Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes • Hacker News Board

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#291

Post by Joof » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 1:40 AM UTC

dmd wrote: post #274

kls wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty much ground zero of where they want to release them down here in the FL Keys and I am all for it. The amount of chemicals they pump out in the summer months is enough to sway me towards the belief that it can not be much if any riskier. When we hear the hum of the mosquito truck we have to yell, to our kids playing outside, to get in the house and stay out of the mist. Most of the other locals are vehemen…

When my mom was little, "it was very exciting when we heard the DDT truck coming and all the kids would run out of their houses or off the beach and run behind the fogging truck...the smell was kind of sweet and running in the DDT fog was fun."

The solution? Make it smell like ass.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#292

Post by ethbro » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 1:49 AM UTC

harshreality wrote: post #116

maaku wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Play up the (Zika) birth defect angle. Potential parents will be scared to death and will scream at their legislators to do something. There's all the funding they need.

Think of the children!

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#293

Post by readams » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 2:04 AM UTC

charlieflowers wrote: post #260

kpil wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was malaria in Sweden a couple of hundred years ago, and we still have a few mosquitos. It was never a big problem but malaria went away when it couldn't spread efficiently, largely because of better houses and hygiene such as not keeping the cattle in the same house (room) as the people. Also a lot of breeding ground was dried out and converted to farm land. I'm all for releasing CRISPR on the worst species of…

It's sad when a chain of logical reasoning points out (again) how weird it is that we cannot solve the real problem, which is "Why is there a third world in the first place?" Why does there have to be a region in permanent squalor? Why can't every place on earth where civilization exists be a decent place for humans to live, with peace, opportunity and sanitation? But ... back down to earth. Since we can't fix that l…

Malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases are actually a big reason why there is a third world.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#294

Post by kchoudhu » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 2:05 AM UTC

ommunist wrote: post #128

saulrh wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like 30 out of the 500 anopheles species are capable of carrying malaria. Of those, only those two matter, because the rest won't bite humans. Eradicating those two would be sufficient and another species (that doesn't bite humans) would take over. "Bites Humans" is furthermore not a strong enough competitive advantage to overcome any attempts to eradicate a successor that picks up the disease-ridden malari…

Look at this problem from different angle. These two species are only abundant in areas where humans live. The malaria annual death toll is about 440000 lives. Maybe it is more worth of an effort to move humans out of there? Since no one is going to eradicate cars worldwide just because the annual human death toll in car accidents is 1.25 million!

Let me know when you find a place that will accept and support 180MM Bangladeshis and 1B Africans.

Kill the mosquitos. It's cheaper in the long run.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#295

Post by wambotron » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 2:12 AM UTC

We have a TON of mosquitos in the late spring through late autumn seasons. Those asian tiger mosquitos. They bite all day long. You can't go out and expect to avoid them unless you're doused in Off, and even then it's no guarantee.

Last year my daughter got bit so badly that both of her legs looked like she had a huge rash. It was just a string of mosquito bites combined with a sensitivity to them that exaggerated an already rough problem.

All that said, I'm not sure I'm pro-extermination. We have a lot of bats that come around and eat the mosquitos around dusk. I'm sure they'd find other things to eat, but I like seeing them skim the pool for a drink and then eat a few dozen skeeters while they dart around. I also don't like people playing god with this type of stuff. The butterfly effect is real, and if we exterminate them all, we won't know what the effect is until it's already too late. Realistically, the earth adapts to whatever we do to it. Long after we're gone, there will be tons of interesting life forms. That still doesn't make me any less uneasy about it.

I don't know.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#296

Post by OneTwoFree » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 2:19 AM UTC

Probably I'm biased because I had a dengue fever infection a few years ago, but I don't understand the commenters here. Humanity as a whole burns millions of tonnes of coal, manufacturing millions of tonnes of products which are just thrown away, releasing who knows what chemicals into the rivers and oceans, not to mention the radioactive waste. And seriously you are worried about killing mosquitos?

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#297

Post by yourapostasy » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 2:28 AM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #111

mod wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+chiggers

We've already got a good start on guinea worms (they'd already be gone if it weren't for a set of superstitious, fuckface warlords in certain African countries). Other prime candidates: Pediculus humanus (human louse, including the head and body subspecies). Pthirus pubis (crab louse) Onchocerca volvulus (causes river blindness) Trichomonas vaginalis (causes nasty vaginal infections, and can be carried and spread by…

As long as we're making lists, add Cimex lectularius (common bed bugs). I'm tempted to toss the entire Cimicidae family into a gene incinerator from the outset, but I'll settle for wiping them out one species at a time. But nuke the mosquitoes that are proven viral vectors first; Cimicidae species if they transmit at all, transmit in very rare instances.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#298

Post by imakesnowflakes » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 2:50 AM UTC

saalweachter wrote: post #283

imakesnowflakes wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Evolution doesn't have an intent. Diseases can't "evolve themselves." I know. But when you remove mosquitoes from the picture, aren't you putting selection pressure on the diseases to be airborne? >Evolution happens through random mutations* and selection of the fittest... Yes. Say a virus of a disease x that normally spreads via mosquitos, gain a mutation to be airborne. But since there are an abundance of mosquito…

> I know. But when you remove mosquitoes from the picture, aren't you putting selection pressure on the diseases to be airborne? Organisms also need the opportunity to evolve; removing their only vector is analogous to trying to apply selective pressure to pigs to evolve to fly by throwing them off a cliff. Yes, any pig who could fly would survive and have a huge advantage over all the now-dead non-flying pigs. But i…

That would be true if you are going to eradicate mosquitoes overnight...

Also, I am just putting forward one possibility other than the effect on the food chain...

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#299

Post by cb18 » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 2:55 AM UTC

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,…

threatens the lives of poor people in third world countries, suddenly we're worried about the ecosystem?

I don't know how this will be received. I don't even know how I feel about it. But someone has to ask the tough questions.

Is it evolutionarily prudent to go about saving people who can't save themselves?

our current solution of "let all the poor people die" is not a good one.

I don't think that is our "current solution," the lives of many of the world's "poor" have gotten immeasurably better, health and material wise, since contact with Europeans.

Prior to outside contact sub-Saharan Africans didn't have the wheel, written language, a calendar, buildings greater than 1-story, any mechanical devices, domesticated animals, ...

Efforts against malaria, and for clean water are ongoing. Iodised salt does wonders. The list goes on... I don't know how you got in your mind your "current solution."

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#300

Post by imakesnowflakes » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 2:59 AM UTC

jonnathanson wrote: post #178

imakesnowflakes wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Evolution doesn't have an intent. Diseases can't "evolve themselves." I know. But when you remove mosquitoes from the picture, aren't you putting selection pressure on the diseases to be airborne? >Evolution happens through random mutations* and selection of the fittest... Yes. Say a virus of a disease x that normally spreads via mosquitos, gain a mutation to be airborne. But since there are an abundance of mosquito…

(I'm a layperson, too, for the record.) "I know. But when you remove mosquitoes from the picture, aren't you putting selection pressure on the diseases to be airborne?" Not necessarily that specific pressure. Except in carefully controlled laboratory situations, we can't specify the selection pressure being applied. There are too many potential pressures at work, and the mutation outcomes are too stochastic. At best…

So it seems that it is unlikely, but not entirely impossible.

Also, I am just putting forward a dangerous possibility other than the effect on the food chain..