5 ms·

Eliminating an insect that has been here for millions of years, part of the food chain, helping thousands of micro-organism to mix DNA and be exposed to various

Eliminating an insect that has been here for millions of years, part of the food chain, helping thousands of micro-organism to mix DNA and be exposed to various conditions, thus helping evolution... That won't cause a major issue ? Sure ? 100% Safe ? You swear ? No backies in case of totally destroying our environment like we always do ? We are such an arrogant specie.

josiahtu 9y ago
You're taking a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" approach, but the reality is that it is broken. Mosquitos kill millions.
- herbst 9y ago
  Could be a natural selection/control process tho.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    Yeah but to be fair, I don't want to be selected for death. If natural selection was at play, I should have died when I was 12 without my appendectomy. Human are all about saying not today to the God of death. For them self. So I just wish we continued this "not today" things, but with a broader perspective including not sawing the tree branch we are sitting on. Like destroying the entire ecosystem with our brilliant ideas.
- sametmax 9y ago
  No, I'm saying killing all the bugs is as good as a solution as cutting your arm because your have arthritis in your hand. Plus, there is a lot of BS with this "killing millions" arguments. As I lived in Mali, and worked in Senegal, Uganda and Kenya, I can tell you that: - people there consider it like a big flu. It only kills the very weak, others just have it like you have a running nose in the winter. And those people are weak because we destroyed their countries, we still leach them, so they have poor infrastructures and poor access to major resources, including food, clean water and decent hygiene. - We have had a cure to most forms of malaria for several years now. Not something experimental or mysterious. I just went to the Pasteur Institute in Paris for that. You have protocols based on Malarone (surprise, it's not the preventive-only drug they tell you it is, it can cure as well). But besides tropical disease expert doctors, nobody will let you know that. And Malians don't have the money to buy it anyway. See previous point. So mosquitoes are not the problem. The problem is that our system are killing millions. Should we solve that problem by a collective suicide ? Apparently death of the mass is the popular solution to people dying.
- soundwave106 9y ago
  Several Hacker News items regarding massive overall insect decline in general, and as far as I can tell, the general consensus has been that this is not a good thing. [1] [2] I think this is sort of where the concern is coming from. The mosquito is a special case considering how it carries lethal diseases, of course. So to me, control is certainly acceptable (mass extinction, I'm not so sure either). My guess is at any rate that this won't be a mass solution even if it 100% works -- applied at too much scale and a likely result is mosquitoes will develop resistance to Wolbachia (just as they have with chemicals when we tried massive control with pesticides). As a localized solution, this is intriguing. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14323533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14323533 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074
alex_young 9y ago
This technology can't eliminate mosquitoes. It's literally just birth control. Some mosquitoes still mate with otherwise normal males and continue to produce offspring.
- sametmax 9y ago
  That kinda makes me feel better to know that.
pault 9y ago
I've had dengue and zika, and I don't care how arrogant it is, I'm all for extincting those fuckers.
- sametmax 9y ago
  I HAVE malaria. Right now. I'm not.
  - saulrh 9y ago
    You have malaria, money, and first-world medical support. Very different thing. Kill the fuckers.
    - sametmax 9y ago
      So the problem is the state of the third world. No mosquitoes. Let's fix that instead of killing things. Especially since we are mostly responsible.
      - learc83 9y ago
        Why should we eradicate malaria? Or small pox? Surely they've had just as much impact on the world's ecosystem as mosquitoes.
        sametmax 9y ago
        We don't eradicate them. We just prevent us from being sick, it's a local action. We are not actively mass killing it. If you can't see the difference between defence and offence, local area of effect and genocide...
        learc83 9y ago
        >We are not actively killing it. What do you think a person's immune system does to smallpox when they have been inoculated against smallpox and they are exposed to it? We're not actively killing mosquitoes just preventing them from breeding.
ryandrake 9y ago
This sounds almost like a Creationist argument, like there is some greater purpose behind the existence of all species, or that each species is some kind of keystone keeping the whole spectrum of life together. I happen to believe that nature is not necessarily intelligent or benevolent. Not everything that is produced by natural selection is by definition good for the planet (or necessarily bad either).
- sametmax 9y ago
  No it's just that we are part of a delicately tuned system that balanced itself over millions of years. And we have the tendency to try poorly thought short term solutions that destroy everything. It's not like we don't have an entire history of screw ups to teach us. We should know better by now.
imtringued 9y ago
If it has existed without biting humans why is removing disease causing bacteria from two out of hundreds of mosquito species equivalent to eliminating mosquitos? Is the selective pressure that strong that an animal family that generally doesn't bite humans and ouf of the tiny percentage that does there is an even smaller percentage that carries a bacteria that can kill humans is required for the entire families survival? No insect is killed. The only change is that the mosquito doesn't carry a bacteria. Yet you equate that to the destruction of an entire species.

