Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017) • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by seppin » Sat, May 30, 2020, 8:18 AM UTC

dota_fanatic wrote: post #310

rainbowzootsuit wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was once in a hand to hand struggle with a pit bull that attacked another smaller dog. At least three bystanders took part simultaneously in kicking and punching the pit bull to get it to release the smaller dog. The only way to dissuade the pit, after what was at least a couple of minutes of this and with the smaller dog being disemboweled, was that I stabbed the pit bull in the neck with my pocket knife. Their ph…

No respected dog behaviorist would ever advise kicking, punching, or stabbing to break up a dog fight regardless of breed. Y’all made it worse.

I believe he was trying to stop the Pit from killing another dog, not train it to be better.

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

#362

Post by toshk » Sat, May 30, 2020, 8:44 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #257

toshk wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking of ways to reduce mosquitos populations are understandable, and many organisations are working on them, but this proposition to completely eradicate them, mainly with certain technologies, is borderline insanity. The problems eradication solves are obvious and important to solve. The problems eradication might cause are less obvious and are potentially disastrous.

There are thousands of species of mosquito, dozens of which transmit malaria, and only a handful which do it really well. Many of the mosquitos are invasive species anyway. The point being, there are many many of species which would fill up the ecological niche left if we extincted a few.

Im surprised with how much certainty you make such a claim.

Next to that it's not only the side effect of extinction of one species, but also the unforeseen side effects of the technologies used to accomplish this (extreme) extinction.

The whole point of technologists is that they really have to much faith that we both understand these complex ecosystems and complex technologies we just started using.

To try to put a technology on grand scale that you don't fully understand and can't control once in the wild is really stupid.

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

#363

Post by dekervin » Sat, May 30, 2020, 9:15 AM UTC

HappyDreamer wrote: post #259

morsch wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0 Traffic 1,350,000 Sort of weird to limit the Human category to, apparently, conflict, war, murders, and acts of terrorism. Also, it's horrible that conflict, war, murders, and acts of terrorism are in the same ballpark as traffic deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... (2016)

1.5 Suicides 800 000 The traffic, and suicides, are the two main dangerous things for younger people in non-malaria and not-a-war zones. I was in an a little bit conflict zone recently, and people asked if I was worried and said I should be careful. They didn't know -- the local people living there -- that the traffic is 100 times more dangerous than the slightly ongoing conflict. They just look at the news and feel…

Reading you, I wonder what would be the collective psychological effect if the relative risks were correctly assessed in our day-to-day routine.

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

#364

Post by 7leafer » Sat, May 30, 2020, 10:12 AM UTC

7leafer wrote: post #95

clairity wrote: post #54

700K per year. ok let's let the elephant out of the bag: why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated? and no, it's not that the current pandemic was more uncertain. even by january/february, it was clearly less contagious and deadly than the 1918 flu. we had good bounds on potential trajectory by early march, when many lockdowns were being implemented.

"why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated?" One does not simply question the official corona narrative here without being censored by downvoting or flagging. But answering your question: that's because such scenario was not developed and funded. Yet.

да на хую я вас вертел, ссыкливые минусаторы

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

#365

Post by thaumasiotes » Sat, May 30, 2020, 10:33 AM UTC

cameronfraser wrote: post #36

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...

Poor sharks, they get one of the worst raps for how little damage they do to humans. I'm surprised to see dogs so high up on that list.

> Poor sharks, they get one of the worst raps for how little damage they do to humans.

Sharks can't do very much damage to humans because, in the natural course of events, it is impossible for a shark and a human to meet.

But sharks are quite dangerous conditioned on the fact that you're encountering one.

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

#366

Post by EL_Loco » Sat, May 30, 2020, 10:36 AM UTC

dota_fanatic wrote: post #310

rainbowzootsuit wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was once in a hand to hand struggle with a pit bull that attacked another smaller dog. At least three bystanders took part simultaneously in kicking and punching the pit bull to get it to release the smaller dog. The only way to dissuade the pit, after what was at least a couple of minutes of this and with the smaller dog being disemboweled, was that I stabbed the pit bull in the neck with my pocket knife. Their ph…

No respected dog behaviorist would ever advise kicking, punching, or stabbing to break up a dog fight regardless of breed. Y’all made it worse.

Well, he wasn't a dog behaviorist, and he's not required to know how to adequately deal with vicious dogs trying to tear apart little ones. Stabbing the pitbull saved the other dog's life.

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

#367

Post by dota_fanatic » Sat, May 30, 2020, 1:33 PM UTC

rainbowzootsuit wrote: post #331

dota_fanatic wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No respected dog behaviorist would ever advise kicking, punching, or stabbing to break up a dog fight regardless of breed. Y’all made it worse.

We decidedly did not make it worse. The smaller ~20lbs dog was being courageously held onto by its owner underneath both dogs for the entire ~fight~ mauling to prevent it from being taken away and killed by the ~100lbs pit bull. I didn't see in that situation that I had time to consult with a respected behaviorist and get into the dog's upbringing, give it some positive reinforcement, tummy rubs, and treats, but I di…

Interesting that you and other comments took mine to mean how to train a dog, which is irrelevant to the situation under consideration. Did any of y'all mean that in good faith?

