Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 441 posts

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#231

Post by technofiend »

mikestew wrote: post #5

This is one of those ideas that sounds genius on its face, until it's actually implemented. Kudzu? Grows fast, prevents erosion, let's pay farmers to till it into the top soil. MTBE? Prevents engine knock, makes for cleaner air, let's mandate its use at the federal level. Whoopsie, once it's in the water we can't get it out, and its a carcinogen. Let's kill all of the mosquitos because we find their presence unpleasa…

Or it could be like air bags and seat belts: certainly responsible for its share of issues, but far fewer than what it prevents.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#232

Post by __jal »

nradov wrote: post #222
wodenokoto wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that invasive species are considered harmful to the ecosystem while naturally spread species are considered part of the ecosystem.

Who gets to decide what is "harmful" and what isn't? Why is it necessarily better to have one animal species in a certain area rather than another? Valuing native species over invasive species seems like an arbitrary human value judgment. (I don't necessarily disagree with eradicating invasive species, but I've noticed that people often haven't thought it through or considered their biases.)

Why, you get to decide. And I do. And everyone else. Just like we all chose whom to listen to. Turns out that people who study these things and understand the implications tend to be more listened to than, say, me, because I'm not an expert.

But to explain a bit of the reasoning, as I understand it, invasive species are considered harmful to ecosystems because they tend to throw them out of equilibrium. If you introduce something to an environment with no natural predators or other environment feedback loops to constrain population growth, the newly introduced species has a field day, for a bit, until it kills off whatever it feeds on. Since ecosystems are inherently deeply interconnected things, the boom-bust cycle causes all sorts of problems.

Now maybe a new equilibrium is eventually "better" than it was before, but that, I think, is the real arbitrary human value judgment. Observing that introducing a new species throws existing systems out of whack isn't a value judgement - it accurately describes what happens.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#233

Post by sirtastic »

sportanova wrote: post #206
ElijahLynn wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truth. Most of the comments here made me realize that a significant amount of HN readers are less intelligent than I thought.

Yeah, as long as it's poor black people and South Americans who cares?

Save a hand full of people while potentially dooming billions? I might not be getting your sarcasm but I'm totally okay with the current situation when the other presents the possibility of destroying millions of ecosystems which mind you would effect billions to trillions of animals, insects, and even people across the globe who are dependent on these functioning ecosystems. Killing off the primary source of food for a few insects/animals can have cataclysmic effect.

In addition Mosquitoes do serve a purpose outside of being food. They introduce many diseases, much of which we developed immunities to and continue to successfully ward off naturally to this day. They are the worlds natural vaccination shot so to speak.

Truthfully the idea of killing off all mosquitoes seems so damn absurd I don't understand why anyone thinks it's a good idea.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#234

Post by bduerst »

XFrequentist wrote: post #228
bduerst wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really an apples to apples comparison. All of those are invasive species, except for the screw fly, which isn't a large part of a biological ecosystem (e.g. a sizeable portion of the Myotis lucifugus diet).

Aedes mosquitoes are indeed "invasive" in much (arguably, most) of the world.

Yes and eliminating two specific Aedes species from where they are invasive is by far the best plan of action.

Claiming that mass extinction of all mosquitoes from the ecosystem is a bullet the environment can take is another matter.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#235

Post by jessaustin »

nickff wrote: post #162
jessaustin wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly the EPA screwed up, but the BLM should have promoted rather than jailed the bureaucrat who sold the feral horses. That program should be ramped up: it would be better for the horses and for the arid environment that they inhabit if the absolutely necessary regular culling resulted in nutrition rather than thousands of horses penned up to no purpose for the rest of their lives. It's not as though we're going t…

I have heard of equivalent 'screwups' described as horrific criminal actions, described as being done by greedy, stupid, and lazy people who should be sent to federal prison; but alas, those were private parties. My point was that catastrophic negligence goes unpunished when committed by a bureaucrat. Horses were native to North America, and existed on the continent before humans arrived; they were probably wiped out…

I suppose we just have different ideas about what constitutes "catastrophic negligence", although I agree that government employment shouldn't shield one from the consequences of negligence.

The "horses" you're talking about were a different species, they were much smaller, they disappeared 12,000 years ago, and their predators included Smilodon and dire wolves. Environmental conditions have changed since then. The feral horses I'm talking about descend from long-domesticated stock of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. They are larger and more robust than typical deer. They inhabit desert country that currently doesn't have gray wolves and has only a tiny population of cougars. These two are really the only predators that could take down feral horses on a consistent basis, and they don't control feral horse populations in these areas. The vegetation in these areas is continually degraded by the presence of feral horses, which harms many actually wild species. Bison are not a factor because these areas are too hot and arid.

