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Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

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Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#391

Post by acqq »

grecy wrote: post #388
saulrh wrote: post #60

Most of the "whoops" tales are people that didn't listen to their scientists telling them not to, didn't have scientists at all, or were from long enough ago that we can discard their stories as irrelevant in the same way that we'd discard things like "spaceflight is impossible" and "nukes will end war". We've now traced the food chain around malaria mosquitoes out to three or four degrees of separation, including th…

> Most of the "whoops" tales are people that didn't listen to their scientists telling them not to, didn't have scientists at all, or were from long enough ago that we can discard their stories as irrelevant.... It fascinates and terrifies me that we humans constantly think we know what we're doing and won't mess up again, like somehow we're superior to our ancestors because we have a little more knowledge. "Oh yeah,…

> 2060: "Oh yeah, everyone used to carry around little electromagnetic devices and put them next to their brain, but we know better now".

This one is easy to debunk: look at the spectrum:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum

UV and everything in that direction: dangerous.

Infrared and everything in that direction: not dangerous.

The Sun emits on both sides, and we really know very good which side we have to protect us from.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#392

Post by grecy »

acqq wrote: post #391
grecy wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the "whoops" tales are people that didn't listen to their scientists telling them not to, didn't have scientists at all, or were from long enough ago that we can discard their stories as irrelevant.... It fascinates and terrifies me that we humans constantly think we know what we're doing and won't mess up again, like somehow we're superior to our ancestors because we have a little more knowledge. "Oh yeah,…

> 2060: "Oh yeah, everyone used to carry around little electromagnetic devices and put them next to their brain, but we know better now". This one is easy to debunk: look at the spectrum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum UV and everything in that direction: dangerous. Infrared and everything in that direction: not dangerous. The Sun emits on both sides, and we really know very good which side we…

You're missing the entire point.

You think it's safe by 2016 standards, in the same way we thought lead in gas, or agent orange was safe by the standards of those years.

In 50 years we'll know a lot more than we do now, and hindsight will be a magical thing.

By 2060 standards, we're downright uneducated. Think about how little we knew in the late 1960's, and the stupid stuff that was done based on "we know what we're doing"

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#393

Post by acqq »

grecy wrote: post #392
acqq wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2060: "Oh yeah, everyone used to carry around little electromagnetic devices and put them next to their brain, but we know better now". This one is easy to debunk: look at the spectrum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum UV and everything in that direction: dangerous. Infrared and everything in that direction: not dangerous. The Sun emits on both sides, and we really know very good which side we…

You're missing the entire point. You think it's safe by 2016 standards, in the same way we thought lead in gas, or agent orange was safe by the standards of those years. In 50 years we'll know a lot more than we do now, and hindsight will be a magical thing. By 2060 standards, we're downright uneducated. Think about how little we knew in the late 1960's, and the stupid stuff that was done based on "we know what we're…

We already know now much more than we apply. Global warming is the most obvious example. It's true, the hypothetical people in 50 years will consider the current and earlier generations barbarian in their approach to the use of the fossil fuels. But we actually even now know fantastically good the exact effects the electromagnetic waves, and that at least since 1905 work of Einstein for which he received Nobel prize. So there was a lot of time already to check if we got that wrong. Don't worry about a few watts your phone produces, worry about the Sun and anything that produces that kind of radiation (or worse, but in that direction), the one which is on the opposite side of the radio waves and visible light and the one for which we know exactly how damaging it is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thymine_dimers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_index

Regarding lead poisoning, it was since forever known that lead is poisonous, the "safe level" was something that was better established in last 50 years and enforced by better policies. There's no parallel for infrared and radio waves (that is, lower frequencies and energies of photons) but there is for UV or gamma rays (that is, higher frequencies and energies of photons).

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#394

Post by nemothekid »

MrArtichaut wrote: post #186
nemothekid wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just because we don't like them? It's bit stronger than "we don't like them" > Maybe we should invest in proactive body defenses against virus instead of just killing some random things. Invest more than the billions that billions that Bill Gates has already invested?

And do you think Bill Gates would approve killing whole species ? I honestly don't known but he seems to be a very clever guy and eradicating species doesn't sound to be a clever solution and really not a good long term solution. What if you break a whole ecosystem ? What if those mosquitoes contain invaluable genes for future medicine? What if they offer a unique window on the evolution of insects? But hey, who care…

>And do you think Bill Gates would approve killing whole species ?

Yes, and in fact he's done the research, written about it and ultimately it may have been his investments that led to this conclusion.

Or we can just let hundreds of thousands continue to die because they might magically contain the cure to cancer in the future.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#396

Post by imakesnowflakes »

icambron wrote: post #380
imakesnowflakes wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the explanation. But you haven't said anything that I don't know already. >The point the parent and GP were making is that the advantage in being airborne exists whether or not mosquitoes is being killed off. When there is an abundance of mosquitoes, an airborne strain does not have a sufficient advantage over the mosquito borne strain. Now this is an assumption I am making. And this is where you people ar…

> If you are thinking, how does it give more probability for the air borne strain to spread? Right, that's the important thing to think about: the size of the advantage over (or even disadvantage to) the status quo doesn't matter in itself; it only matters to the degree that competition affects the viability of the new strain. I'm glad we're on the same page about that, because that's the thing I perceived that you d…

>is whether it can infect A's friends D through Z, all of whom don't have malaria, presumably because they weren't bitten by an infected mosquito in the last couple weeks...

The point is, with mosquitos, a larger percentage of population (A's friends) will already be bitten by infected mosquitos, making it harder for the airborne strain to find a fresh host...

Thanks for the info regarding Malaria..

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#397

Post by u_me_him »

harshreality wrote: post #116
maaku wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those eradications were paid for by the Department of Agriculture (and equivalent organizations in other regions). Who is going to pay for the mosquito? I'm not objecting. I think we should eradicate the mosquito. But as someone who has worked for the government (albeit a different branch) I know that bureaucrats are not being evil or heartless when they don't allocate funds for necessary work that falls outside of t…

Play up the (Zika) birth defect angle. Potential parents will be scared to death and will scream at their legislators to do something. There's all the funding they need.

Isn't zika a real danger? From all the news I've been hearing there could soon ben an epidemic in Florida.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#398

Post by u_me_him »

azazqadir wrote: post #383
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand why we're arguing about this. How many species have we lost as a result of human activity? What's one more. Here's a list[1]. Fuck the mosquito. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_extinct_animals 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine

The point is we are deliberately trying to eliminate their existence and we will be directly responsible for that.

I can live with that

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#400

Post by u_me_him »

dr_toolittle wrote: post #302
learc83 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one wants to seriously wipe out all 3000+ species of mosquitoes. There are only a few species that are harmful to humans.

Humans are considered harmful to the world as a whole. There's only one human species that would need to be eliminated to solve that problem. You up for that as well?

Without us, what is the point of the planet existing? Seriously, who is left to enjoy it. You do realize that all life in planet Earth will die in around a billion years and the only chance of anything surviving beyond that will be left to intelligent life smart enough to leave the planet and take as many species as it can with it.
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