6 ms·

Hope this Zika thing scares enough people in the developed world to finally start a world-wide program for completely eradicating all disease bearing mosquitoes

by nnq 10y ago

Hope this Zika thing scares enough people in the developed world to finally start a world-wide program for completely eradicating all disease bearing mosquitoes. And hopefully skip the damn talks about "the consequences of removing an entire species from the ecosystem for ever" (hint: humans already did this dozens of time by now, and now we can also froze some damn buzzers for future scientific study or whatever). Or about "developing a technology for completely exterminating a given species" (hint: besides being cool science, having a technology like this around and field tested could prove extremely f useful in quite a few scenarios). Is there anywhere I can put my money where my mouth is and donate money to someone developing this? Like, not "doing the science and if it works out use it in 10 years time in the field", but more like "engineering and testing as you go, with iterative deployment of multiple batches of 'extermination agent', be that genetically engineered mosquitoes or bacteria or viruses, until the damn things are completely gone, even if we don't get to publish many papers because we've been a bit sloppy in measurements and focused on engineering and not science"? P.S. And really, the best way to "investigate the consequences" of such a thing is to fucking do it an see what happens! Imagine the cool papers you'll publish about "ecological consequences of mosquito extermination" when you actually have data about this! And if you're into debating and stuff, you can debate "reintroducing mosquitoes into the ecosystem", and see how that goes after the picture of the "first kid dead from malaria after 10 years" shows up in the Times magazine. You can always keep a few mosquitoes in a lab in repopulate them afterwards if we turn out to actually need them.

andrewflnr 10y ago
I really don't think an iterative approach is right when you're talking about exterminating a species. I'm worried about collateral damage. You don't want your virus jumping species, for instance.
kbenson 10y ago
I posed a question along these lines (eradicating mosquitoes) a couple weeks ago[1], and there were quite a few interesting responses regarding possible consequences, or lack thereof. Apparently it's been investigated quite a bit. The general consensus of the actual studies done on the topic, IIRC, is that eradicating mosquitoes shouldn't affect any ecosystem particularly harshly. For all the harm them do, I know I think (at this point) we would all be better off without them, even considering possible impacts to ecosystems. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12323589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12323589
NKCSS 10y ago
I was going to say: "The Gates foundation are funding research to eradicate the Mosquito" but when searching for a link, I found this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2016/06/10/bill-gates-says-gene-drives-to-eradicate-some-mosquito-species-could-be-ready-for-in-two-years/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2016/06/10/bill-ga...
- Tannic 10y ago
  I'm sorry but ultra elites testing out sterilization gene modification is very unnerving. It feels too much like a trial run for their Malthusian answer to global warming.
bad_user 10y ago
That's a really unhealthy mentality. There are aprox 3500 species of mosquitoes, out of which about 100 draw human blood. And first of all it's probably really hard to target just specific species. And if the solution is chemical or some sort of virus, then how do you know it won't spread to other insects? Mosquitoes are pollinators, also being a food source for birds and fish. If mosquitoes vanish, you could end up with an ecological disaster, remember that we've been exterminating bees as well. But OK, mother nature can still cope with a species vanishing, but this means another insect will probably fill the vacuum left by exterminating mosquitoes. How do you know that the insect taking the place of mosquitoes won't be much worse? You know, nature has a strange habit of fucking up our plans. It's also important to remember that life on earth is 3.5 billion years old and we are fucking it up, destabilizing it in just a couple hundred. And "just fucking do it" is not science.
- saiya-jin 10y ago
  I presume seeing somebody very close dying from dengue/cerebral malaria/etc would change your perspective of "this ain't science". But that won't happen to many in 1st world countries, would it. Few millions of poor dying somewhere far away ain't that much of a hot issue to you? mankind wants to eradicate all diseases for example. don't you think that they also have their role in the food chain, albeit probably more on the single cellular scale? why not protect those? It's us vs them, due to global warming they are spreading to new places all the time. nobody is talking about removing all mosquitoes from the face of the earth, just those 100 you mentioned. Will there be some mess and consequences from it? of course, there are always consequences, even if you fart in the wind. considering the clusterfk we are heading to in terms of destroying the nature, this is peanuts with very real positive and immediate results to poorest and weakest of this world. count me in.
  - Tannic 10y ago
    Consider that one reason mosquitoes are a problem is that humans are wiping out their ecosystems, including things that eat them. The best thing we could do would be to enhance predator habitat so the animals that have evolved to hunt them over millions of years are allowed to do that.

by nnq 10y ago

andrewflnr 10y ago

I really don't think an iterative approach is right when you're talking about exterminating a species. I'm worried about collateral damage. You don't want your virus jumping species, for instance.

kbenson 10y ago

I posed a question along these lines (eradicating mosquitoes) a couple weeks ago[1], and there were quite a few interesting responses regarding possible consequences, or lack thereof. Apparently it's been investigated quite a bit. The general consensus of the actual studies done on the topic, IIRC, is that eradicating mosquitoes shouldn't affect any ecosystem particularly harshly. For all the harm them do, I know I think (at this point) we would all be better off without them, even considering possible impacts to ecosystems. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12323589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12323589

NKCSS 10y ago

I was going to say: "The Gates foundation are funding research to eradicate the Mosquito" but when searching for a link, I found this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2016/06/10/bill-gates-says-gene-drives-to-eradicate-some-mosquito-species-could-be-ready-for-in-two-years/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2016/06/10/bill-ga...

Tannic 10y ago
I'm sorry but ultra elites testing out sterilization gene modification is very unnerving. It feels too much like a trial run for their Malthusian answer to global warming.

bad_user 10y ago

That's a really unhealthy mentality. There are aprox 3500 species of mosquitoes, out of which about 100 draw human blood. And first of all it's probably really hard to target just specific species. And if the solution is chemical or some sort of virus, then how do you know it won't spread to other insects? Mosquitoes are pollinators, also being a food source for birds and fish. If mosquitoes vanish, you could end up with an ecological disaster, remember that we've been exterminating bees as well. But OK, mother nature can still cope with a species vanishing, but this means another insect will probably fill the vacuum left by exterminating mosquitoes. How do you know that the insect taking the place of mosquitoes won't be much worse? You know, nature has a strange habit of fucking up our plans. It's also important to remember that life on earth is 3.5 billion years old and we are fucking it up, destabilizing it in just a couple hundred. And "just fucking do it" is not science.

saiya-jin 10y ago
I presume seeing somebody very close dying from dengue/cerebral malaria/etc would change your perspective of "this ain't science". But that won't happen to many in 1st world countries, would it. Few millions of poor dying somewhere far away ain't that much of a hot issue to you? mankind wants to eradicate all diseases for example. don't you think that they also have their role in the food chain, albeit probably more on the single cellular scale? why not protect those? It's us vs them, due to global warming they are spreading to new places all the time. nobody is talking about removing all mosquitoes from the face of the earth, just those 100 you mentioned. Will there be some mess and consequences from it? of course, there are always consequences, even if you fart in the wind. considering the clusterfk we are heading to in terms of destroying the nature, this is peanuts with very real positive and immediate results to poorest and weakest of this world. count me in.
- Tannic 10y ago
  Consider that one reason mosquitoes are a problem is that humans are wiping out their ecosystems, including things that eat them. The best thing we could do would be to enhance predator habitat so the animals that have evolved to hunt them over millions of years are allowed to do that.