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

Insects Are in Serious Trouble

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 168 posts

Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble

#141

Post by taw55 »

Caprinicus wrote: post #109
nostromo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed in South East Asia it was common to keep a water feature in the yard with one or more fish in it. Mosquitos land on the water to lay eggs and are immediately eaten by the fish. The water feature could be quite small. Sometimes just a large vase in a shady location with no aeration pump or filter (the water needs to be stagnant) and a few goldfish. Or... you know... lasers. :D

Either we put the lasers on the fish or I’m out

Sharks with frikkin’ lazers beams!

Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble

#142

Post by taw55 »

mikeash wrote: post #54
avip wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there "growth" without consuming physical resources? If not, we have to accept OP's POV that economic growth is by definition unsustainable. "Anyone who thinks exponential growth can continue forever is either a madman or an economist"

Imagine an economy in perfect stasis, no growth, no shrinkage, just the same stuff year after year. Now introduce some efficiency improvement, like shaving some weight from a car design, or a computer chip that performs the same computation for less power, or an agricultural technique which requires less land for the same yield. Voilà, growth without consuming additional physical resources. Of course, this is not our…

> Of course, this is not our main source of growth at the moment. But surely it could be?

Yeah, but for how long?

Exponential economist meets finite physicist: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist...

Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble

#143

Post by taw55 »

b0rsuk wrote: post #10

I think nothing will change as long as economic growth is understood as economic Good . Current economy can't work if there's no economic growth. Banks are among the biggest culprits. If banks lend money at a 5% interest rate, their customers must grow their businesses by 5%. A new, sustainable economy is needed. I think about it each time I see the Race for the Galaxy card. I've seen a radical example of this among…

A problem that often gets overlooked are the (geo) political ramifications of differences in economic output. I’m not sure if this is an existing hypothesis, but it seems evident to me.

If one actor grabs the bigger share of economic growth that puts it in a position of power over others. Nation states that can grow their population, resource extraction and have export surplus can use those things to exert political power over others. This means that states have a strong incentive for growth.

Likewise, if a population is dependent on money for their necessities, and there exists a limited stock of it, those who command a large fraction of it have defacto leverage over those with little.

Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble

#144

Post by wott »

omegaworks wrote: post #47
b0rsuk wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be that way ? What else could people compete for ? Facebook likes ? So far, almost all wealth is material in nature. As for digital rewards, data-centers and other computer infrastructure needs constant input of energy. Human population is growing, humans love to copulate and take pride in having children. We need bigger and bigger internets for bigger facebooks.

> humans love to copulate and take pride in having children. Developed countries are actually experiencing a population decline. As people get wealthier they tend to have fewer children, in some places less than 2 (replacement level). "All wealth is material in nature" ignores centuries of intellectual property.

> Developed countries are actually experiencing a population decline.

Japan left aside, all developed countries populations are growing. It has been 20 years that half of those countries are supposed to experience a population decline and it does not happen. At worst a handful stagnate. Even Germany is at its record high. France exploded each of the forecasts which promised its population decline, so the next ones are revised upwards and then exploded again.

Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble

#145

Post by alex_duf »

chaostheory wrote: post #111
hutzlibu wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a much better way to get rid of mosquitos in a local area, but not of everything else, would be a laser turret ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser Unfortunately not market ready, yet ... edit: bat boxes, water-fish traps and having birds around will certainly reduce mosquito population ... but there will be still lots of them around. A laser can take them (allmost) all out ... Oh and about the wa…

TLDR: mosquitos hate air current. Just buy a few electric fans. No chems and relatively cheap. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/science/a-low-tech-mosquit...

I like simple solutions like that...

Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble

#146

Post by b0rsuk »

King-Aaron wrote: post #130
mikeash wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like growth. I want to be wealthier or be able to work less (which is really just an aspect of being wealthier). I want everybody else to be wealthier too. I want my children to be better off than I am. The problem is growth without care for the consequences. Making some people wealthier at the expense of killing the planet is a bad plan. But I think that it goes too far the other way to turn around and say that gr…

Ultimately of course, when you work less someone else has to work more to sustain you. And what if that person wants to work less? Well someone else has to work more to sustain them. And that person, when they want to work less, ends up in the same position. It's not really sustainable.

When you work less it doesn't automatically mean someone has to work for you. Each time a more efficient method is discovered, you could - in theory - work less to accomplish just as much. The trouble is, I think, that capitalist business owners respond by tightening the screws. I guess the idea is "why should my employees work less ? I will have less money than my pal business owner." If he doesn't tighten the screws, he will lose competition to another company.

Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble

#147

Post by autokad »

schiffern wrote: post #126
autokad wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nothing is neither created nor destroyed, by that very law there cannot be a crop that does not take from the soil. If I eat a banana that has potassium in it, it lends to the fact that it took potassium out of the soil. farmers do add fertilizer and other stuff back to the soil, though we are finding that maybe there is more to the equation. certain methods like tilling are done to kill parasites, etc, but it may al…

> If I eat a banana that has potassium in it, it lends to the fact that it took potassium out of the soil. This is true. However the little-known fact is that healthy soil contains all the "machines" required to break down the abundant insoluble potassium (along with every other necessary element) present in rock particles into plant-soluble fertilizer. This "insoluble pool" contains enough nutrients for literally th…

yes, i mentioned tilling the soil damages it, I just didnt go into an exhaustive list.

Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble

#148

Post by riot504 »

adventured wrote: post #115
riot504 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have thought about that often. The conclusion I have reached is this Earth's way of keeping the population of a species at a natural state - droughts, plagues etc... At first this appears harsh based on our preconceived notions of humanity. Many people will die due the environmental conditions in which they live - regardless of pollution levels. Earth does not have a bias towards one species, such as political/econ…

> the strongest/fittest will survive Most able to adapt, most responsive to change. Not the strongest / fittest. It's an extremely important distinction. Wealth isn't the ultimate strength or source of power. It's #2 on the list behind political power, which is backed up by armies in most cases. Just ask rich people in authoritarian nations who is in charge (in recent times see: China, where rich people are routinely…

True and I agree, but you can't have political power without wealth. It is a catch-22 in my opinion, which came first the chicken or the egg type scenario.

Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble

#149

Post by defterGoose »

b0rsuk wrote: post #37
njarboe wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the main problems is that GDP is used as the measure of national prosperity. GDP goes down when people decide to work less. Some kind of net wealth measurement would be much better parameter for a country to try and maximize. Include natural resources and the biosphere in that wealth. In this scheme taking oil from the ground and burning it would likely be a net negative on national wealth while using…

When a company produces 1000 cars and pollutes a river in process, this counts as economic growth. When another company spends time, money and resources to clean that river, that also counts as economic growth, even if was just to get natural environment back to its original health. Some food for thought.

What? You're making a serious stretch there. The profit from the cars contributes directly to GDP, but even if individual people get paid to help clean up the river, where is that money coming from? It's a DRAIN on resources to get the river back to normal, there's no profit. Therefore it's not growth.

Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble

#150

Post by defterGoose »

flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #8

Just some wishful thinking here... Is it possible that the local insect populations got wise to these malaise traps that the researchers were using in western germany? Apparently the way that a malaise trap works is that it waits for insects to fly into it's wall, hopes that they crawl up the wall, and then hopes that they crawl right into a bottle filled with ethanol. Now I do not know anything at all about insects…

Typical. "Let's attribute this serious and foreboding situation to a veritable act of God, like insects getting spontaneously smarter, so that we can all go home feeling a bit happier and less responsible for our impending doom."
Post reply on HN