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Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

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Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#211

Post by throwaway894345 »

saalweachter wrote: post #204
throwaway894345 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure that 0.4% is "among people who develop symptoms" and 35% of infections are asymptomatic. So 0.4% of 65% of infections, or ~0.26% of infections. [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...

Thanks for the correction; everyone else, ignore what I wrote one post up. (It's a shame HN doesn't support strike-through; that is my preferred way to retract a post without just deleting it in shame.)

No problem. This stuff is all very nuanced and rapidly changing. It's hard not to make a mistake.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#212

Post by jbay808 »

derefr wrote: post #193
bredren wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t have to be this abstract, though. This will likely change in the next 20 years. Consider the move from horse drawn carriages to vehicles. It was an acceptable risk that anyone might be permanently disabled due to being kicked in the head or trampled by a horse. This might be a horse you are simply walking past. Or one that is spooked and running down the street. The owner of the horse beared little to no r…

I don’t disagree with the principles you’re standing up for here; but we’re not having an ethical argument, we’re talking about what went into the author’s analysis. And AFAICT, in said analysis, they just took for “human deaths caused by humans”, the set of deaths where one human thought “I want that other human to die”, and then caused that to happen. Situations with legal mens rea for killing.

Ok, but that makes it incompatible for comparison with the other animals killing humans. In some cases maybe (sharks, wolves, lions, crocodiles) the animal could be actively wanting the human to die, but in others (freshwater snails, tapeworms, mosquitoes), that's probably not the case.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#213

Post by activatedgeek »

It is uneasy to read this number and I don't get the full picture here.

1. What is the distribution of this number across geographical regions? Is it uniformly spread across all regions? Are some regions outliers?

2. The distribution of this number over time of the year in every geographic region is perhaps an interesting thing to look at for short-term solutions.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#214

Post by addicted44 »

clairity wrote: post #66
thawaway1837 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm, for one thing because going into lockdown wouldn’t do anything to prevent death by mosquito? You do know that mosquitoes have wings and can move from place to place without humans right?

you know that the most effective preventative for mosquito bites are mosquito nets, like staying inside, with screens on your windows and doors, right?

So you dont need a lockdown. You simply need mosquito nets.

So when you have a cheap solution that works, why would you want to do something expensive that does not even work any better than the cheap solution?

Other than making a nonsensical ideological statement, that is.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#215

Post by globular-toast »

Koshkin wrote: post #18

To put this in a perspective, 1 Mosquito 1,000,000 2 Human 475,000 3 Snake 50,000 4 Dog 25,000 5 Tsetse Fly 10,000 6 Assassin Bug 10,000 7 Freshwater Snail 10,000 8 Ascaris Roundworm 2,500 9 Tapeworm 2,000 10 Crocodile 1,000 11 Hippopotamus 500 12 Elephant 100 13 Lion 100 14 Wolf 10 15 Shark 10 https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-animals-that-kill-mo...

This list isn't really fair. Mosquitoes don't actually kill people, they are just vectors for a disease which does kill people. So then humans should get a point for every death due to flu, AIDS or COVID-19, right? And all the accidental deaths too, because I'm pretty sure the mosquitoes are just living and don't intend to kill anyone. So I think human should be number 1 by a very long way, followed by mosquito.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#217

Post by dekhn »

ravenstine wrote: post #85
Koshkin wrote: post #18

To put this in a perspective, 1 Mosquito 1,000,000 2 Human 475,000 3 Snake 50,000 4 Dog 25,000 5 Tsetse Fly 10,000 6 Assassin Bug 10,000 7 Freshwater Snail 10,000 8 Ascaris Roundworm 2,500 9 Tapeworm 2,000 10 Crocodile 1,000 11 Hippopotamus 500 12 Elephant 100 13 Lion 100 14 Wolf 10 15 Shark 10 https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-animals-that-kill-mo...

Is it most mosquitoes, or is it primarily aedis aegypti? I could swear I read that particular species was responsible for most mosquito-bourne disease, but I can't seem to find much information for the proportion between it and other species. If they disproportionally kill even more than other mosquitoes, that also puts things into greater perspective. Perhaps if we could target this particular species, it would save…

From Project Debug, Verily's attempt at reduction of mosquito problems: https://debug.com/

"""Mosquitoes kill more people than every other animal combined. One species, Aedes aegypti, carries diseases such as dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and chikungunya which make hundreds of millions of people sick every year"""

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#218

Post by lxmorj »

jbay808 wrote: post #212
derefr wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t disagree with the principles you’re standing up for here; but we’re not having an ethical argument, we’re talking about what went into the author’s analysis. And AFAICT, in said analysis, they just took for “human deaths caused by humans”, the set of deaths where one human thought “I want that other human to die”, and then caused that to happen. Situations with legal mens rea for killing.

Ok, but that makes it incompatible for comparison with the other animals killing humans. In some cases maybe (sharks, wolves, lions, crocodiles) the animal could be actively wanting the human to die, but in others (freshwater snails, tapeworms, mosquitoes), that's probably not the case.

Peace talks sometimes work. Asking sharks to tone down the chomping does not. There is no point to differentiating ‘attack vs incidental’ animal deaths in the same way as w humans...

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#219

Post by jayrot »

paulsutter wrote: post #208
derefr wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The human category is limited, I believe, to intentional killing. Otherwise you open up a whole can of worms about macroeconomic trolley problems. (Am I killing people right now by making insufficiently-optimal donations to charity?)

What makes you think mosquitos are deliberately spreading malaria?

One of them told me so.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#220

Post by [deleted] »

brenden2 wrote: post #180
derefr wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The human category is limited, I believe, to intentional killing. Otherwise you open up a whole can of worms about macroeconomic trolley problems. (Am I killing people right now by making insufficiently-optimal donations to charity?)

Presumably if you're speeding or driving while intoxicated, you're doing so intentionally. It's not as if someone is forcing you to drive too fast or too drunk. These things (especially speeding) dramatically increase the likelihood of being in a collision.

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