8 ms·
No, but that isn't even the million dollar question because the answer will never be "yes." The real question is how certain do we have to be about their role
by ethanbond 11y ago
No, but that isn't even the million dollar question because the answer will never be "yes."
The real question is how certain do we have to be about their role before we decide the gamble is worth it?
In this thread you see wealthy westerners complaining that mosquitos are a nuisance. In many parts of the world they are holocaust-scale killers. It gets to an age old question re: the precautionary principle, and a lot of philosophers have spent a lot of time reasoning about it. No one has a generalizable answer.
- Turing_Machine 11y agoEven more on point: Which is likely to cause more ecological damgage: 1) Wipe out two (of over 3,500) species of mosquito 2) Spray poisons indiscriminately, wiping out many different species of insect, both mosquitos and non-mosquitos?
- TheCondor 11y agoDon't things eat mosquitos? Do any of those things matter?
- iopuy 11y agolol, did you even read the article? There’s little evidence, though, that mosquitoes form a crucial link in any food chain, or that their niche could not be filled by something else.
- robert_nsu 11y agoDragonflies eat mosquitos. I happen to like dragonflies. The are one of the non-annoying insects I actually like to have in my (non) backyard. edit: http://www.chron.com/life/gardening/article/Dragonflies-Mother-Nature-s-mosquito-control-1590949.php http://www.chron.com/life/gardening/article/Dragonflies-Moth...
- lucaspiller 11y agoIn the UK we don't have human-biting mosquitos, yet we still have plenty of dragonflies.
- paulmlewis 11y agoWe have plenty of human biting mosquitos in the UK, I'm quite allergic to some of them.
- mark-r 11y agoWhen I was young, people were encouraged to build homes for Purple Martins, because it was believed that these birds ate a substantial quantity of mosquitos. Later it was discovered that they actually prefer to eat dragonflies. Oops!
- Turing_Machine 11y agoNo one is talking about wiping out all mosquitos.
- kristiandupont 11y agoIt's literally the title of the article
- Turing_Machine 11y agoThe title is wrong.
- dsjoerg 11y agoIsn't the original article talking about that? "Total Mosquito Destruction"
- Turing_Machine 11y agoFor those modding this down, yes, that's the link-bait title of the article. The link-bait title is wrong. No one is seriously talking about eliminating all mosquitos. There's discussion of eliminating two (two) of the over 3,500 species of mosquito, specifically those that carry horrible human diseases. Maybe you should try reading the article, rather than just the title?
- ArtDev 11y agoWith mosquitos extinct (good riddance) other insects would take their niche. Their impact as a food source would be negligible. Before they were introduced by sailing ships, its not like the bug-eating animals did not have enough bugs to eat.
- hellbanner 11y agoThanks for bringing this up. Since no one's brought this up already, check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser
- jdcarter 11y agoWow, that's crazy, a laser/computer combo mounted on fence posts, which is able to determine the type and gender of insect, and only shoot the right kind of disease-carrying mosquitos. "the Photonic Fence can kill up to 50 to 100 mosquitoes a second, at a maximum range of 100 ft." Also interesting, I thought Intellectual Ventures was only a patent troll, I didn't know they did actual research work as well.
- MattGrommes 11y agoIt might be uncharitable to say but it's always been my opinion that their lab and token inventions are cover for their patent trolling activities. Actual inventions from their people are few and far between.
- jdcarter 11y agoUnfortunately IV purchased all the patents of a company I used to work for, General Magic, after it died. Several of us wanted to open-source Magic's source code, but we'd potentially face prosecution from IV if we did. So much cool stuff there, it's really a pity.
- matis140 11y agoas a side note i remember reading something about some patent trolls using money from suits to actually drive development of promising patents. i do not remember if this was optimism about their true intent or full bs...now i will have to go hunt that down.
- lxmorj 11y agoWhen they actually deploy this shit, they'll no longer be a on-practicing entity...
- _AllisonMobley 11y ago3)Half a million humans that would have died from Malaria, but did not.
- ommunist 11y agoThis is much more than a million dollar question. I know local economies depending on mosquito larvae winter haul. They sell those to fishermen. Fish populations depends on mosquito larvae in many lake and river ecosystems.
- bryanlarsen 11y agoThose economies don't specifically depend on Aedes aegypti.
- ommunist 11y agoThis is true. But is MBTE specific only to that species? I am pragmatic, I don't care about the "butterfly effect", but I know enough about immune system of Arthropoda, to be sceptical about long term effectiveness of worldwide campaigns and I know enough about development and humanitarian aid projects in the third world to be perfectly sure about bloody huge mismatch between declared and real targets of those campaigns. Remember human population fertility control effort performed by the US under cover of humanitarian aid in Central Africa less than 30 years ago?
- coryrc 11y agoMillions of lives are more important than a few "local economies".
- ommunist 11y agoProhibit cars. Millions of lives are more important than car industry.
- theptip 11y agoThis is the right way to frame it; or perhaps try the counterfactual: by not taking action, we are choosing to allow 0.1 Holocausts/year of deaths to occur. We wipe species off the face of the earth regularly for as little benefit as increasing the land available for soy farming in the Amazon; averting a holocaust per decade seems like a no-brainer when measured on that scale.