
Sounds religious
It's called revolutionary optimism.
When only 20 to 30% of revolutions lead to prosperity. Optimism is definitely a necessity.
Without revolution, things stay the same. Risk death on your feet or live on your knees.
Sometimes you can get lucky and avoid revolution, and we should always strive for those peaceful alternatives, but sometimes there's no other choice.
You act like we don't have some of the best lives imaginable. It's not the 1850s, the industrial phase is long done. Thank your ancestors and enjoy
People are being sent to concentration camps.
In china and USA but not in Europe. Maybe we should have a great firewall of Europe to stop seeing people behave like monkeys
Aight, personally. Every single person I know, has a great life economically.
Median net wealth in Belgium is 250k euros.
Our cost of living is also lower than yours, so.. turn that into 350k USD maybe to have an idea of how it feels.