Mosquitoes have killed more humans than every disease ever (edit: when you obviously exclude malaria) along with every war ever, combined.
Fuck those little shits. Let them all die, it will literally change nothing on this planet because nothing solely survives off predation on mosquitoes or their larvae.
If those creatures that also eat mosquitoes cannot eat them anymore, that means they would have to eat other bugs more frequently, and possibly fucking up all the ecosystem.
That said, fuck mosquitoes, they can take blood from other places.
All of our best data on the impact says that it really wouldn't matter. Sometimes a species is a linchpin for the ecosystem, and sometimes it isn't.
Sucks for mosquitoes, but there's a very real chance that we'll smallpox them, and the biggest concern will be our confidence that the virus we use doesn't impact other species unintentionally.
Haven't read closely on it, but I've seen plenty of articles about the lack of effect we'd see over killing off mosquitoes. I have a feeling that, along with what you said, it's because they're tiny.
Consider the dragonfly. They hunt mosquitoes efficiently. But relative to their size, a mosquito is like us eating a candy bar, or even less. Meanwhile, they could snatch about anything else and it would be like a 3-pound steak.
They're largely applying this technique to invasive species of mosquitoes, eg Aedes aegypti, which is a potent vector of disease and native of Africa that has spread worldwide only within the past 200 years
I think the purpose of the original genetic modification is to make them unable to bite humans (and spread malaria) but to otherwise leave them capable of feeding, thus not wiping them out and upsetting the ecosystem they're part of
I understand what you're saying here, but the set of people killed by "every disease ever" includes the entire set of people killed by mosquito-borne diseases. Mosquitoes can't have killed more people than every disease ever because mosquitoes' kill count is part of every disease ever.
Yes. Some (not all species) female mosquitoes drink blood for the protein, which they need for egg production. Their actual diet is nectar from flowers.
I mean, I hate mosquitoes as much as the next guy, but that sounds like a great way to destroy whole ecosystems that rely on mosquitoes as a food source.
But keep in mind there are a lot of invasive populations of mosquitoes and some of them are disease carrying species. Since they're invasive, by definition they're not vital to the natural ecosystem and those populations could be safely wiped out.
Sounds more like they are turning them trans than gay. So like a test run of the leftist plan for Republicans. Oh wait, are we allowed to talk about this outside of the secret meetings yet?
Ok but mosquitoes historically are the #1 killers of humans, by an order of magnitude. This could be argued as a form of evolution. We simply engineered them out as a threat. GG get gud scrub, see you in 3 million years when you have your own AI generated bioengineering.
Probably. But it's also a bit of a difficult question to compare the two.
One prominent estimate is that about half of all humans who have ever lived died from mosquito-related illness, about 50 billion of the 100 billion humans who have ever lived.
For humans, it's estimated that about 3-4% of paleolithic humans died from violence at the hands of another person, and that number may have risen to about 12% during medieval history, before plummetting in the modern age.
But that's the comparison of direct violence versus illness. Humans have a strong capacity to indirectly cause death, including by starvation, illness, indirect trauma. How do we count deaths from being intentionally starved as part of a siege? Or biological weapons, including the time the Nazis intentionally flooded Italian marshes to increase malaria? Do we double count those as both human and mosquito deaths?
And then there's unintentional deaths, caused by indifference or recklessness or negligence. Humans have caused famines, floods, fires, etc.
So yeah, mosquitoes probably win. But don't sleep on humans. And remember that the count is still going on, and humans can theoretically take the lead in the future.
First, they aren't critical in either of those roles, and second, there are a few thousand species of mosquitoes, and only five of them cause issues with human health. Get rid of those five, and you haven't caused much ruckus. The others will be fine in their continued parts.
Now, that being said, nobody knows for certain what will happen if all five are completely eradicated, but the sentiment above seems to be the consensus among people who have studied them.
My only problem with it is the fact that you're taking a major insect class out of the ecosystem and later on down the line it might have serious implications. There will never be enough research on the effects of it until it's too late to reverse. I hate mosquitoes (I live in Southern LA.) but I don't think this is the answer.
I think there was a campaign in china in the mid 20th century that tried to exterminate a bunch of pests like this and it lead to catastrophic famines or something.
Not sure about that, but there was an account of something similar in India, I believe, where there was a chemical agent involved that buzzards were extremely susceptible to and wound up killing off most, if not all of the population. This led to carcasses being left to rot and then became vectors for disease and basically led to a chain reaction of events that caused a few million people to die.
I don't know if killing off mosquitos would have quite as a profound effect as this, but there are so many things I feel like we have almost no understanding of when it comes to the natural world to say either way.
I've read in a few comments here that there are studies saying that it wouldn't have a crazy effect - if anyone could link them so I can give them a read, I would appreciate it.
I think it's a genius solution to the explicit problem, but a terrible solution in a larger scope. There are many animals that feed on mosquitos, and they would suffer from massive decreases in mosquito population. This includes birds, frogs, bats, fish, and other insects (many aquatic animals eat mosquito larvae). I would hate to see a cascading reduction in animal populations as a result of these tactics.
I get the concern, and it's a good concern to have when you're talking about what would be such a huge shift in so many ecosystems...
...buuuuuut...
I have to believe this change would happen slowly... mosquitoes wouldn't just go extinct over a holiday weekend. It'd take years, if not decades, of dedication to the eradication strategy and even then, certain populations may prove immune to the best efforts of science.
That being said, even if it did execute as planned, I feel like the gradual decline of the mosquito would coincide with a gradual increase in other invertebrate species that would fill that niche. So as mosquito populations slowly declined in a local pond or creek, you'd see things like say chironomids (midges) thriving with the reduced competition for habitat, and the fish that ate mosquito larvae replacing that part of their diet with more midges.