No, it's about how to de-escalate a severe situation without loss of life. (Good) policemen don't break up a fight between an 18 yr old and 10 yr old by viciously beating and then stabbing the 18 yr old. My point was only that the instincts of those involved made the situation worse before it was made better. And based on the new facts, starting with the owner.

Just as with humans, there's a well understood hierarchy of severity of tools for handling situations such as that one, though only a small minority of dog owners know them. It's incredibly unfortunate that dog lives are more or less toys for humans to play with, otherwise this fight is likely to never have happened if it was a severe as you say before it turned into a five animal brawl.

Bottom line the three of you DID make it worse before it was made better. The punching and kicking won't help in all probability. It's simply not on the spectrum of effective tools. Killing is on the far end, so I'm not begrudging your actions, I'm begrudging the behavior before it: yelling (probably), kicking, and punching instead of forcing the bite, wheelbarrowing, and other environmental tools that may have been available. Y'know, the things that animal behaviorists have figured out, how to cause specific behaviors, like stopping a dog from biting another during a fight.

I'm not sure why I wrote this comment since apparently your only regret is not achieving your intent which was to kill the dog. You managed to stop the fight without causing death, a huge win, but you wish otherwise. I sincerely hope your future is brighter than your past.

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

#368

Post by rainbowzootsuit » Sat, May 30, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

dota_fanatic wrote: post #367

rainbowzootsuit wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We decidedly did not make it worse. The smaller ~20lbs dog was being courageously held onto by its owner underneath both dogs for the entire ~fight~ mauling to prevent it from being taken away and killed by the ~100lbs pit bull. I didn't see in that situation that I had time to consult with a respected behaviorist and get into the dog's upbringing, give it some positive reinforcement, tummy rubs, and treats, but I di…

Interesting that you and other comments took mine to mean how to train a dog, which is irrelevant to the situation under consideration. Did any of y'all mean that in good faith? No, it's about how to de-escalate a severe situation without loss of life. (Good) policemen don't break up a fight between an 18 yr old and 10 yr old by viciously beating and then stabbing the 18 yr old. My point was only that the instincts o…

I did the wheelbarrowing thing from the start. That only took leverage off of the small dog to try to give the other people who enough time to try to dissuade the pit bull, but as I said, nothing distracted it from its purpose until I stabbed it. It was obvious when I was able to see the intestines of the small dog exposed that it was going to not last long and my resolve was to try to kill the aggressor if one was going to die for sure at that point.

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

#369

Post by acdha » Sat, May 30, 2020, 1:47 PM UTC

netsec_burn wrote: post #322

acdha wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution doesn’t care about longevity or quality of life: it’s all about passing genes on. If some kind of mosquito resistance didn’t lead to increasing the number of children you have there’s not going to be much selection pressure for it.

Would it not, if the individuals that are not bearing the anti-mosquito skin die off?

Possibly but it’s a complicated trade off: first, there’s the question of how much advantage it could confer – if young people get through a disease and the deaths are mostly old people who are past reproductive age, there might not be enough advantage (especially since humans are social - a 10 year old losing a parent is a tragedy but probably not fatal if you live with older siblings, relatives, or a tribe). Depending on what people are dying of and when, this might not be enough to select for.

The second big factor is what it would need to develop. This isn’t a directed process - something needs to confer a benefit of some sort early to be selected for, not just after hundreds of generations. If you’re talking about a major change like completely changing mammalian skin, that sounds very complicated compared to other things (such as improved immune function for the specific disease killing people), and there’s an arms race if all you’re doing is selecting for mosquitoes with better bites which might not be winnable.

Finally, there’s the question of downsides: do the mutations producing this leave you more vulnerable to other conditions, less likely to attract mates, etc. If that tough skin costs more to grow, you’re paying the cost upfront even if you’re living somewhere without a huge mosquito population, so it might be maladaptive for too much of the total population to maintain.

The downsides discussion is particularly relevant in the case of sickle cell anemia, which is believed to be a side effect of an evolved malaria resistance – beneficial if you live in an area where it’s common but a net loss if you do not:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20450-how-sickle-cell...

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

#370

Post by perl4ever » Sat, May 30, 2020, 2:00 PM UTC

Too wrote: post #347

perl4ever wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the statistics I have seen, if the US took Sweden's approach to the current epidemic (which has been recently held up as a model on HN and elsewhere) and got similar results, an additional 30,000 people would have died thus far. I haven't seen anyone bring this up and ask for an accounting of the benefit that is greater.

While there has been a high death rate in Sweden, especially in elderly homes which weren't isolated properly, you have to be careful when comparing stats between countries. Sweden seems to file more deaths as COVID, instead of just attributing it as death by age, heart attack, or some other unexplained reason, including those dying in elderly care and not only those in hospitals. Here is a more complete summary: htt…

Ranking countries is not the point; the point is that people who endlessly lecture on why the US is inferior have no particular preference for whether 30,000 more or fewer Americans die, so rhetoric pretending to be concerned about highway deaths seems vapid and insincere.

You seem to be confirming that you are one of those people for whom a conversation that mentions the US can have no fixed point other than how inferior it is to Europe or the Nordic countries. Which is what I'm annoyed by. It's the lack of genuine dialog that is the issue.