Good bot 👍🏾

Because in the last 120 years, most have transformed into fanatical Abrahamic religion followers. It is not possible to separate Christianity and Israel in the popular imagination in our region. People take out loans to visit the Holy Land. It is actually a big deal here.

• Non-heterosexuals are evil and should be killed/not respected/not appear in public conversations.
• Working class should be happy they have some work, and aim to save enough to bring up a family.
• God is all powerful and when things seem to be tough on you, God is teaching you a lesson.
• Any form of disability is linked to a sin and can be resolved through repentance or something like that.
• Israel is the promised land and Jews are God’s chosen people, so anyone who crosses their way should be destroyed as per Biblical teachings.

You may think these things are far fetched, but this is like 50% of people I deal with in an East African country. Perhaps context matters but these are not even considered right wing. They are considered centrists.

I was surprised Hong Kong would give up their payment system that seems to have worked just fine for a Google platform that was charging “service fees”.

I wonder how much lobbying happened /s

Your prediction for ARG v FRA is almost there.

I like how Cory Doctorow has managed to unite several seemingly disparate themes by focusing on a monopoly. From content moderation to AI, there is the close connection to how centralized systems breed most of the social ills we are facing.

Morocco v France promises sparks.

I do not think this discussion is adding value at this point. I wish I had more time to engage in a productive way.

That is not the main point, if you have been getting my point.

to justify a massive western military presence that is often, even usually, not invited but imposed.

You do not understand my point. I am not against China nor am I pro-United States. I am for Africa to make their own practical choices for their own dignified progress. Part of that may be kicking all these bases out. It could also be working with some and not others. No simple straight jacket answer.

This is why it is sickening to see someone come and say NATO looked down up you, but China not so much, er go, China is your better option. Like, that is simplistic dichotomy which I have been repeating all morning. Whether China has a smaller base than US, so what, to a Somali? Is it enough to know China will kill you less faster than the US? why can’t Somali focus on building their security infrastructure? But that is not a perspective you have tried to integrate in your work because you are obsessed with China replacing America, and that tired dichotomy.

It is actually not lack of interest in “qualitative differences” but rather “so what?”

Upon reflection on these things, you realize it makes no sense to celebrate such comparisons and would rather focus on how you yourself as a continent can engage all countries in dignity and progress for your people.

Let us see if we can agree on something: Chinese involvement in Africa has had positive effects, just as it has had negative ones too. European, American, Japanese etc.

Whether one has been 10X or 50X of the other is not in my interest. African progress should not be anchored on the *better extractor. *

The logic expressed by Rodney in the 70s is close to what I also feel about china in Africa today even though the degrees might be different. I hope you get my refusal to see generalist comparisons as helpful to an African audience, and why it might be helpful to Europeans and Chinese, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Europe_Underdeveloped_Africa

My point is not to compare PLAN with AFRICOM. I am just not convinced it helps an African audience. It may help a Chinese apologist in saying “look, we are better than the US” but at the end of the day, they are both invested in extractive infrastructure. One base, 100 bases, that is comparison. I am not interested. I gave that example not to compare but to remind the OP that China does indeed operate a military in Africa, because it was my understanding that the OP thought they do not.

Heard of PLAN’s base in Djibouti? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_People’s_Liberation_Army_Support_Base_in_Djibouti

I refuse simplified dichotomies. They are not helpful to me. May be to you.

The problem with tired dichotomies is you end up with these kinds of statements. Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, Spain, and Belgium do have long histories of violence in Africa through slave trading, colonialism, coups, and proxy wars. The Saudis, Emirates, Soviets, Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans have had their share of violent extraction either directly or indirectly. The question is whether it adds value to always compare these countries over and over again claiming one is more extractive and violent than the other, and refusing to see how the real world is organized, not as a block of harmonious people under “country” but as distinct divisions even in the most unified of a country. Elitism is one of those things that can help us explain what is going on.

In almost all these discussions, you rarely hear people talk about the African people. As if they are passive objects to be moved around. You need to appreciate the everyday forms of resistance waged by farmers, women, semi-structured labour groups etc against the heavy weight of colonialism and apartheid. A major problem was/and continues to be betray from fellow Africans and allies for material benefits. This is where notions of China being more beneficial to Africa via infrastructure come in. Extraversion^[1] is a concept you can use here, because Chinese EXIM bank, especially, works with African heads or states or their representative to okay very expensive loans to fund infrastructure, some even not priorities, benefiting those elites directly. In China too, like in the US and Britain et al, it is also the elite who benefot the most from these relations. Some not even in the interest of their countries.

China offers alternative options to Western funding for major public projects. They are fighting for their interests, just like Americans. Just like Africans. To assume other wise is to go down the boring route of “moral equivalencies” which is a waste of time. I am more interested in fighting for my people get a more dignified life, whether that comes from relations with China, Russians, North Koreans, or Britain. Or all of them.

I love how compact the UI is.

Great post. We need to have an AMA with the author.

Identification brokerage. What exactly will Twitter add to the identity verification matrix? When you sign up, and want to get those sophisticated things, they ensure you give them verifiable proof you are who you claim to be. Phone number which you can receive a text from periodically, email address which implies other people verified you, date of birth (I do not know how this helps other than then running triangulation on it from other ID providers) etc. After you do all this, they then ask you to pay to be “verified”. The status aspect on Twitter notwithstanding, it sounds like those “irrational” market outcomes.

The funny thing will be governments paying for this, when they are literally the origin of the very documents Twitter uses to verify people.

I haven’t watched this and want to. But for those who have watched, how different is the argument from what Polanyi said about so-called liberal markets and the World Wars?

I agree with this observation. Getting people who otherwise do no care about “backend, code phiosophy etc” to see the power of fediverse would be a major milestone. A lot of people care about something like sports. Having an organized way to discuss news, streaming, historical footage etc would bring such converged interests regardless of whether they understand ActivityPub specifications.