If I could, I would drive every human-biting mosquito to extinction. Ecosystem preservation and caution in deploying new technology is nice, but human welfare takes precedence.
US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
51–60 of 107 posts
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#52This is by far one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. We're talking systemic levels of risk...
ever heard of the food chain ?
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#53I heavily disagree with this decision from the US gov't. It's incredibly arrogant and selfish for a species to try and modify nature for an evolutionary advantage.
This is happening inside cities though. I'll take some arrogance and selfishness to reduce the incidence of dengue.
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eliminating an insect that has been here for millions of years, part of the food chain, helping thousands of micro-organism to mix DNA and be exposed to various conditions, thus helping evolution... That won't cause a major issue ? Sure ? 100% Safe ? You swear ? No backies in case of totally destroying our environment like we always do ? We are such an arrogant specie.
You're taking a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" approach, but the reality is that it is broken. Mosquitos kill millions.
No, I'm saying killing all the bugs is as good as a solution as cutting your arm because your have arthritis in your hand.
Plus, there is a lot of BS with this "killing millions" arguments. As I lived in Mali, and worked in Senegal, Uganda and Kenya, I can tell you that:
- people there consider it like a big flu. It only kills the very weak, others just have it like you have a running nose in the winter. And those people are weak because we destroyed their countries, we still leach them, so they have poor infrastructures and poor access to major resources, including food, clean water and decent hygiene.
- We have had a cure to most forms of malaria for several years now. Not something experimental or mysterious. I just went to the Pasteur Institute in Paris for that. You have protocols based on Malarone (surprise, it's not the preventive-only drug they tell you it is, it can cure as well). But besides tropical disease expert doctors, nobody will let you know that. And Malians don't have the money to buy it anyway. See previous point.
So mosquitoes are not the problem. The problem is that our system are killing millions.
Should we solve that problem by a collective suicide ? Apparently death of the mass is the popular solution to people dying.
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, depending on your definition of "fine," it could be fine now and it could be fine in the middle of an ice age.
How about: the ecosystem was the way humans nostalgically preferred it before the mosquitos came, and it'll likely be the way humans nostalgically preferred it again once they're gone.
Not just mosquitoes, this one specific type of invasive mosquito. There will still be many other mosquitoes after the wolbachia thingy is done. It doesn't work on most mosquitoes
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eliminating an insect that has been here for millions of years, part of the food chain, helping thousands of micro-organism to mix DNA and be exposed to various conditions, thus helping evolution... That won't cause a major issue ? Sure ? 100% Safe ? You swear ? No backies in case of totally destroying our environment like we always do ? We are such an arrogant specie.
This sounds almost like a Creationist argument, like there is some greater purpose behind the existence of all species, or that each species is some kind of keystone keeping the whole spectrum of life together. I happen to believe that nature is not necessarily intelligent or benevolent. Not everything that is produced by natural selection is by definition good for the planet (or necessarily bad either).
No it's just that we are part of a delicately tuned system that balanced itself over millions of years. And we have the tendency to try poorly thought short term solutions that destroy everything. It's not like we don't have an entire history of screw ups to teach us. We should know better by now.
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eliminating an insect that has been here for millions of years, part of the food chain, helping thousands of micro-organism to mix DNA and be exposed to various conditions, thus helping evolution... That won't cause a major issue ? Sure ? 100% Safe ? You swear ? No backies in case of totally destroying our environment like we always do ? We are such an arrogant specie.
I've had dengue and zika, and I don't care how arrogant it is, I'm all for extincting those fuckers.
I HAVE malaria. Right now.
I'm not.
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#58This sounds like one of those headlines that shows up before one of those movies like 28-days later. I'm all for trying to fight disease but how deeply do we actually understand what we're trying to solve. How do we know that we actually aren't going to make things worse down the road?
I suspect that’s in large part because of the headline’s officious use of the term “US government” as the actor, not to mention the completely sensational description of the bugs as “killer.” Does “EPA approves release of infertile mosquitos” sound as scary? Because that’s what’s actually going on.
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Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're taking a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" approach, but the reality is that it is broken. Mosquitos kill millions.
Could be a natural selection/control process tho.
Yeah but to be fair, I don't want to be selected for death.
If natural selection was at play, I should have died when I was 12 without my appendectomy.
Human are all about saying not today to the God of death. For them self.
So I just wish we continued this "not today" things, but with a broader perspective including not sawing the tree branch we are sitting on. Like destroying the entire ecosystem with our brilliant ideas.
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://www.who.int/whr/1996/media_centre/executive_summary1/... Mosquitoes are responsible for millions of deaths every year, and hundreds of millions of infections often with severe disability. We understand stuff pretty deeply now. According to https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html eliminating mosquitoes would not cause major ecological issues. So when you have millions of people dying every yea…
Wouldn't having millions of people not dying every year cause problems of its own?
Yes, absolutely.
May we be so lucky as to have those problems instead of _millions of people dying every year._