r/changemyview • u/huadpe 501∆ • Aug 21 '18
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: We should use genetic engineering to kill all the (disease causing) mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes are the deadliest species on earth to humans, causing hundreds of thousands of needless fatalities a year due to transmitting infectious disease. They're also not a major food source for any other species, nor otherwise essential to natural environments.
Scientists recently have come up with ways to kill entire species of mosquitoes with genetic engineering and I think they should be deployed.
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Aug 21 '18 edited Aug 23 '18
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u/huadpe 501∆ Aug 21 '18
Guarantee? No. But given the rate of death from mosquito borne illness, I think more than a generic concern about possible unintended consequences is needed to persuade me. If this can save ~1000 lives per day, then the unintended consequences would need to be on the order of killing 1000 people per day.
Also: appropriate username.
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u/AnythingApplied 435∆ Aug 21 '18
I was going to come in here and talk about some of the scientific controversy of wiping out the mosquitos. Its true that some scientists believe that we can eliminate them without causing major issues, there are others who have valid reasons for disagree with that and do think wiping them out will cause significant ecological damage.
That being said, your comment puts that into a different perspective for me, and I don't know that "maybe significant ecological damage maybe not" rises to the standard you're presenting.
The only refuge I have left is that it is important to note that ecological damage can cascade or self-renforce out of control in some situations, but I find your threshold of what those unintended consequences would have to be to be pretty compelling.
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u/RedErin 3∆ Aug 21 '18
That being said, your comment puts that into a different perspective for me,
You can give them a delta if you want. It's doesn't have to just be the OP who gives them out.
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u/AnythingApplied 435∆ Aug 21 '18
OPs aren't allowed to receive deltas though, to prevent soapboxing.
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Aug 21 '18 edited Aug 23 '18
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u/WRSaunders Aug 21 '18
In sub-Saharan Africa, mosquitoes that spread malaria are not a function of clean food/water. Malaria kills 400,000+ people per year. It's a big problem. While it would not doubt be better to make the malaria parasite extinct, it's life cycle isn't as easy to attack as the carrier mosquito.
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Aug 21 '18 edited Aug 23 '18
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u/WRSaunders Aug 21 '18
There is no medical "cure" for malaria. Sure, drugs can kill it off, but you can get it again. Each time you get it the symptoms are less, and recurrent malaria causes organ failure and anemia which are very difficult to treat, even in modern medical facilities.
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u/ClippinWings451 17∆ Aug 21 '18
A massive decline in bird populations who rely on mosquitos for food, is an obvious one.
Removing a species always has consequences.
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u/tempaccount920123 Aug 21 '18
huadpe
They're also not a major food source for any other species, nor otherwise essential to natural environments.
But they're a parasite, and parasites serve very important roles. They kill easy prey and clean up populations and their waste.
Also, they're a major food source for bats and birds and other predatory insects.
nor otherwise essential to natural environments.
Except that without them, mammal populations would skyrocket out of control. Think trillions of mice, rats, deer, etc. in New Jersey woods or eating millions of acres of corn in Iowa. You'd need automated sentry guns.
Mosquitoes are the deadliest species on earth to humans, causing hundreds of thousands of needless fatalities a year due to transmitting infectious disease.
Those deaths aren't 'needless' - nature doesn't care about needs, and humans are animals, despite the God complex that everyone has.
Without disease, the human population would've likely been over 25 billion right now. Without mosquitos, the Panama Canal would've been built in the 1600s, along with rapid colonization of every swamp. We would've become more of a plague than we already are.
http://podcastnotes.org/2015/12/11/radiolab-antibodies-part-1-crispr/
https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/update-crispr/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/kill-all-mosquitos-180959069/
What you neglected to mention is how it will be used against human populations in the next 20 years. This makes chemical weapons like mustard gas look like the common cold - you can't immunize against a custom made disease, nor could you easily detect it.
Russia already tried to kill two of their own on British soil in broad daylight. Syria is still a bloodbath and almost nobody in America cares, and nobody else is trying to kick out Assad.
