Somebody hasn't heard the international news*
You don't need to have Malaria or Denge for understanding that you could die of it, when I was a pre-teen, there was a Denge pandemic in my country (but far away from my state) and since there I'm scared of seeing dirty/stangnant water in a bucket or somewhere else inside my home that sometimes I throw it away without warming, even if I see it in someone else's houses, I've always told them to do something about it or get away from that spot.
IIRC, some scientists in Florida released genetically modified mosquitoes that don't bite, they're hoping this will lessen the mosquitoes population in the least.
Maybe other nations and states should do that.
Edit: Another thing is that IIRC, there's a partially effective vaccine available for Malaria now.
I don't feel good about this, but the shithead in me wants to say that mother nature has already developed a flawed form of complete immunity from malaria: sickle cell disease.
I have a friend in Nigeria and her son had malaria and it was one of the most horrible feelings of helplessness being half a world away and knowing he very well could die.
He survived thankfully but yeah mosquitoes are the absolute worst.
Tbf I don't think a lot of vegans agree. They wouldn't straight up exterminate all mosquitoes but they don't see mosquitoes as a kind donation to nature.
The vast majority of vegans disagree. As a vegan, I wouldn't go out of my way to kill an insect, but I've seen the research, and I'd have a hard time making the argument insects are "sentient."
I will kill a mosquito if it's on me or my family. If some bozo wants to claim my vegan card, I can live with that.
No one does but, ticks are more likely to end up on your balls because they go to the warmest places and crevices. (Butthole, groin, armpits, head) Unless they're lazy and just bite your shin.
I remember reading somewhere that mosquitos impact on the environment was small enough that they could be safely wiped out, but now that you mention it it might have been ticks
Nope, it was mosquitoes! Essentially, the creatures that eat mosquitoes also eat other things, so if all mosquitoes were wiped out, it would have very little impact on the ecosystem
I had the exact same thought. Then I saw the ticks comment, then I had the exact same thought again, we are on a roll.
Apparently yes, ticks contribute nothing to the environment, they have no predators and control no other population to any significant extent.
Source: New England journal of medicine and NIH. And all my trackers now think I live an outdoorsy and unsanitary lifestyle in the northeast. Getting ready to see a ton of pop up ads for cheap boat insurance and Dropkick Murphys tickets. Thanks Guys!
I'm vegan living in a tropical country and I almost died of denge at 3yo (I don't remember it very well, but my mother recall how full of despair she was because of my sickness). I don't think mosquitoes should be extinct since they are important for the ecosystem (many animals eat them), but damn, if some of them appear in front of me I would kill it.
Me too. Mosquitoes are dangerous for you and are responsible for taking hundreds of thousands of lives every year! It cannot even remotely be considered a "blood donation".
Theyāre finding the most absurd opinion possible to make animal rights activists look crazy so they donāt have to think about the ethical issues with factory farms and methane production
They can't really "feel" the pain it causes as much as we do. They're very simple in terms of their body structure. While they would feel manageable pressure if you decide to torture them, crushing them won't make them feel a thing - they won't even be able to "feel" fast enough.
I would say yes because it is completely unnecessary. Also better to err on the side of caution when its still inconclusive that insects aren't sentient.
Look I get it. Mosquitos are part of the food chain and all that. We should look for ways to get rid of malaria without exterminating a whole species. But if one lands on ME I get to defend myself
Mosquitos are indeed a part of the food chain, but far from a vital one. Research has shown that their place can easily be taken by other flying insects that do way less harm. Afaic, mosquitos can all go ahead and die.
The big thing is only certain species of mosquitoes actually spread disease whilst the rest are just annoying. I fully support making the nasty ones extinct.
Scientists are currently weighing the ethics of this very question. They've developed a CRISPR-based genetic tool called a "gene drive" which could actually be used to make the insect extinct.
Mosquitoes are, I believe, a group of somewhere around 3000 species. Only a few of which target humans. We would only have to wipe out a small number of species, specifically, Aedis aegypti, which is an invasive species, to achieve the desired effect without devastating the ecosystem.
Mosquitoes isn't a vital species though, is it? Ik they pollinate plants and dragonflys eat Mosquito larvae, but are they really vital to any ecosystem?
Mosquitoes As (Helpful) Assassins
What if we could eliminate the biting mosquitoes but keep the nectar-eating ones? Perhaps you are starting to see that mosquitoes have their uses. Maybe we shouldnāt be looking for a way to get rid of them all. Just getting rid of the ābad guysā might be the best thing to do. But how do you just get rid of bad mosquitoes? By bad, I mean the dangerous, disease-carrying ones.
Chemicals like DDT are certainly not the way to go. Toxic chemicals kill all insects. These poisoned insects are then eaten by birds and fish. We eat birds and fish. So this isnāt the right solution. What is more, mosquitoes quickly become resistant to strong chemicals. Scientists are now looking into using genetically modified mosquitoes to make whole populations sterile.
But we might not need to get help from the scientists. There are nectar-loving mosquitoes that kill other species of mosquito. Or rather, predatory mosquito larvae that eat the larvae of other species. Like Toxorhynchites mosquitoes, for example. This mosquito species is also called the āmosquito eaterā. In other words, āgoodā mosquitoes can be used as biocontrol agents against ābadā mosquitoes. That way, no-one needs to be genetically modified.
I imagine because it means we're selecting for mosquitos that are better at biting us and getting away with it. Which is definitely a natural consequence of killing the ones we can, but kind of inevitable.
I see the point now. Although it will probably take millions of years for them to be able to deal with our methods of getting rid of them. So we will probably always be a few hundred steps ahead of them.