Not saying there couldn't be other complications, but I don't think we'd see results fast enough that we'd end up with a broken link of the food chain leading to ecosystem collapse.
The Aedes Aegypt can go fuck itself with all the diseases it spreads to us. Also, anywhere where it showed up as an unwanted guest, like all Americas, nature will just roll back 3 centuries or so.
I am a hippy nature person who tries to be merciful and kind to plants or insects. The exceptions are mosquitoes and ticks. Those fuckers want to take my blood and dont settle for one serving if they get the chance. Were in a biological armrace and so far we've been loosing. Let's see how they like being fucked with.
Ahh, someone else who views the risks correctly. Spent a lot of time in the swamps in Alabama. Wore snake gaiters for the giant cotton mouths. Soaked my clothes in permethrin. Still way more scared of the ticks than the snakes. Especially that Alphagal stuff.
We have suffered for millions of years under mosquitos are they are likely the biggest killer of humans in history. Maybe us evolving big brains and developing genetic engineering is an evolutionary necessity?
Or as Harbinger said: “We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.”
If they weren't one of the biggest spreaders of viruses you'd be right, but, that's my god damn blood, I made it, it's mine to keep, inside of me preferably.
Chihuahuas can have a not completely closed cranial bone (is this the right word?), which means if you pet them at the wrong place you literally can touch the brain and potentially kill them. My mood would be bad, too, if this was the case for my body.
Pugs also can have their eyes popping out if you handle them wrong (e.g. gripping them at their neck).
The head of King Charles Spaniels are to small, meaning their brain does not have enough room. This can lead to brain fluids getting stuck in the head, which increases pressure on the brain, leading to infathomable headaches, hallucinations, motor deficits, etc, pp.
Breeding some dog breeds should really be prohibited.
. This can lead to brain fluids getting stuck in the head, which increases pressure on the brain, leading to infathomable headaches, hallucinations, motor deficits, etc, pp.
Oh man I can never enjoy their derpy look again, knowing it's because their brain doesn't have room.
Breeding some dog breeds should really be prohibited.
Strong agree. Although there are also breeders doing "healthy" versions of pugs, German sheperds (their hips are awful for them, but the back "sliding down" to low hips was considered an essential characteristic for the race), French bulldogs, etc.
For pugs they're calling it "retro pug" and essentially theyre trying to get to what the breeds was before fancy European dog breeders started valuing aesthetics more than say, the dog being able to breathe.
The AKC and other "dog standards" organizations should be labelled as animal abusers for their rigid requirements in dog breeds. If PETA wants to do good in this world, that's who they should be targeting.
I get the feeling of discomfort but it's basically the same feeling we get when someone breaks a pencil
There is no evidence that a mosquito is capable of feeling the kind of despair or horror that a human would feel in a similar situation. It's unlikely that mosquitos can form emotions at all.
At the same time, a huge portion of human-animal interactions involve the human controlling the animal in ways that they animal can't even comprehend. A dog has no idea you're doing operant conditioning to change their behavior. Pigs have no idea they're being fed just so they and their children can be eaten.
The only way to avoid this kind of thing is to turn off your big human brain and go back to ape tier. We might need to go farther down the tier list than that though https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War
Could we try to convince the males that they are the ugliest things on earth so they find large animals that can step on them?
Maybe come up with a liquid that you put in standing water that makes the mosquitoes grow very tiny legs and a very large left wing? You know, so they have to fly to move and they can only fly spinning like crazy.
I got a better one! Make them neon bright and glow in the dark. Make those fuckers be the center of attention. I'm talking kids with nets and old guys with cameras and microscopes with single mosquito flashes (like 1 mosquitoes per photo). And of course sugar sweet flavor? Everything under the sun trying to find them and eat them as snacks. I kinda like this one the best.
And this is it. This is how we arrived where we are now.
Nature? KILL IT! EXTERMINATE IT!
We've spend 2000 years slowly beeting nature to our wims. It has destroyed the planets ecosystem on a scale only seen by planet wide desasters in the past. We have driven countless species into extinction, and still counting. We take without any regard or resecpt for anything then our own needs.
That is exactly the mindset the comment I am replying to has to me.
Not a biologist, but it actually is better on paper. They can still pierce other animals. Just not humans. They stay part of the food chain for amphibians and birds or what not, we don’t get malaria. Seems like a win-win.
Putting aside questions of ecosystems etc, I think the main reason is that we just can't - ironic since we seem to be extint-ing all the other animals
In South America they tried in the 50s and 60s, and more kept cropping up. They breed so quickly, if you miss an area they can just rebound. Then more can come in on ships and stuff
So you couldn't really localise it, it would have to be a huge global undertaking. And it would likely require widespread use of pesticides that are at best tricksy and at worst illegal, not to mention environmentally shitty
Most modern plans for eradication involve creating a virus that handles it, rather than a pesticide.
Have the virus introduce a gene that takes a few generations of breeding in the impacted population before it starts to debilitate or sterilize the mosquitoes. That way your virus can start to kill the population even as it spreads to areas that were missed.
Also significant politics within the field preventing integrated approaches to control. It's possible we could target specific species of mosquito that are vectors for deadly disease, with the intent of eradicating the disease by suppressing the vector. It would be the greatest collective undertaking of human kind. We'd have to shelf things like international borders and profits.
Many species of mosquitos are reliant on blood for reproduction. The females utilize a "blood meal" for the nutrients for laying eggs to be fertilized. Additionally, it is the female mosquito bite that transmits diseases like malaria.
It's nuanced because it could reduce suffering overall, but it could also disrupt ecosystems in ways we can't predict and cause even more suffering. I think the latter is more likely.