josiahtu 9y ago

You're taking a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" approach, but the reality is that it is broken. Mosquitos kill millions.

herbst 9y ago
Could be a natural selection/control process tho.
- sametmax 9y ago
  Yeah but to be fair, I don't want to be selected for death. If natural selection was at play, I should have died when I was 12 without my appendectomy. Human are all about saying not today to the God of death. For them self. So I just wish we continued this "not today" things, but with a broader perspective including not sawing the tree branch we are sitting on. Like destroying the entire ecosystem with our brilliant ideas.
sametmax 9y ago
No, I'm saying killing all the bugs is as good as a solution as cutting your arm because your have arthritis in your hand. Plus, there is a lot of BS with this "killing millions" arguments. As I lived in Mali, and worked in Senegal, Uganda and Kenya, I can tell you that: - people there consider it like a big flu. It only kills the very weak, others just have it like you have a running nose in the winter. And those people are weak because we destroyed their countries, we still leach them, so they have poor infrastructures and poor access to major resources, including food, clean water and decent hygiene. - We have had a cure to most forms of malaria for several years now. Not something experimental or mysterious. I just went to the Pasteur Institute in Paris for that. You have protocols based on Malarone (surprise, it's not the preventive-only drug they tell you it is, it can cure as well). But besides tropical disease expert doctors, nobody will let you know that. And Malians don't have the money to buy it anyway. See previous point. So mosquitoes are not the problem. The problem is that our system are killing millions. Should we solve that problem by a collective suicide ? Apparently death of the mass is the popular solution to people dying.
soundwave106 9y ago
Several Hacker News items regarding massive overall insect decline in general, and as far as I can tell, the general consensus has been that this is not a good thing. [1] [2] I think this is sort of where the concern is coming from. The mosquito is a special case considering how it carries lethal diseases, of course. So to me, control is certainly acceptable (mass extinction, I'm not so sure either). My guess is at any rate that this won't be a mass solution even if it 100% works -- applied at too much scale and a likely result is mosquitoes will develop resistance to Wolbachia (just as they have with chemicals when we tried massive control with pesticides). As a localized solution, this is intriguing. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14323533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14323533 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074

alex_young 9y ago

This technology can't eliminate mosquitoes. It's literally just birth control. Some mosquitoes still mate with otherwise normal males and continue to produce offspring.

sametmax 9y ago
That kinda makes me feel better to know that.

pault 9y ago

I've had dengue and zika, and I don't care how arrogant it is, I'm all for extincting those fuckers.

sametmax 9y ago
I HAVE malaria. Right now. I'm not.
- saulrh 9y ago
  You have malaria, money, and first-world medical support. Very different thing. Kill the fuckers.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    So the problem is the state of the third world. No mosquitoes. Let's fix that instead of killing things. Especially since we are mostly responsible.
    - learc83 9y ago
      Why should we eradicate malaria? Or small pox? Surely they've had just as much impact on the world's ecosystem as mosquitoes.
      - sametmax 9y ago
        We don't eradicate them. We just prevent us from being sick, it's a local action. We are not actively mass killing it. If you can't see the difference between defence and offence, local area of effect and genocide...
        learc83 9y ago
        >We are not actively killing it. What do you think a person's immune system does to smallpox when they have been inoculated against smallpox and they are exposed to it? We're not actively killing mosquitoes just preventing them from breeding.

ryandrake 9y ago

This sounds almost like a Creationist argument, like there is some greater purpose behind the existence of all species, or that each species is some kind of keystone keeping the whole spectrum of life together. I happen to believe that nature is not necessarily intelligent or benevolent. Not everything that is produced by natural selection is by definition good for the planet (or necessarily bad either).

sametmax 9y ago
No it's just that we are part of a delicately tuned system that balanced itself over millions of years. And we have the tendency to try poorly thought short term solutions that destroy everything. It's not like we don't have an entire history of screw ups to teach us. We should know better by now.

imtringued 9y ago

If it has existed without biting humans why is removing disease causing bacteria from two out of hundreds of mosquito species equivalent to eliminating mosquitos? Is the selective pressure that strong that an animal family that generally doesn't bite humans and ouf of the tiny percentage that does there is an even smaller percentage that carries a bacteria that can kill humans is required for the entire families survival? No insect is killed. The only change is that the mosquito doesn't carry a bacteria. Yet you equate that to the destruction of an entire species.