My objections to feral horses are not philosophical. If they occupied a sustainable niche in these environments I'd be happy. That just isn't the case. For more information about the mustang as it currently exists, I recommend the movie Unbranded, currently on Netflix. That movie sets up some sort of fake conflict between feral horses on BLM land vs private cattle on that land. It's true that horses' dentition means a single horse damages plants more than a single cow does. It's also true that neither domesticated animal should be present on much of this sensitive wild desert land in anything close to their current numbers.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#236

Post by speleding »

bduerst wrote: post #78
alwaysdoit wrote: post #38

We've done this lots[1] of[2] times[3] when it threatens agriculture, but when it threatens the lives of poor people in third world countries, suddenly we're worried about the ecosystem? There will be an environmental impact, but it will be from hundreds of millions of humans not getting malaria and climbing their way out of property, not from the lack of mosquitoes in the ecosystem. It's still a significant problem,…

It's not really an apples to apples comparison. All of those are invasive species, except for the screw fly, which isn't a large part of a biological ecosystem (e.g. a sizeable portion of the Myotis lucifugus diet).

There are places where mosquitos are an invasive species. Hawaii apparently did not have mosquitos until they were introduced there by humans. So that might be a good place to experiment with eradicating them, the "it's not natural" argument would carry less weight there.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#237

Post by technotony »

maaku wrote: post #98
alwaysdoit wrote: post #38

We've done this lots[1] of[2] times[3] when it threatens agriculture, but when it threatens the lives of poor people in third world countries, suddenly we're worried about the ecosystem? There will be an environmental impact, but it will be from hundreds of millions of humans not getting malaria and climbing their way out of property, not from the lack of mosquitoes in the ecosystem. It's still a significant problem,…

Those eradications were paid for by the Department of Agriculture (and equivalent organizations in other regions). Who is going to pay for the mosquito? I'm not objecting. I think we should eradicate the mosquito. But as someone who has worked for the government (albeit a different branch) I know that bureaucrats are not being evil or heartless when they don't allocate funds for necessary work that falls outside of t…

I’ve actually wondered if we should create some kind of ‘blackops’ X-prize. Crowdfund a million dollars in bitcoin and release it to someone who can prove they released a gene drive that wiped these monsters out.

Obviously this would be a major violation of the democratic process, but I feel like the utilitarian ends here justify the means. Should an individual have the power to take a global decision like this? Probably not, but this action is needed because the current GMO debate is so bogged down in unmovable, politically entrenched positions.

The environmental and social justice NGOs who campaign against this technology may be doing the world one of the greatest environmental dis-services we’ve ever seen. Biology is the ultimate sustainable technology, it’s crazy that environmental groups are opposing it’s use so strongly.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#238

Post by nradov »

__jal wrote: post #232
nradov wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who gets to decide what is "harmful" and what isn't? Why is it necessarily better to have one animal species in a certain area rather than another? Valuing native species over invasive species seems like an arbitrary human value judgment. (I don't necessarily disagree with eradicating invasive species, but I've noticed that people often haven't thought it through or considered their biases.)

Why, you get to decide. And I do. And everyone else. Just like we all chose whom to listen to. Turns out that people who study these things and understand the implications tend to be more listened to than, say, me, because I'm not an expert. But to explain a bit of the reasoning, as I understand it, invasive species are considered harmful to ecosystems because they tend to throw them out of equilibrium. If you introd…

But real world ecosystems are never in equilibrium, at least not for long. Even isolated ecosystems with little human contact and no invasive species experience boom and bust cycles. So we're actually just discussing the appropriate rate of change. How fast is too fast?

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#239

Post by Rylinks »

harperlee wrote: post #71
hellbanner wrote: post #7

On reddit, I remember seeing something like "Research assures government that killing mosquitos would have no negative effect on world ecology"... right above another thread titled "Scientists underestimate ecological impact of species destruction"... Do we actually understand Mosquitos role in the planet's eco system?

I was reminded by your post of Chesterton's fence: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fen...

Chesterton's fence applies to things that are built with a purpose. Natural evolution does not meet this criteria; mosquitoes are more like Chesterton's Fallen Tree.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#240

Post by jdmichal »

Htsthbjig wrote: post #142
lifeformed wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be side effects, but could it really be worse than the alternative? That is, one million deaths per year.

Of course. Do you eat pesticides for breakfast? How do you supposedly kill mosquitoes without chemical dangerous products? Products that will kill people with cancer, asthma or birth defects. How do you kill mosquitoes without killing bees and other useful insects that pollinize most of the agrarian production? Most people ignore that on their own(using just wind to pollinize) the food that we cultivate the food prod…

Read the article before commenting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique

Post reply on HN