People have a tendency to paint animals they don't like as insignificant to the ecosystem, but they're nearly always incorrect. Wasps, for instance, are important pollinators, even if they do sting, and mosquitoes are an important food source, even if they are deadly. Anyone who advocates for eradicating species like these is doing so through a biased lens. We are nowhere near the point, technologically or scientifically, that we'd be safe playing god with the natural world like this -- especially not with the massive damage we've already caused to the environment. Someday? Maybe. But not right now.
I do also find it horrific to forcibly alter a mosquito's body so she can't express her natural behaviors. After all -- mosquitoes may cause harm, but they lack the capacity for moral reasoning, and thus cannot be evil. Thus, they don't "deserve" any kind of torment. But my personal discomfort with this isn't a moral argument.
Though it didn't "crash" any ecosystems, DDT still accumulates in the environment, where it remains for a long time and causes ongoing harm to insects and the animals that prey on them. Though the most problematic use of DDT by far is in agriculture, its use against mosquitoes isn’t exactly without issue. Not to mention, mosquito populations can become resistant to DDT, requiring more of it to achieve the same effect.
I wouldn't say that nothing bad happened. America -- particularly urban areas where anti-mosquito measures have been implemented -- has been dealing with declines of important populations of birds and insects, and we don't fully understand the exact causes. Which is to say, we don't know what role mosquito population reduction has played in this.
We have vaccines against mosquito-borne illnesseses, which I believe are preferable to eradicating a species and the potentially devastating consequences we could encounter.
I would argue that habitat destruction, the introduction of hypercarivores, and chemical spraying would have a much larger effect on bird and insect populations around urban areas than a reduction in mosquitoes, but I'll admit that I haven't done any research (primary or secondary) on the topic.
My point was that a genetic attack vector would have far less side-effects than DDT, and pointing out the flaws of DDT does nothing to criticize attacking mosquitoes genetically.
Didn't seem to doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen, it can be difficult to quantify. Most people don't notice a lot of the constant large scale ecological devastation that does happen.
The real concern is that even if it was fine in one location, that can't reliably be assumed to be the case for other ecosystems. This issue is really complicated, we've acted hastily in the past and done some insane lasting damage so I'd say it's best to be careful.
All that said, even if I'm vegan and this whole thing makes me extremely uncomfortable, working to eradicate malaria is objectively good.
I had a fruit fly problem over the summer and felt guilty about the cruelty of the glue traps. But when it comes to mosquitos, roaches, and wasps, I'm Hitler. I would favor genetic alterations that expanded their capacity for suffering.
It's a pretty ineffective strategy, but I'm just going off this one photo.
If it's genetic, and the females can't get a blood meal, then they won't lay any eggs to pass on those genetics and just die.
Then the ones without that gene will lay all their eggs and the next generation will be unchanged and they have to spend all that money again to do whatever they did which had no effect.
Knowing a bit about crispr my understanding is that crispr is the technology that can be used to circumvent that scenario by making the effects kind of like an genetic time bomb
Horrible and unethical idea:
We modify the mosquito to strongly prefer the blood of some specific animal species. Said species will then be raised in captivity only for it to be sacrificed to the mosquitos. This way they get to procreate and spread the modified gene to new generations, and keep them alive for the ecosystem to feed on.
I can't believe i'm saying this, but... I think mosquitos don't deserve this. There's basically no life form that deserves our cruelty more than mosquitoes, but this pushes a boundary i didn't know was there.
It's a nice idea. But I wonder what the long term ramifications might be. What ripple effects might happen that we can't see today that end up being problems in the future.
While some species may benefit from the absence of mosquitoes, others could face ecological disruptions due to changes in food webs.
However, eliminating mosquitoes entirely could also have unforeseen consequences, highlighting the importance of careful consideration and scientific research.
Other people have asked the same question you have, Niko, and scientists think that removing every single mosquito from the world wouldn’t have a bad overall effect on the environment. But none of us are sure what will happen to small ecosystems and whether these would be better off without mosquitoes.
Yes I know. And maybe those studies are fully correct. I certainly have no way to cross check them. So you and I must take them at face value.
But even science will tell you that you should have at least some skepticism of such studies. Because it always seems like we miss some tiny important detail that only reveals it's self later as we refine our knowledge on a subject.
I am all for eradicating the mosquito pest but there is no way a study is going to cover all possible impacts of removing them from existence. Anyone claiming to do so is just drunk on hubris.
If you're fine with the risk of a possible ecological disaster, then kill them all off. But remember, killing all the wolves was also thought to be a great idea at one time. Fortunately, we weren't able to achieve that goal before discovering we were wrong. Such decisions are final and can't be undone if they go wrong.
The hubris is in the idea, that with such a long human track record of being wrong about such things, is executing a such total and final idea is the right thing to do. But go ahead and do it. I'll be safely dead when the error might be discovered.
"sir, there's been a complication...it seems the mosquitoes with our gene are dying off in water ways and directly polluting the waters....humans may never be erect again."
In all seriousness... that would solve a lot of problems, and humanity would persist with (upgraded) reciprocal IVF. It would be kinda sad to see mankind disappear though.
As long as they can still get blood from other creatures too, I'm okay with it. If not, than that could have wild implications to the food chain assuming it leads to massive population degradation.
Not all species of mosquitos feed on blood, like how only some bats feed on blood. As long as we only mess with the ones that feed on blood, it is a lot more likely that species that feed on mosquitos will have time to adapt to population changes.
Even the ones that do feed on mosquitos don't feed exclusively on mosquitoes.
