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

GM fungus can rapidly kill mosquitoes that spread malaria, study suggests

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 160 posts

Re: GM fungus can rapidly kill mosquitoes that spread malaria, study suggests

#121

Post by fouric »

joshypants wrote: post #112
koodiorja wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Areas worst affected by Malaria mostly happen to be the ones also suffering from unsustainable population growth. I'm not sure whether fighting malaria should be the first priority if people potentially saved are likely to end up having miserable lives anyway? If there's any risk that that this might hurt the already harmed biodiversity, then it's clearly not worth it.

Comments like these are completely unacceptable.

How exactly does the parent comment violate HN guidelines?

Re: GM fungus can rapidly kill mosquitoes that spread malaria, study suggests

#122

Post by Kalium »

jeffdavis wrote: post #118
Kalium wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps there might be a higher level question at hand here. What level of caution is appropriate when the deliberate choice of inaction has a price tag of six digits of lives attached? What level of risk and potentially unforeseen consequences are we willing to accept? This is not an idle question. It's a critical question for informing a decision-making framework that rests on calculation. Which we need here - I th…

It sounds like you want to take a calculated risk. I'm not convinced that this is a calculated risk -- it's an unbounded risk. What if it, for example, kills of pretty much all of the insects over a large part of the earth?

I'm saying that taking a calculated risk requires a framework for calculation. Which must of course include the ability to handle for unbounded risks.

Re: GM fungus can rapidly kill mosquitoes that spread malaria, study suggests

#123

Post by ip26 »

jddj wrote: post #31

These threads about whether it's moral to kill mosquitoes en masse always seem to end up being about unintended consequences and ecosystem collapse. Some points to consider: - Those who study the strains of mosquito (a generous 50 out of ~3500) which spread disease in humans regularly state that they are not a primary food source for any one predator.[1] - Malaria killed 429 000 people in 2015, 90% of those being in…

I'm personally partial to the efforts which release genetically-sterilised males.

It also has the upside of being short lived. That is to say if we ever decide we need to stop using the technique, we just stop breeding sterile males. As opposed to invasive species or chemicals lurking in the soil or water long term.

Supposedly they can be bred pretty cheaply, too.

Re: GM fungus can rapidly kill mosquitoes that spread malaria, study suggests

#124

Post by Kalium »

sorryforthethro wrote: post #116
Kalium wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps there might be a higher level question at hand here. What level of caution is appropriate when the deliberate choice of inaction has a price tag of six digits of lives attached? What level of risk and potentially unforeseen consequences are we willing to accept? This is not an idle question. It's a critical question for informing a decision-making framework that rests on calculation. Which we need here - I th…

Another criticism of this haste is that you set yourself up to be taken advantage of by profiteers or genuine malicious actors. I understand the urgency to save lives as soon as possible; but the risk is high and uncertain.

You're right: the risks are both high and uncertain.

With that in mind, it's perhaps worth considering the potential benefits of having a uniform framework for evaluating risks that are attendant upon any given possible course of action. Risk evaluation neither starts nor stops with personal ick-factor or the worst scenarios imaginable. Risk evaluations also need to include the probability of success, expected costs, the estimated probability of any negative outcomes or side-effects, and so on. It's a non-trivial endeavor.

Again, you're right. The risks of any possible course of action, particularly poorly understood ones, are very real. They demand meticulous and systematic evaluation.

Re: GM fungus can rapidly kill mosquitoes that spread malaria, study suggests

#125

Post by zapita »

beat wrote: post #120
zapita wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As pygy_ explained above, colonialism has morphed into "neocolonialism through private corporations and puppet governments". That is a symptom of the widening gap in power between former colonies and former colonizers. That gap is compounding over time, making it harder and harder for former colonies to catch up. In that sense, the crippling effects of colonization are still felt today, and are continuing to grow wit…

What makes you think the gap is compounding? Is that fact-based, or feelings-based? I'd recommend reading Factfulness , by Hans Rosling. It'll cause you to rethink some things. edit: Here's an interesting fact for you. In the late 1990s, the global extreme poverty rate (around $1.80/day in today's dollars) was 29%. Today, it's under 9%. We've wiped out two thirds of the world's extreme poverty in twenty years. https:…

> What makes you think the gap is compounding? Is that fact-based, or feelings-based?

