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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…
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.
Ok but mosquitoes historically are the #1 killers of humans, by an order of magnitude
Homo sapien: am I a joke to you?
According to google, yeah. Mosquito-borne diseases are responsible for 52 billion deaths. I was extremely surprised myself.
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.
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!
Fuck bedbugs!
Animal farming is a crime against nature, god and decency and we’re completely for that too, don’t forget
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
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
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 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
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.
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 😁 !
I think you’re asking for a kind of nuance that most Info Warriors are unable to provide.
Which is actually what happened to the frogs
The gay frogs were more trans than gay too, so the impersonation is spot on.
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.
. 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.
“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
Genetically engineer them to grow to the size of Cessna. Ride them to battle
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?
Has science gone too far?
No
I find the compromise acceptable. Please roll out the mosquito killing technology asap.
Harbor freight sells an electric flyswatter. The time is now!
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.
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 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.
Maybe to that entire comment.
Yes 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.
Yeah they’re not like wasps, hornets, and yellow jackets, who know nothing but hate and malice in their yellow and black striped hearts.
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.