The idea is to introduce this genetic expression into wild mosquito populations. That way, the inevitable act of mosquito reproduction lowers the next generation's reproduction rate.
CRISPR is profoundly difficult and expensive, and gets more difficult and expensive the more chromosomes are at play. Modifying mosquitos is much easier, and with the short generations (days or weeks instead of decades for humans) it's much easier to get the genetic changes to stick and observe their efficacy. We might get around to modifying humans someday, but it will likely be centuries before it is available for anything besides fixing lethal anomalies (and even then, it'll be a long time until that becomes consistently successful).
As a widely available, cost-effective treatment? Almost certainly not. We have yet to successfully genetically modify a human being and there's a metric ton of legal and ethical red tape to deal with before we can even try.
Not necessarily, but the advancement of the technology and refinement of the technique are not progressing very quickly and since it's so far away from human application, there's not a lot of money/investment in it.
Mosquitoes have killed more humans than every disease ever (edit: when you obviously exclude malaria) along with every war ever, combined.
Fuck those little shits. Let them all die, it will literally change nothing on this planet because nothing solely survives off predation on mosquitoes or their larvae.
But what will happen when the humans lose their natural predators, we might destroy our habita- ah, right. Nevermind
Mosquitos are just trying to save the planet by murdering as many humans as possible
Here's a Venn diagram:
O Humans getting killed by mosquitos
O Humans at fault for habitat destruction
Yep. I was trying to be funny but the reality is brutally bad.
If those creatures that also eat mosquitoes cannot eat them anymore, that means they would have to eat other bugs more frequently, and possibly fucking up all the ecosystem.
That said, fuck mosquitoes, they can take blood from other places.
All of our best data on the impact says that it really wouldn't matter. Sometimes a species is a linchpin for the ecosystem, and sometimes it isn't.
Sucks for mosquitoes, but there's a very real chance that we'll smallpox them, and the biggest concern will be our confidence that the virus we use doesn't impact other species unintentionally.
Hopefully we can do the same for bedbugs. Fuck bedbugs. I can smell the little fuckers
Hey, at least pubic lice are going extinct!
I read that as public. I was pretty confused as to what you were talking about
Just imagine what would happen if all lice were privatised.
Oh no! My patriotic merkin startup plans are ruined! I guess 'MericaMerkins was never meant to be...
Don't let Trump hear this idea
Haven't read closely on it, but I've seen plenty of articles about the lack of effect we'd see over killing off mosquitoes. I have a feeling that, along with what you said, it's because they're tiny.
Consider the dragonfly. They hunt mosquitoes efficiently. But relative to their size, a mosquito is like us eating a candy bar, or even less. Meanwhile, they could snatch about anything else and it would be like a 3-pound steak.
Now that you say that, average us candy bar contains 200..250 kcal a piece. That's about 1/7th of BMR of an average healthy male.
They're largely applying this technique to invasive species of mosquitoes, eg Aedes aegypti, which is a potent vector of disease and native of Africa that has spread worldwide only within the past 200 years
If we were to somehow magically remove mosquitos from existence in an instant, we'd better hope something fills their ecological niche quickly
Nothing eats them exclusively, that I know of. And they're tiny. Any insectivore is getting far more nutrition out of about anything else.
Maybe I'm wrong, but biologists seem to think eradication is a non-issue.
I think the purpose of the original genetic modification is to make them unable to bite humans (and spread malaria) but to otherwise leave them capable of feeding, thus not wiping them out and upsetting the ecosystem they're part of
That niche being flying bloodsucker? I'm not sure the alternative will be any better
The niche being food for fish that share their ecosystem in larval stages, and birds/bats/frogs that share their ecosystem in their adult stage.
They also eat nectar and are pollinators of various plants.
There's no way we could simply remove a creature as numerous and widespread as mosquitoes without any consequences.
I understand what you're saying here, but the set of people killed by "every disease ever" includes the entire set of people killed by mosquito-borne diseases. Mosquitoes can't have killed more people than every disease ever because mosquitoes' kill count is part of every disease ever.
Edit: when excluding malaria.
How do they kill us outside of spreading disease?
They manipulate the weather using space lasers from their fake hollow moon above our flat earth.
Jew mosquitos or mosquito Jews?
By distracting drivers into causing accidents? Statistically speaking... probably.
I would not want to see things like this done to the overwhelming majority of living things. But mosquitoes, I say let them starve.
Most dangerous animal in our forests
Isn't the blood only needed for procreation?
Yes. Some (not all species) female mosquitoes drink blood for the protein, which they need for egg production. Their actual diet is nectar from flowers.
I mean, I hate mosquitoes as much as the next guy, but that sounds like a great way to destroy whole ecosystems that rely on mosquitoes as a food source.
But keep in mind there are a lot of invasive populations of mosquitoes and some of them are disease carrying species. Since they're invasive, by definition they're not vital to the natural ecosystem and those populations could be safely wiped out.
Of all the creatures big and small we've driven extinct, mosquitoes will not likely be the one that breaks the camel's back.
I know it's not that deep but if you type a whole ass paragraph in all caps I want to beat you with a shoe.
👏 THANK 👏 YOU 👏
👟
what about all lowercase? is that fine to you? do you just want to easily ignore me? am i small potatoes to you?
nah, ricky, you're no potatoes at all. 🔫
Your words may be small, but your place in my life isn't. i feel you, dog.
I KNOW. It’s like PICK your BATTLES people
This is a crime against nature and god and decency, and mosquitos are probably the only place I'd be absolutely, completely for it.
There are probably a few handfuls of other parasites that would count too.
Yeah, do ticks next!
Then, landlords!
Uh, that's what he said wasn't it?
And toll road authorities!
Why are people just repeating the same thing over and over?
