You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

James_Miller comments on Now is the time to eliminate mosquitoes - Less Wrong Discussion

21 Post author: James_Miller 06 August 2016 07:10PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (75)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: The_Jaded_One 09 August 2016 02:04:01PM *  2 points [-]

Is it a good idea to leave alive mosquitos that don't bite humans? How long would it take them to mutate and fill the "human bloodsucking" niche that is suddenly vacant?

Perhaps a more comprehensive program of disease vector eradication is in order. Any organism that acts as a flying hypodermic needle poses the risk of moving pathogens around between species. For that matter, there are a lot of parasites in the world that parasitise mammals. If they were all to be eradicated, predators could take up the slack, but predators such as foxes, wolves or lions are trivially easy for us to control in comparison.

Natural ecosystems are de facto bioterrorist labs that occasionally output horrors like AIDS and ebola and zika. Maybe human beings need to start a serious and far-reaching effort to shut them down.

Comment author: James_Miller 09 August 2016 04:25:16PM *  2 points [-]

Is it a good idea to leave alive mosquitos that don't bite humans? How long would it take them to mutate and fill the "human bloodsucking" niche that is suddenly vacant?

Good point.