Should we eradicate Mosquitos?

ajf said:
No, we shouldn't.
As we have no natural predators above us, I genuinely believe we need disease and war to try and keep the human population in check and stop us completely over running and destroying the planet.
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If you was forced into war like the old world war days, came back as a survivor and had some sort of incurable disease weeks later and died do you feel that is right?

Little children with Cancer not making it past 5? How in anybody's book would someone wish this was a fair way to keep the human population in check.

If you fell into the above I am almost certain you would not have that mindset.

There are many suggestions to keeping humanity in check, but war and disease is not them.


/ I am greatful we live in a more cold climate so we don't have all these here! Too many insects/spiders that kill!!!
 
Sargatanas2511 said:
They aren't working :p.
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Maybe, rather than GMing infertile males, we breed super mozzies, able to suck all the blood out in one go?:p

pokerking said:
If you was forced into war like the old world war days, came back as a survivor and had some sort of incurable disease weeks later and died do you feel that is right?

Little children with Cancer not making it past 5? How in anybody's book would someone wish this was a fair way to keep the human population in check.

If you fell into the above I am almost certain you would not have that mindset.

There are many suggestions to keeping humanity in check, but war and disease is not them.


/ I am greatful we live in a more cold climate so we don't have all these here! Too many insects/spiders that kill!!!
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It's called the natural world. It's not "fair" but neither is life in general.

That said I agree with the latter point though, there are better ways of keeping populations in check, unfortunately they are a lot harder to persuade people to do. People seem to be far more willing to spend money on wars than education and contraception.
 
Nix said:
Think about this in terms of suffering. Humans may be the biggest threat and danger, but the diseases which mosquitos carry cause untold pain and misery to those afflicted. Would mosquitos suffer in the same way?

The more important question is, what would be the biospheric consequences of removing said mosquitos? What are the risks?

Of course, the obvious answer here is to eradicate the diseases as opposed to any fauna.
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I think a targeted approach of just eradicating the invasive versions should be tried first. At the very least that would reduce the number for a while, although other species may end up taking their places. With the current trials of releasing infertile males it seems perfectly feasible to remove certain species from certain areas, rather than wholesale eradication of an entire family of insects.

It would be interesting to see how this system scales up to other animals, such as rats and mice, cats and things like the cane toads. It would be a far more humane and targeted way of eradicating damaging invasive species from areas they shouldn't be (such as the pacific islands, NZ and Oz. Whether it would work as well with animal life spans of years and decades, probably not? If it did work it would save massive amounts of poison being needed that is far less targeted.
 
Amp34 said:
Maybe, rather than GMing infertile males, we breed super mozzies, able to suck all the blood out in one go?:p



It's called the natural world. It's not "fair" but neither is life in general.

That said I agree with the latter point though, there are better ways of keeping populations in check, unfortunately they are a lot harder to persuade people to do. People seem to be far more willing to spend money on wars than education and contraception.
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No life is not fair a lot happens out of our control and nothing is perfect, but to believe war and disease are an answer to a problem is very worrying. I cannot see how that is a solution, it makes no sense.
 
pokerking said:
No life is not fair a lot happens out of our control and nothing is perfect, but to believe war and disease are an answer to a problem is very worrying. I cannot see how that is a solution, it makes no sense.
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I take your points however what I said in general stands.
As a species we constantly try and mess with 'nature' to stop diseases, cure all ills etc. I don't agree with the 'treat at all costs' mentality that we seem to have developed, rather than being rational.
Yes, there are points where I would refuse treatment if capable in certain circumstances.
There is a point where I believe we try too hard and risk creating more problems and nature should be allowed to take its course.
All other species effectively have survival of the fittest which keeps their population generally under control.

I appreciate it is a rather controversial point of view and possibly in a close family situation I may think differently.

Regards the war comment.
I see it as a natural event, as much as other species fight for territory. I don't mean the odd terrorist with a gun here.
I'm not suggesting war is great at all, simply it is part of our nature and evolution.

Anyway, think I have gone OT enough now :)
 
pokerking said:
If you was forced into war like the old world war days, came back as a survivor and had some sort of incurable disease weeks later and died do you feel that is right?
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This was exactly what happened in 1918


The "Flu" killed far more people than the trenches.

My Grandparents who were quite willing to talk about the war could never bring themselves to talk about the flu that happened afterwards.

It killed far more people and was, at the time, utterly incomprehensible.

It is really only very recently that I have found myself really understanding just how devastating this was for both my family and the wider world.
 
The effect on the food chain would be catastrophic, just imagine how many millions of animals rely on the mosquito for a regular food source. Also, as prolific pollenators, innumerable species of plant would suffer and possibly even go extinct.

It's such an awful idea that it doesn't even bear thinking about.

Maybe mosquitos and their disease delivery systems are nature's way of controlling the large mammal population... it's up to us to find and fund vaccines.
 
No we shouldnt play god so to speak and mess up with nature any more than we do.
Unfortunately fair or not diseases are natures way of keeping population down and making sure the strong survive and weak die for the reproduction and because the old diseases dont kill us anymore new stronger viruses etc develop. Yes it is not fair but unfortunately this is how nature has designed it. If we didnt there would be millions of people more and there would be massive unbalance to the nature and lack of food and water.
 
Cosimo said:
Can't back up what you write but you appear to be the expert so tell us?
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Cosimo, if you think that one of the worlds most populous insect being a food source for many animals is not something forehead-slappingly obvious in ecological terms, then I would be a tad worried. It is widespread knowledge and publicly available info.

Do your own research for the specific data on animals that feed on them, I'm not your personal Wiki. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=animals+that+feed+on+mosquitos
 
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mattyg said:
Yeah an extra 1million people a year for the planet to support.
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An extra 1 million poor people, who will likely go on to have large poor families... The root cause of these super diseases is that there's too many of US, living in the wrong places and far too tightly packed.

What's to be done about that, IDK. Anyone fancy a total war?
 
pinkowl said:
No we shouldnt play god so to speak and mess up with nature any more than we do.
Unfortunately fair or not diseases are natures way of keeping population down and making sure the strong survive and weak die for the reproduction and because the old diseases dont kill us anymore new stronger viruses etc develop. Yes it is not fair but unfortunately this is how nature has designed it. If we didnt there would be millions of people more and there would be massive unbalance to the nature and lack of food and water.
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What is your stance on asteroids? Just let them impact, rather than try and protect ourselves? Wouldn't want to mess with nature...
 
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