Fuck bedbugs!
Animal farming is a crime against nature, god and decency and we’re completely for that too, don’t forget
Up next on Info Wars: "They're turning the mosquitoes gay!"
Sounds more like they are turning them trans than gay. So like a test run of the leftist plan for Republicans. Oh wait, are we allowed to talk about this outside of the secret meetings yet?
Ha ha! He's just joking 😁 !
Which is actually what happened to the frogs
I think you're asking for a kind of nuance that most Info Warriors are unable to provide.
The gay frogs were more trans than gay too, so the impersonation is spot on.
Ok but mosquitoes historically are the #1 killers of humans, by an order of magnitude. This could be argued as a form of evolution. We simply engineered them out as a threat. GG get gud scrub, see you in 3 million years when you have your own AI generated bioengineering.
Homo sapien: am I a joke to you?
I'm pretty sure over history mosquitoes have killed far more people than people have.
Probably. But it's also a bit of a difficult question to compare the two.
One prominent estimate is that about half of all humans who have ever lived died from mosquito-related illness, about 50 billion of the 100 billion humans who have ever lived.
For humans, it's estimated that about 3-4% of paleolithic humans died from violence at the hands of another person, and that number may have risen to about 12% during medieval history, before plummetting in the modern age.
But that's the comparison of direct violence versus illness. Humans have a strong capacity to indirectly cause death, including by starvation, illness, indirect trauma. How do we count deaths from being intentionally starved as part of a siege? Or biological weapons, including the time the Nazis intentionally flooded Italian marshes to increase malaria? Do we double count those as both human and mosquito deaths?
And then there's unintentional deaths, caused by indifference or recklessness or negligence. Humans have caused famines, floods, fires, etc.
So yeah, mosquitoes probably win. But don't sleep on humans. And remember that the count is still going on, and humans can theoretically take the lead in the future.
According to google, yeah. Mosquito-borne diseases are responsible for 52 billion deaths. I was extremely surprised myself.
Right, but consider:
Fuck them bugs
Hey, most bugs are cool and an important part of their ecosystem.
Mosquitoes tho ? Yeah, fuck them.
as much as i'd love to agree with that-
mosquitos are pollinators and an important food source for quite a few animals. Our eco system would not be fine if we got rid of them
First, they aren't critical in either of those roles, and second, there are a few thousand species of mosquitoes, and only five of them cause issues with human health. Get rid of those five, and you haven't caused much ruckus. The others will be fine in their continued parts.
Now, that being said, nobody knows for certain what will happen if all five are completely eradicated, but the sentiment above seems to be the consensus among people who have studied them.
The largest type of mosquito in the Americas is an invasive species. There would be no harm done wiping them out.
That... That is a price I am willing to accept.
Total mutual destruction is the only way™
Iirc the pollinators aren't the bloodsuckers.
Bees are pollinators because they go to flowers and collect and move pollen.
Mosquitoes don't have time to hang out in flowers because they're busy screaming in your ear at 2 AM.
Ironclad reasoning. Flawless execution. Give this person a doctorate
Tbh I wouldn’t be sad if we genetically modified mosquitoes to breed them out of existence like we’ve done with screw worm.
My only problem with it is the fact that you're taking a major insect class out of the ecosystem and later on down the line it might have serious implications. There will never be enough research on the effects of it until it's too late to reverse. I hate mosquitoes (I live in Southern LA.) but I don't think this is the answer.
I think there was a campaign in china in the mid 20th century that tried to exterminate a bunch of pests like this and it lead to catastrophic famines or something.
"The Four Evils Campaign" I think it was called.
Sparrows. China killed them all then freaked when locust are all the crops. Millions died from famine. They had to import and reintroduce sparrows.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign
Not sure about that, but there was an account of something similar in India, I believe, where there was a chemical agent involved that buzzards were extremely susceptible to and wound up killing off most, if not all of the population. This led to carcasses being left to rot and then became vectors for disease and basically led to a chain reaction of events that caused a few million people to die.
I don't know if killing off mosquitos would have quite as a profound effect as this, but there are so many things I feel like we have almost no understanding of when it comes to the natural world to say either way.
I've read in a few comments here that there are studies saying that it wouldn't have a crazy effect - if anyone could link them so I can give them a read, I would appreciate it.
I think it's a genius solution to the explicit problem, but a terrible solution in a larger scope. There are many animals that feed on mosquitos, and they would suffer from massive decreases in mosquito population. This includes birds, frogs, bats, fish, and other insects (many aquatic animals eat mosquito larvae). I would hate to see a cascading reduction in animal populations as a result of these tactics.
I get the concern, and it's a good concern to have when you're talking about what would be such a huge shift in so many ecosystems...
...buuuuuut...
I have to believe this change would happen slowly... mosquitoes wouldn't just go extinct over a holiday weekend. It'd take years, if not decades, of dedication to the eradication strategy and even then, certain populations may prove immune to the best efforts of science.
That being said, even if it did execute as planned, I feel like the gradual decline of the mosquito would coincide with a gradual increase in other invertebrate species that would fill that niche. So as mosquito populations slowly declined in a local pond or creek, you'd see things like say chironomids (midges) thriving with the reduced competition for habitat, and the fish that ate mosquito larvae replacing that part of their diet with more midges.
Not saying there couldn't be other complications, but I don't think we'd see results fast enough that we'd end up with a broken link of the food chain leading to ecosystem collapse.
The Aedes Aegypt can go fuck itself with all the diseases it spreads to us. Also, anywhere where it showed up as an unwanted guest, like all Americas, nature will just roll back 3 centuries or so.
