5 ms·
If you're going to weigh the social factors in wiping out the 20-something species of mosquitoes which feed on humans (out of > 3000), I think you need to facto
by luma 8y ago
If you're going to weigh the social factors in wiping out the 20-something species of mosquitoes which feed on humans (out of > 3000), I think you need to factor in the possibility that malaria (and thus mosquitos) may be responsible for HALF of human deaths in our history.
Half. That's an outrageous number, but Nature suggests it might be true: https://www.nature.com/news/2002/021003/full/news021001-6.html https://www.nature.com/news/2002/021003/full/news021001-6.ht...
At what point do you think we are ethically clear to take drastic action against another species? How many more human lives need to be lost before you think it's OK?
- JackCh 8y agoHalf of human deaths isn't very significant considering that despite that the human population is still exploding at an unsustainable rate that will cause incredible environmental destruction if left unchecked. Far from being threatened with extinction, our present course will cause the extinction of countless other forms of life. And in response to that, you propose that we deliberately drive even more species to extinction for the purpose of making the problem even worse? > "How many more human lives need to be lost before you think it's OK?" If they were a threat to the survival of our species, I would sign off on it. Plainly they are not. How many more species must be exterminated before you decide the planet is safe enough for humanity? When will the Disney Worldification of the planet be sufficient for you? Maybe Disney World levels of safety from wildlife aren't even sufficient for you? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/11/03/disney-knew-its-park-was-full-of-alligators-it-caught-hundreds-before-a-boy-was-killed/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/11/03/d...
- BurningFrog 8y agoIt's rare to see someone state so plainly that they just don't care about human life. It makes it clear that I have no common ground for this kind of discussion with that person.
- mjburgess 8y agoI think he's more concerned about not conceding is original point wasn't thought through; so rather than losing face, he advocates mass extinction of human beings, over mass extinction of a tiny number of mosquitoes. That sort of trading genocide for one's own ego is Maoist and Stalinist, and it is really no different from their thought processes. Thankfully though stable political systems marginalize low-rank people like this. (Thus, be very afraid of revolutions).
- JackCh 8y ago> "he advocates mass extinction of human beings" Far from it, this is not even remotely a possibility. Mosquitoes are not threatening humanity with extinction in any conceivable way. As I stated elsewhere in this thread yesterday, if humanity were actually threatened by mosquitoes, I would support their eradication.
- dang 8y agoWould you please stop using HN for ideological battle? This is a significant step to the worse in what was already a terrible subthread. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- JackCh 8y agoHumanity is important but humanity is not currently being threatened. If humanity were actually being threatened I would support the eradication of any species threatening it.
- BurningFrog 8y agoOK, you care about humanity as a species. But apparently not about thousands or millions of individual humans dying.
- eanzenberg 8y agoIts easy to want lower human mortality when you’ve already benefited from greatly increased human mortality due to scientific progress.
- Majestic121 8y agoI think you meant the opposite of what you wrote, i.e. 'want bigger human mortality ... benefited from greatly reduced human mortality'
- JackCh 8y agoIt's easy to ignore the destruction of the environment if all you care about is optimizing for the human race at the expense of all other species.
- luma 8y agoYou are overtly advocating for mass genocide.
- JackCh 8y agoThe only genocide being proposed in this thread is the mass extermination of mosquitoes.
- dang 8y agoPlease don't do this kind of flamewar on HN. They're all the same and all off topic here. Ditto for https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17502054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17502054. You lowered the discussion significantly by taking it in an inflammatory direction, yielding flamey responses, which you then fed. I don't think you were trolling on purpose, but it has much the same effect. We're trying to avoid that, please don't post that way here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoImagine if half of all the humans who have died didn't. How screwed would we all be right now. Of course it doesn't work quite like that, but still. We might save enough humans to destroy the planet faster than we can fix it ... now solve that one without doing something "evil"!
- whatshisface 8y agoThe speed of "fixing" the planet scales faster than the human load on it due to economies of scale - imagine today's population with the agricultural techniques of antiquity. It would be complete global annihilation of us and everything else.
- jakobegger 8y agoBirth control / contraceptives are pretty effective against overpopulation. Most parents prefer having one, two or three healthy kids rather than ten and losing half of them to malaria.