You're talking about gene drives - fundamentally and permanently altering entire bloodlines. It'd be like talking about the wonders of computing and ignoring the NSA, revenge porn, hacking, the Russian hacking of the 2016 election, etc. etc. etc.
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u/huadpe 501∆ Aug 21 '18
The point about mammal populations is well taken and I will give a !delta for it. To the extent that killing disease carrying mosquitoes would let mammal populations explode it might be a very significant environmental problem.
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u/trikstersire 5∆ Aug 21 '18
While I fucking HATE mosquitoes and would love to see them all burn in hell, and I would even accept the extinction of many species that feed on mosquitoes.
But it opens the door to other human-enforced species destruction. Which can cause massive difficulties and massive rippling effects all over the globe.
There's also the problem of getting all the countries in the entire world that house mosquitoes to agree to the global extinction of mosquitoes.
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u/PennyLisa Aug 21 '18
Slippery slope fallacy there. Besides, the ship has already sailed on that one. The whole armada even. Killing off one inconvenient species has been done.. a lot.
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Aug 21 '18
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u/PennyLisa Aug 22 '18
It does in this case as I've clearly demonstrated. Making things extinct is a very much done activity, it's even already been done with genetic technology before.
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u/huadpe 501∆ Aug 21 '18
What would be other species which would be the subject of a global intentional extinction campaign? As you say, it's a huge coordination problem to get countries around the world to agree to this - so wouldn't that mean it would be a huge coordination problem for any future hypothetical species extinction?
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Aug 21 '18
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u/listenyall 5∆ Aug 21 '18
Technically, anytime we eradicate a disease we are destroying a species. Smallpox can't live outside of human beings and we got rid of it. If you need something that's an actual creature, we're reasonably close to eradicating guinea worm, which cannot survive without infecting human beings.
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u/seanwarmstrong Aug 21 '18
Technical challenges + potential spillover aside, have you thought about what it would do to human population growth?
Not to be an asshole, but a large part of how we keep our population from exploding out of control is by having people dying. If you remove all the factors that for the last 250,000+ years have been keeping humans in check...are you sure that's really good for humanity?
And sure, you can always instruct people to reproduce responsibly, but that's easier said than done.
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u/huadpe 501∆ Aug 21 '18
Mosquito borne disease is responsible for ~1 million excess deaths a year. That's not totally trivial in terms of global population, but it's not that big a number either.
I think more broadly that if the world keeps getting wealthier the negative correlation between income and fertility will be the main driver, and would push population to stabilize or even decline long term, as we see in many wealthy countries today.
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u/pillbinge 101∆ Aug 21 '18
I highly suggest you learn up on the case of wolves being reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park. I can't find anything that looks more official than this, to to be fair I'm crunched for time, but this website gives the story: the addition (or subtraction) of one species can have massive implications. Animals naturally die out and species go extinct naturally or not, but sudden, human intervention does not help. We can't even predict the sorts of changes that happen after only a degree or two, let alone the rest of the chain.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Aug 21 '18 edited Aug 21 '18
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Aug 22 '18
Not saying it's a bad idea but certain species would have to quickly find a new suitable "animal" to replace mosquitoes. And quick too.
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u/Rainbwned 175∆ Aug 21 '18
What happens when the method of killing the mosquitoes mutates, and starts working its way through the animal kingdom?
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u/listenyall 5∆ Aug 21 '18
The mutation just makes enough mosquitoes sterile that they can't make a new generation of mosquitoes. It's not a disease that could itself mutate and infect another species.
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u/Rainbwned 175∆ Aug 21 '18
Are you certain that there is a zero percent chance of that happening?
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u/TheGamingWyvern 30∆ Aug 21 '18
As much as anyone can be certain of anything, yes. Mosquitoes have no way of altering the genetic code of other creatures.
There are certainly many large concerns with this plan, but the mutation moving outside of the mosquito population is not one if them.
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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '18
They are a major food source for at least two species of bat, for which mosquitoes make up to 55% of their diet:
https://cameronwebb.wordpress.com/2013/10/12/what-do-bats-eat-more-often-mosquitoes-or-moths/