What a strange way to engage in a debate. I already explained why I think the gap is compounding. Feel free to offer a constructive rebuttal if you disagree.

> We've wiped out two thirds of the world's extreme poverty in twenty years.

That is fantastic. How does it relate to the compounding power gap we’re discussing?

Re: GM fungus can rapidly kill mosquitoes that spread malaria, study suggests

#126

Post by 0xffff2 »

not_a_cop75 wrote: post #104

The comparison to historic disasters caused by the introduction of invasive species can not be understated. Maybe the net positive is good, but there are still negative effects as of yet undiscovered. It would be nice to find a solution with only net positive, but we seem to live in a world of tradeoffs.

Do you mean overstated? If the comparison can't be understated, that implies that it's completely irrelevant and should be ignored; the rest of your comment seems to argue the opposite.

Re: GM fungus can rapidly kill mosquitoes that spread malaria, study suggests

#127

Post by Kliment »

beat wrote: post #120
zapita wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As pygy_ explained above, colonialism has morphed into "neocolonialism through private corporations and puppet governments". That is a symptom of the widening gap in power between former colonies and former colonizers. That gap is compounding over time, making it harder and harder for former colonies to catch up. In that sense, the crippling effects of colonization are still felt today, and are continuing to grow wit…

What makes you think the gap is compounding? Is that fact-based, or feelings-based? I'd recommend reading Factfulness , by Hans Rosling. It'll cause you to rethink some things. edit: Here's an interesting fact for you. In the late 1990s, the global extreme poverty rate (around $1.80/day in today's dollars) was 29%. Today, it's under 9%. We've wiped out two thirds of the world's extreme poverty in twenty years. https:…

Improvements in extreme poverty rate are neither here nor there when talking about whether the long-term effects of colonialism cause the speed of long-term development in former colonies to be slower. This is all that is necessary for wealth, income and power gaps to compound.

Re: GM fungus can rapidly kill mosquitoes that spread malaria, study suggests

#128

Post by Kliment »

fouric wrote: post #121
joshypants wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments like these are completely unacceptable.

How exactly does the parent comment violate HN guidelines?

It is literally advocating killing millions of people "because their lives will be miserable anyway". That's how you get genocides.

Re: GM fungus can rapidly kill mosquitoes that spread malaria, study suggests

#129

Post by roywiggins »

User23 wrote: post #117
roywiggins wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, vaccines can run horribly off the rails. One cannot mutate into a pathogen, as you say The live polio vaccine absolutely can. Before polio was largely eliminated, it didn't really matter, but once the risk of getting the wild-type virus dropped below the risk of getting it from the vaccine , it stopped making sense to use the live-attenuated vaccine. http://www.virology.ws/2015/09/10/why-do-we-still-use-sabin…

This makes me think that it's good persuasion to acknowledge that all anti-vaxxers aren't necessarily fundamentally irrational (some are I'm sure). Most people are anti-vaccine with respect to smallpox for example, as well as the polio example you give. We continue to use the vaccines we do because they improve the overall odds, not because they are a panacea with no downsides.

The modern inactivated ("killed", if you consider a virus alive) polio vaccine is nearly perfectly safe though (other than one-in-a-million allergic reactions), and can't give you polio. Nobody's used the live vaccine in the US since 2000.

People don't generally get vaccinated against smallpox anymore because the pathogen has been eradicated.

Re: GM fungus can rapidly kill mosquitoes that spread malaria, study suggests

#130

Post by WhompingWindows »

oxymoran wrote: post #108

I have no issue with modifying genetics normally, but why in the world would you modify a fungus to produce spider toxin? Fungi are far more advanced and intertwined with the biosphere than most people realize. What if they escape and run amok? Why not just modify the mosquito which has been shown to work?

Why would they run amok? Does the spider toxin give them a survival advantage relative to its energetic cost? If the toxin merely allows them to kill the insects they infect, I believe it'd just tamp down the population without downright eliminating it.
Post reply on HN