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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.
Found the mosquito.
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.
Mosquitoes have killed more humans than every disease ever
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.
- ticks, too
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.
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?
deleted by creator
Fuck bedbugs!
Animal farming is a crime against nature, god and decency and we’re completely for that too, don’t forget
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
- What screw worm??
- Exactly.
what frost giants?
Vote odin
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
VEM
Vegan
Except MosquitosI 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
Yeah agreed, all life is sacred except the ones we don’t like.
I find the compromise acceptable. Please roll out the mosquito killing technology asap.
Harbor freight sells an electric flyswatter. The time is now!
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 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.
Yes to that entire comment.
Maybe 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.
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 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
