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Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

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Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#211

Post by whatshisface »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #195
luma wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.ht... At what…

Imagine 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"!

The 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.

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#212

Post by whatshisface »

JackCh wrote: post #189
luma wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to need a source on that. Fewer than 30 out of 3000 species of mosquito feed on humans. There is little reason for us to bother with the rest.

As I've stated throughout this threat, it isn't just about mosquitoes. Honestly I would not mourn mosquitoes if every last species was exterminated. What concerns me is the social impact of further establishing humanity as the arbitrators of which species get to live and which deserve to be exterminated. It won't stop at mosquitoes; the extermination of mosquitoes will be used to justify even more exterminations in t…

Just recruit a few of the millions of people whose lives will be saved as environmental activists to warn against the dangers of tampering with nature and the social effects will balance out.

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#213

Post by soperj »

JackCh wrote: post #190
soperj wrote: post #122

I never understood why the U.S didn't just do the same sort of thing with poppies in Afganistan. Would have completely wiped out the Taliban funding.

In early 2001 the Taliban banned the growth of poppies and opium export plummeted to near zero. > The first American narcotics experts to go to Afghanistan under Taliban rule have concluded that the movement's ban on opium-poppy cultivation appears to have wiped out the world's largest crop in less than a year, officials said today. The American findings confirm earlier reports from the United Nations drug control pr…

Today I learned... thank you!

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#214

Post by 8bitsrule »

pm90 wrote: post #99
twelvechairs wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only Australia's CSIRO still had enough funding to do this kind of work itself rather than 'partner with' (i.e. contribute public funding towards the private investment goals of) for-profit companies. Amongst CSIRO's earlier inventions are 1960s insect repelent 'Aerogard', polymer banknotes and major components of Wi-Fi as we know it.

I don't see what the problem is if the for-profit companies goals align with theirs.

It's only a problem if their goals include efficiently getting the most research value out of taxpayer investment, while retaining highly-skilled public employees in a long-lived, scientifically-oriented organization.

Historically, a high percentage of major advances in basic science arose in publically-funded org's. The vision tends to be more long-term, the results less utilitarian.

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#215

Post by enneff »

soperj wrote: post #164
enneff wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be a lot easier to make cheap, pure heroin available to people who choose to use it. Switzerland does just that and it seems to benefit their society while taking money out of the pockets of the drug cartels: http://drugwarfacts.org/region/switzerland

Physically easier yes, politically easier debatable.

Politically easier than destroying the cash crops of a foreign country? Seems unlikely. :-)

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#216

Post by samatman »

8bitsrule wrote: post #214
pm90 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what the problem is if the for-profit companies goals align with theirs.

It's only a problem if their goals include efficiently getting the most research value out of taxpayer investment, while retaining highly-skilled public employees in a long-lived, scientifically-oriented organization. Historically, a high percentage of major advances in basic science arose in publically-funded org's. The vision tends to be more long-term, the results less utilitarian.

I've been known to draw public funds, so I'm not disputing your angle, but it's worth noting that historical period is quite brief in the whole history of science.

I could make a strong case that the majority of major advances in basic science were made during the "gentleman academic" era.

Publicly-funded research institutions start to become prominent around the Great War, and their relevance is increasingly challenged (see: the replication crisis).

Basic research is more important than the means by which it is funded.

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#217

Post by samatman »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #194
luma wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets worse. As I posted elsewhere in the comments, an article in Nature[1] suggests that up to half of humans ever to live have died as a result of mosquito-borne disease. In light of those numbers I feel we are ethically clear to take drastic action. We don't have to kill all mosquitoes as fewer than 1% of mosquito species feed on humans. We have several tools which will target the specific species which impact u…

What are the negative outcomes? Presumably we leave a niche for other mosquito or insect species to prosper in, which species will they be. Which species predate the mosquitoes we're eliminating, or how do those particular species adapt the environment and so impact the local eco-system? If we've not found any negatives then I imagine we've not tried very hard. Australia is kinda synonymous with species-wide populati…

"You imagine"

That says more about you than it does about the science.

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#218

Post by dosy »

meowface wrote: post #147
dosy wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I agree and think this is actually a thing. We don't know enough about what mosquitoes could be doing to help us. I think less-risk strategies like repellents / clothing / vaccines are better than ecosystem engineering. As 'impressively effective' as their results are, I do not think they are doing a good thing. So you better get your mosquito bites while they last.

You're not wrong, but you also have to consider that species-altering technology will likely save millions more lives in the next few decades than "strategies like repellents / clothing / vaccines" alone. There are careful tradeoffs and considerations to be made here. Germline altering should only be done in extreme circumstances, and I think this is one of them. Even if mosquitoes do pass on vital antibodies (why ha…

Yeah I think this is the right approach to thinking about these things. Careful consideration of the trade-offs and potential consequences. Rather than the "hey we have a new big weapon against X", let's deploy it everywhere! Maybe I was wrong to think people were suggesting this, but history has examples where humans have made these mistakes. So I think instinct to caution for systems we don't understand and can't easily fix (if we break them), is correct.

If we do it like the way you are saying I think it will work. At least I think that's the best chance we have. And I totally agree we must take these chances. And And I'm totally on board with the net benefit/ number of lives saves calculus, and also that we must go beyond natural selection to better our species.

We'll probably be okay because people as a whole have a diversity of opinions: some enthusiastic want to push forward, others want to move more cautiously. Put it together, hopefully we get the right balance. I guess this trait itself evolved, from hunter-gatherers. Only tribes that had the right mix of people: adventurers who want to explore new territory and cautioners who want to be careful, survive on average, I think. Hooray for careful progress.

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#219

Post by dfsegoat »

As good as this is for preventing the awful scourge of human disease that mosquitoes cause - I still wonder what the knock-on effects of this will be, with respect to the overall loss of biomass and mosquitoes as a food source.

tldr: Mother nature does not like sudden vacuums in complex ecosystems, it gets ugly for somebody at some part of the food chain where we never expected it.

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#220

Post by samatman »

soperj wrote: post #128
cimmanom wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the bilge of a ship, since they lay eggs in water?

Pretty sure mosquito eggs don't survive in salt water.

Bilge water isn't consistently salty.

A ship which unloaded in the St. Lawrence Seaway would fill the bilge tanks with fresh water.

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