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The ecological systems would likely be fine; the mosquitoes responsible for diseases are a minority. But that is beside the point and does not matter. What mat
by petters 6y ago
The ecological systems would likely be fine; the mosquitoes responsible for diseases are a minority.
But that is beside the point and does not matter. What matters are 700,000 human lives annually.
It's tragic really. If we had these diseases in Europe or North America, we would have already done this.
- ahelwer 6y agoMaybe you didn't click the link, so I guess I'll ask you: how many humans would die if we did exterminate the mosquitoes? More or less than 700,000? Do you know? You have no way of knowing how ecological systems would react.
- petters 6y agoI think disease-carrying species live together with non-disease-carrying species, which, if correct, would mean an ecological impact of effectively zero. We humans have a long, long "tradition" of exterminating species and we know it will not affect things that really matter to us, like agriculture and water. The number of human deaths will be effectively zero.
- lucisferre 6y agoSeveral of the comments responding to him do address this and at least some of the people commenting do appear to know, or at least know more than Nassim Taleb appears to. Besides, his statement isn't an argument, and present no facts or information. > Imbecilic remark. Do you know how many humans would die if we eliminated mosquitos? Any idea? petters also appears to be correct on what would happen if we had these issues in North America. Your own province kills mosquitos en masse and those ones aren't even carrying deadly disease they are just a nuisance. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/deltamethrin-first-use-winnipeg-1.5347539 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/deltamethrin-first-u...
- ahelwer 6y agoTaleb's position in general is one of extreme conservatism when meddling with ecological systems (for example he is also against GMOs). The basis for this conservatism is his general concern with risk in a nonlinear world. He does indeed put forth an argument, which is: can you predict the effects of this? No, you cannot, and possible effects include ecological collapse. Re: Manitoba, spraying to reduce mosquito populations in urban areas is a whole different ball game from extermination.
- yyyk 6y agoTaleb's position in a nutshell: http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/ http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/
- pnako 6y agoPretty much zero humans would die. Ecosystems adapt. The things eating mosquitoes would find something else to eat, or maybe not. Some species will grow their population, some will reduce. Some species will evolve a bit differently. The idea that everything will collapse if we eradicate mosquitoes or pandas is just absurd (I have nothing against pandas by the way; I'm just observing that them disappearing did not collapse everything).
- pitaj 6y agoWe did already do that. It was called spraying DDT everywhere.