I am a hippy nature person who tries to be merciful and kind to plants or insects. The exceptions are mosquitoes and ticks. Those fuckers want to take my blood and dont settle for one serving if they get the chance. Were in a biological armrace and so far we've been loosing. Let's see how they like being fucked with.
Also ticks.
I would take 100 mosquito bites over one tick. One of the only creatures in nature to scare the hell out of me. And I own snakes.
Ahh, someone else who views the risks correctly. Spent a lot of time in the swamps in Alabama. Wore snake gaiters for the giant cotton mouths. Soaked my clothes in permethrin. Still way more scared of the ticks than the snakes. Especially that Alphagal stuff.
I find the compromise acceptable. Please roll out the mosquito killing technology asap.
Harbor freight sells an electric flyswatter. The time is now!
We have suffered for millions of years under mosquitos are they are likely the biggest killer of humans in history. Maybe us evolving big brains and developing genetic engineering is an evolutionary necessity?
Or as Harbinger said: “We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.”
Is that mass effect?
Yep :)
Drew Karpyshyn really knocked that conversation out of the park. One of the very best scenes in gaming history.
See, that is why you'd want actual authors to do your game's story for you...
I actually love seeing mosquitoes struggle to survive. I don't care if they're incapable of morality, they're evil and I hate them.
I hate them too but they are just trying to eat and breed, just like us. So kill them with mercy.
No to that entire comment.
If they weren't one of the biggest spreaders of viruses you'd be right, but, that's my god damn blood, I made it, it's mine to keep, inside of me preferably.
Maybe to that entire comment.
Yes to that entire comment.
Yeah they're not like wasps, hornets, and yellow jackets, who know nothing but hate and malice in their yellow and black striped hearts.
As a Brazilian, I won't feel sorry for these fuckers.
I'm from Buenos Aires and I say kill 'em all!
The only good bug is a dead bug.
I mean, have you ever seen a pug? They're fighting for air their entire life. Or chihuahua's? Awful personality and bred out of usefulness.
Chihuahuas can have a not completely closed cranial bone (is this the right word?), which means if you pet them at the wrong place you literally can touch the brain and potentially kill them. My mood would be bad, too, if this was the case for my body.
Pugs also can have their eyes popping out if you handle them wrong (e.g. gripping them at their neck).
The head of King Charles Spaniels are to small, meaning their brain does not have enough room. This can lead to brain fluids getting stuck in the head, which increases pressure on the brain, leading to infathomable headaches, hallucinations, motor deficits, etc, pp.
Breeding some dog breeds should really be prohibited.
Oh man I can never enjoy their derpy look again, knowing it's because their brain doesn't have room.
Strong agree. Although there are also breeders doing "healthy" versions of pugs, German sheperds (their hips are awful for them, but the back "sliding down" to low hips was considered an essential characteristic for the race), French bulldogs, etc.
For pugs they're calling it "retro pug" and essentially theyre trying to get to what the breeds was before fancy European dog breeders started valuing aesthetics more than say, the dog being able to breathe.
The AKC and other "dog standards" organizations should be labelled as animal abusers for their rigid requirements in dog breeds. If PETA wants to do good in this world, that's who they should be targeting.
"You see what we do to the things we love???"
"What the fuck do you think we're going to do to you?!"
Or the chickens you eat? They can’t even stand up out of their own feces
Yeah they're my soul animals
VEM
Vegan
Except Mosquitos
I know what you meant but I just imagined someone grimly eating mosquitoes out of pure spite
I saw a video of Africans scooping up pounds of them with nets, mashing 'em up and frying bug patties.
The secret ingredient is revenge
I mean it's cheap easy protein. I'm not gonna judge.
Mosquito paste is delicious
In pretty much every other context, yeah. But for real, fuck mosquitoes.
I get the feeling of discomfort but it's basically the same feeling we get when someone breaks a pencil
There is no evidence that a mosquito is capable of feeling the kind of despair or horror that a human would feel in a similar situation. It's unlikely that mosquitos can form emotions at all.
At the same time, a huge portion of human-animal interactions involve the human controlling the animal in ways that they animal can't even comprehend. A dog has no idea you're doing operant conditioning to change their behavior. Pigs have no idea they're being fed just so they and their children can be eaten.
The only way to avoid this kind of thing is to turn off your big human brain and go back to ape tier. We might need to go farther down the tier list than that though https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War
Genetically engineer them to grow to the size of Cessna. Ride them to battle
That seems mild.
Could we try to convince the males that they are the ugliest things on earth so they find large animals that can step on them?
Maybe come up with a liquid that you put in standing water that makes the mosquitoes grow very tiny legs and a very large left wing? You know, so they have to fly to move and they can only fly spinning like crazy.
I got a better one! Make them neon bright and glow in the dark. Make those fuckers be the center of attention. I'm talking kids with nets and old guys with cameras and microscopes with single mosquito flashes (like 1 mosquitoes per photo). And of course sugar sweet flavor? Everything under the sun trying to find them and eat them as snacks. I kinda like this one the best.
And this is it. This is how we arrived where we are now.
Nature? KILL IT! EXTERMINATE IT!
We've spend 2000 years slowly beeting nature to our wims. It has destroyed the planets ecosystem on a scale only seen by planet wide desasters in the past. We have driven countless species into extinction, and still counting. We take without any regard or resecpt for anything then our own needs.
That is exactly the mindset the comment I am replying to has to me.
Yes!
Total mutual destruction is the only way™
Neon bright mosquitoes that glow in the dark? Heck yeah! I'll keep some in a jar for Halloween 🎃😄!
This is amazing. Far better than killing them off.
Shouldn't you include /s tag here
Not a biologist, but it actually is better on paper. They can still pierce other animals. Just not humans. They stay part of the food chain for amphibians and birds or what not, we don’t get malaria. Seems like a win-win.
