• Reddfugee42@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    7 days ago

    This is as sad as watching the Terminator try to kill people with a broken gun. Alexa, play “in the arms of the angels”

  • thawed_caveman@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    6 days ago

    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.

  • BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    241
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    edit-2
    8 days ago

    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.

    • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      168
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      8 days ago

      But what will happen when the humans lose their natural predators, we might destroy our habita- ah, right. Nevermind

    • Wild_Mastic@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      47
      arrow-down
      11
      ·
      edit-2
      8 days ago

      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.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        61
        ·
        8 days ago

        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.

        • shalafi@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          17
          ·
          8 days ago

          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.

          • Unpigged@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            8 days ago

            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.

      • protist@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        22
        ·
        8 days ago

        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

      • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        8 days ago

        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.

      • Dabundis@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        8 days ago

        If we were to somehow magically remove mosquitos from existence in an instant, we’d better hope something fills their ecological niche quickly

        • shalafi@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          17
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          8 days ago

          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.

        • smeg@feddit.uk
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          8 days ago

          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

          • Dabundis@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            10
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            8 days ago

            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.

    • Dabundis@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      arrow-down
      9
      ·
      8 days ago

      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.

    • TheRedSpade@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      8 days ago

      Mosquitoes have killed more humans than every disease ever

      How do they kill us outside of spreading disease?

      • Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        28
        ·
        edit-2
        8 days ago

        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.

    • Cuck4Mai@lemmynsfw.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      8 days ago

      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.

      • Sludgehammer@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 days ago

        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.

      • Lev_Astov@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 days ago

        Of all the creatures big and small we’ve driven extinct, mosquitoes will not likely be the one that breaks the camel’s back.

  • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    103
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    8 days ago

    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.

  • JaggedRobotPubes@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    102
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    8 days ago

    This is a crime against nature and god and decency, and mosquitos are probably the only place I’d be absolutely, completely for it.

  • CptEnder@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    59
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    8 days ago

    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.

    • exasperation@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      7 days ago

      Ok but mosquitoes historically are the #1 killers of humans, by an order of magnitude

      Homo sapien: am I a joke to you?

        • exasperation@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          7 days ago

          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.

      • nyctre@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        7 days ago

        According to google, yeah. Mosquito-borne diseases are responsible for 52 billion deaths. I was extremely surprised myself.

    • loutr@jlai.lu
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      34
      ·
      8 days ago

      Hey, most bugs are cool and an important part of their ecosystem.

      Mosquitoes tho ? Yeah, fuck them.

      • shneancy@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        8 days ago

        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

        • BalooWasWahoo@links.hackliberty.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          17
          ·
          8 days ago

          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.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          8 days ago

          The largest type of mosquito in the Americas is an invasive species. There would be no harm done wiping them out.

        • weker01@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          8 days ago

          That… That is a price I am willing to accept.

          Total mutual destruction is the only way™

          • mycodesucks@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            7 days ago

            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.

  • thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    50
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    8 days ago

    Tbh I wouldn’t be sad if we genetically modified mosquitoes to breed them out of existence like we’ve done with screw worm.

    • Yokozuna@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      8 days ago

      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.

      • HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        8 days ago

        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.

        • Yokozuna@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          8 days ago

          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.

    • TheOakTree@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      8 days ago

      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.

      • hydrospanner@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 days ago

        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.

      • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        8 days ago

        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.

  • normalexit@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    41
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    8 days ago

    I find the compromise acceptable. Please roll out the mosquito killing technology asap.

  • Smokeydope@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    42
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    7 days ago

    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.

      • Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        8 days ago

        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.

        • Machinist@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          8 days ago

          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.