Full disclosure, I live in Africa and don’t have a dog in this fight. I like proper discourse and it’s alright if I and another person disagree on something, what is important is that we communicate and understand where the other is coming from. The ultimate goal is the satiation of needless and avoidable suffering for all minds.

I’ve only been on Lemmy for a few days but across any sub I’ve noticed any criticism of China or the CCP is met with immediate downvotes and anything remotely positive of the US or really any western country whatsoever meets a similar fate.

Anything pro-African is mostly neutral but in essence ignored, no upvotes, no downvotes, no comments.

Has anyone else noticed this? Am I completely off base here? And is there anything else here that seemingly gets downvoted automatically. It would be sad to see the fediverse and Lemmy be nothing more than just another echo chamber on the web.

Finally, I am posting this assuming it will also be downvoted to hell based on the title alone and that itself will be some monochrome of truth of the situation here.

    • 🇨🇦 tunetardis@piefed.caEnglish
      4·
      2 months ago

      Thanks for that. It set me straight on a few things.

      What do you think about microloans then (kiva, etc.)? Is that a better approach? I know it’s more grassroots than a gov program, and I don’t know how much of an effect they have in the grand scheme of things.

    • birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      4·
      2 months ago

      I don’t think only investing into business and production is what would help. If those businesses get taken over by venture capitalists or go into stocks, then the motive shifts towards profit, rather than people.

      It’d help more if those labour groups were worker co-operatives, and their people worked together with trade unions and left-wing parties to establish community exchanges, and the workers use the profits of cooperatives to:

      1. save for crises, ensuring that even then, workers still can thrive.
      2. establish and support more labour groups in different sectors (media and culture included), being all horizontally federated.
      3. grow funds to outcompete capitalist structures, to take them over and turn them into other worker-owned cooperatives, and so the ball keeps on rolling.
      4. train themselves to defend one another, and learn each other’s jobs. This in case scabs (strike-breakers) or cops arrive and arrest some workers

      Especially farms, mines, woodlands, – anything involving natural resources and land – would be crucial.

      Sure, in this age of digitalisation, a lot happens online, too. But even then, at its root, for data centres you need land, water, and resources. For computers, you need minerals, from mines. For cables, you need boats of hardy materials. And for those labourers, you need farms and woodlands to supply them and their clothing.