On the one hand this is creepy as hell
On the other fuck mosquitoes
Great. First science was making the frogs gay. Now it's turning the mosquitos trans.
What's next? Lesbian amoebas? Pansexual algae? Non-binary seahorses?
Has science gone too far?
No
Why not just eradicate them? Genuine question. I don't think they serve any purpose in nature and are just pissing off every living being.
They absolutely serve purpose in nature, they are a significant food source for bats and many other insects and males are pollinators.
They need blood to procreate so the method in the post does exactly what you are asking for
Putting aside questions of ecosystems etc, I think the main reason is that we just can't - ironic since we seem to be extint-ing all the other animals
In South America they tried in the 50s and 60s, and more kept cropping up. They breed so quickly, if you miss an area they can just rebound. Then more can come in on ships and stuff
So you couldn't really localise it, it would have to be a huge global undertaking. And it would likely require widespread use of pesticides that are at best tricksy and at worst illegal, not to mention environmentally shitty
Most modern plans for eradication involve creating a virus that handles it, rather than a pesticide.
Have the virus introduce a gene that takes a few generations of breeding in the impacted population before it starts to debilitate or sterilize the mosquitoes. That way your virus can start to kill the population even as it spreads to areas that were missed.
Also significant politics within the field preventing integrated approaches to control. It's possible we could target specific species of mosquito that are vectors for deadly disease, with the intent of eradicating the disease by suppressing the vector. It would be the greatest collective undertaking of human kind. We'd have to shelf things like international borders and profits.
We're stuck with being annoyed in any case.
Many species of mosquitos are reliant on blood for reproduction. The females utilize a "blood meal" for the nutrients for laying eggs to be fertilized. Additionally, it is the female mosquito bite that transmits diseases like malaria.
Bats eat mosquitoes so we be killing off bats food supply. So just get bats and solve your mosquitoe problem.
DIE, DIE, DIE
"Sheen, this is the 7th week in a row you've shown CRISPR modifications to the mosquito genome to curb malaria in class"
Comments are all the same as when they made mosquitos infertile, unable to spread malaria or wingless too.
Do vegans support this because it prevents mosquitoes from consuming animal flesh, or do they oppose it because it denies the mosquitoes their nature?
It's nuanced because it could reduce suffering overall, but it could also disrupt ecosystems in ways we can't predict and cause even more suffering. I think the latter is more likely. People have a tendency to paint animals they don't like as insignificant to the ecosystem, but they're nearly always incorrect. Wasps, for instance, are important pollinators, even if they do sting, and mosquitoes are an important food source, even if they are deadly. Anyone who advocates for eradicating species like these is doing so through a biased lens. We are nowhere near the point, technologically or scientifically, that we'd be safe playing god with the natural world like this -- especially not with the massive damage we've already caused to the environment. Someday? Maybe. But not right now.
I do also find it horrific to forcibly alter a mosquito's body so she can't express her natural behaviors. After all -- mosquitoes may cause harm, but they lack the capacity for moral reasoning, and thus cannot be evil. Thus, they don't "deserve" any kind of torment. But my personal discomfort with this isn't a moral argument.
So, uh, that's my take on it as a vegan.
I'd argue that we can predict ecosystem effects. In America we annihilated malaria hot spots with DDT. Didn't seem to crash any ecosystems.
Though it didn't "crash" any ecosystems, DDT still accumulates in the environment, where it remains for a long time and causes ongoing harm to insects and the animals that prey on them. Though the most problematic use of DDT by far is in agriculture, its use against mosquitoes isn’t exactly without issue. Not to mention, mosquito populations can become resistant to DDT, requiring more of it to achieve the same effect.
The whole point is that DDT caused a mosquito crash and nothing bad happened. If we can crash mosquitoes without DDT, it would be better for everyone.
I wouldn't say that nothing bad happened. America -- particularly urban areas where anti-mosquito measures have been implemented -- has been dealing with declines of important populations of birds and insects, and we don't fully understand the exact causes. Which is to say, we don't know what role mosquito population reduction has played in this. We have vaccines against mosquito-borne illnesseses, which I believe are preferable to eradicating a species and the potentially devastating consequences we could encounter.
I would argue that habitat destruction, the introduction of hypercarivores, and chemical spraying would have a much larger effect on bird and insect populations around urban areas than a reduction in mosquitoes, but I'll admit that I haven't done any research (primary or secondary) on the topic.
My point was that a genetic attack vector would have far less side-effects than DDT, and pointing out the flaws of DDT does nothing to criticize attacking mosquitoes genetically.
That's true. Criticizing DDT was off-track.
Didn't seem to doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen, it can be difficult to quantify. Most people don't notice a lot of the constant large scale ecological devastation that does happen.
The real concern is that even if it was fine in one location, that can't reliably be assumed to be the case for other ecosystems. This issue is really complicated, we've acted hastily in the past and done some insane lasting damage so I'd say it's best to be careful.
All that said, even if I'm vegan and this whole thing makes me extremely uncomfortable, working to eradicate malaria is objectively good.
We gave a mosquito gender dysphoria?
We have created tomboy mosquito. Humanity has peaked.
I had a fruit fly problem over the summer and felt guilty about the cruelty of the glue traps. But when it comes to mosquitos, roaches, and wasps, I'm Hitler. I would favor genetic alterations that expanded their capacity for suffering.
Roaches? Those don't attack us right?
They do with the many diseases they carry.
Cleanse the followers of Nurgle!
I get the caution about unintended consequences but damnit of all the crazy planetary issues we're dealing with right now, I'd rank
"oops, got rid of West Nile and Malaria as well as annoying little red bumps from wandering too far from big cities"
As a win, the consequences of which we can probably figure out how to deal with when we come to it.
I know it doesn't work that way but I'd trade all the world's mosquitoes to keep the polar bears or pangolins or something any day.
Mosquitoes are the bottom of the food chain. There's reason to be worried about this getting out of hand
I'd like to see any scientific study that reassures at least a little that this won't have terrible ramifications for ecosystems and the food chain.
We know too little, we are shortsighted and we have a bad record of intervening with nature.
It's a pretty ineffective strategy, but I'm just going off this one photo.
If it's genetic, and the females can't get a blood meal, then they won't lay any eggs to pass on those genetics and just die.
Then the ones without that gene will lay all their eggs and the next generation will be unchanged and they have to spend all that money again to do whatever they did which had no effect.
Knowing a bit about crispr my understanding is that crispr is the technology that can be used to circumvent that scenario by making the effects kind of like an genetic time bomb
We genetically engineered mosquitoes to have gender dysmorphia - weird times.
They are turning the
frogs gaymosquitoes trans!LOL FUCK EM
This is what vegans want. They want to take your virile bloodsucking proboscus and replace it with a limp dick fruit licker.
BAN ALL VEGANS
(Small /s)
This will probably work for 20 years, due to evolution they’ll just re-evolve that thing hard
If your proboscis stays engorged for more than 4 hours, contact a geneticist
This is as sad as watching the Terminator try to kill people with a broken gun. Alexa, play "in the arms of the angels"
Horrible and unethical idea: We modify the mosquito to strongly prefer the blood of some specific animal species. Said species will then be raised in captivity only for it to be sacrificed to the mosquitos. This way they get to procreate and spread the modified gene to new generations, and keep them alive for the ecosystem to feed on.
Mosquitoes are the new Gods.
It's already happened, we're the sacrifice...
I can't believe i'm saying this, but... I think mosquitos don't deserve this. There's basically no life form that deserves our cruelty more than mosquitoes, but this pushes a boundary i didn't know was there.
One day we will be Gods
Is this Drake of the 69 Dragons?
It's only 3 years older: Bob Page from Deus Ex's intro cinematic.
It's a nice idea. But I wonder what the long term ramifications might be. What ripple effects might happen that we can't see today that end up being problems in the future.
Human history is littered with such problems.
There have been extensive studies done on the topic already, the planet does not need mosquitos.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/what-if/what-if-mosquitoes-went-extinct.htm
https://www.nicd.ac.za/what-would-happen-if-all-the-mosquitoes-in-the-world-disappeared/
The science is not really settled yet.
There are non-biting mosquitoes. Those would just fill the same ecological niche.
Yes I know. And maybe those studies are fully correct. I certainly have no way to cross check them. So you and I must take them at face value.
But even science will tell you that you should have at least some skepticism of such studies. Because it always seems like we miss some tiny important detail that only reveals it's self later as we refine our knowledge on a subject.
I am all for eradicating the mosquito pest but there is no way a study is going to cover all possible impacts of removing them from existence. Anyone claiming to do so is just drunk on hubris.
The amount of ecologically horrifying acts that our species has already done, I'd be willing to add "got rid of mosquitos" to the pile.
If you're fine with the risk of a possible ecological disaster, then kill them all off. But remember, killing all the wolves was also thought to be a great idea at one time. Fortunately, we weren't able to achieve that goal before discovering we were wrong. Such decisions are final and can't be undone if they go wrong.
The hubris is in the idea, that with such a long human track record of being wrong about such things, is executing a such total and final idea is the right thing to do. But go ahead and do it. I'll be safely dead when the error might be discovered.
Yeah but those little bastards started it. People call what's happening in Gaza a genocide but that's nothing compared with the mozzie kill count.
"sir, there's been a complication...it seems the mosquitoes with our gene are dying off in water ways and directly polluting the waters....humans may never be erect again."
In all seriousness... that would solve a lot of problems, and humanity would persist with (upgraded) reciprocal IVF. It would be kinda sad to see mankind disappear though.
Well penis pump+ring keep it up long enough I'm sure
As long as they can still get blood from other creatures too, I'm okay with it. If not, than that could have wild implications to the food chain assuming it leads to massive population degradation.
Not all species of mosquitos feed on blood, like how only some bats feed on blood. As long as we only mess with the ones that feed on blood, it is a lot more likely that species that feed on mosquitos will have time to adapt to population changes.
Even the ones that do feed on mosquitos don't feed exclusively on mosquitoes.
I have a suspicion this gene would not be selected for when the mosquitos proceeded.
The entire point is to kill them. They are invasive anyway
Why make them flaccid instead of just killing them?
Most species are invasive and not part of the natural ecosystem of most places anyway.
The idea is to introduce this genetic expression into wild mosquito populations. That way, the inevitable act of mosquito reproduction lowers the next generation's reproduction rate.
Facebook is leaking. Yuck.🤢
CRISPR is profoundly difficult and expensive, and gets more difficult and expensive the more chromosomes are at play. Modifying mosquitos is much easier, and with the short generations (days or weeks instead of decades for humans) it's much easier to get the genetic changes to stick and observe their efficacy. We might get around to modifying humans someday, but it will likely be centuries before it is available for anything besides fixing lethal anomalies (and even then, it'll be a long time until that becomes consistently successful).
As a widely available, cost-effective treatment? Almost certainly not. We have yet to successfully genetically modify a human being and there's a metric ton of legal and ethical red tape to deal with before we can even try.
Not necessarily, but the advancement of the technology and refinement of the technique are not progressing very quickly and since it's so far away from human application, there's not a lot of money/investment in it.