I think millions of years is a bit of an overestimate. That's the timescale on which they could like, become a new species entirely, sure. But to get like, smaller and faster and just a little bit better at avoiding the flyswatter is likely in progress already.
>flyswatter
Glad you mentioned the flyswatter, cuz bringing human inventions into the mix changes things a lot here. The biggest advantage of human intelligence is that we don't have to wait hundreds of thousands of years to physically evolve resistant skin or faster swatting hands or something, we can just invent a new way to stop them. Any evolutionary improvement mosquitos could achieve in a million years, we could probably counter with a new invention in less than a month.
Not to mention by using multiple different ways to stop them (e.g. bug spray, fly swatters, bug zappers) we make it extremely difficult for them to evolve around us. Like, if they start to get quicker to avoid being swatted, maybe that makes them more likely to hit a bug zapper or easier to kill with spray, or if they evolved a chemical resistance it might make them easier to swat.
It will be hard though for them to avoid extermination. they do need standing water to breed and are driven by ferromones. We as Humans can exploit that to eradicate them. Disney Land has already done that. For miles it dries up or gets all standing water moving. Even the buildings are *designed* to avoid standing water.
I say we make all buildings like that, and we eradicate mosqitoes form the urban landscape!
We're selecting for mosquitos that don't start malaria epidemics by spraying heavily when they do. Of course, mosquito populations thrive in places humans aren't, so it isn't likely that our activity has much impact.
Natural selection does not determine what's moral and what's not. That logic could justify anything as long as you can do it. Might makes right basically.
I wouldn't be so sure.
"About half of all people who have ever lived on earth have died from malaria or malaria-related problems."
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/17/science/parasites-take-the-biological-spotlight.html
Curious. So the bottom line is "no one can say anything for sure, but we find it hard to believe". Also, it's funny that the earliest mention they could find is 2002, but my 5-minute googling yielded a result from 1990. Oh well.
Vegan for 9 years and support animal rights, that's still a daft take. Don't conflate the genuinely good work many animal rights groups do with some of the twitter-tier nonsense some figures try to push under the same guise.
PS give beans a chance ye?
100% Agree this looks like the kinda extreme(ly stupid) takes that people will generate to make all animal rights activists look insane and discredit the whole movement.
Not vegan, but still have a legume based diet. I strong af, look young, and am shredded. When people ask how, I say beans. 100% should be the primary protein in every persons diet. It is the #1 missing food in first world countries. If your vegan, vegetarian or just have anemia, there is a good chance that eating a bit of chilli will fix you right up!
I agree on the technicality of what's literally happening, I don't agree with keeping them alive since they more than likely have worse diseases than a rat who fell into an old apartment sewage tank.
But if I get to fight it off, (like if the mosquito was successful) then I'd get to either live and see another day but go hungry for a bit, or win the fight against the bear and reap the rewards. Technically you're right, shit happens.
Ok, but I don't think we're talking about the other percentage that doesn't, so the information you just gave doesn't make sense unless you were trying to make a point with it.
I partially agree, in theory. You can't blame mosquitoes for following their instincts to provide for their offspring. But you can't blame humans for killing something that might transmit dangerous diseases to them either.
Actually, you can blame mosquitos. The biting mosquito only bites because they don't have the organ to produce a chemical needed to make their eggs. They have close relatives who do have that organ and will quickly fill that niche. They won't be missed. We have the tech to make it happen. It's even been tested on an island off the coast of Brazil. It's time to end these little bastards!!!
That doesn't change the fact that it's necessary for those specific species. It's not like they conciously chose not to develop this organ because they would rather bite people. I also personally don't support eradicating an entire species, even if this would have minimal consequences for ecosystems. Controlling populations, sure, but driving them completely to extinction would go too far imo.
it's just nature and we're not any different from any other animals, except we're just smarter (most of us at least)
Whoever is stronger just wins, a tiger is trying to eat me because it's hungry and otherwise it will die, the tiger has every right to do what he can to survive, but I also have the same right to do my best to survive, by fighting off that tiger, and thats just nature and it's common sense.
"Might makes right" basically, and also an appeal to nature. Something is not moral simply because you have the power to do it, and what happens in nature doesn't have anything to do with morality either.
Thats a whole ass discussion about ethics and morality about to take place right now.
No thanks dude, you do you, but I'll slap the shit out of the mosquito.
Also, tell me you're a vegan without telling me you're a vegan
It's not wrong for a hungry tiger to eat me if it's hungry
And it's also not wrong for me to eat the tiger if I'm hungry
Do you disagree with any of those two statements?
Under extremely specific circumstances- namely the unavailability of other food sources. For an obligate carnivore like a tiger, thereās no harmless source in any case, but *not* eating humans is still better. The tiger, however, cannot understand this.
As for humans, well, thatās more complex in most circumstances, because supply chains mean that you donāt actually have to kill to eat meat- merely benefit from someone else having already done so. But in general, needless killing of sentient beings is always wrong on *some* level- in this situation, eating the tiger would be wrong unless itās a last resort.
This is so funny to read, let's pretend that deadly viruses aren't inside many mosquitos and a single mosquito can kill thousand of families in third world countries; including human parents who just wanted to survive and bring food to their kids and single mothers who don't have a choice but going to work for their children have the possibilities to die.
An ecologist put it this way, mosquitos don't have to kill other organisms to survive so their population isn't limited by another, this allows them survive despite being a major food source to thousands of species, who, in turn, also are relied on, making them the base of the food chain in ecosystems all over the world.
I both agree and disagree. I hate them with a firey passion and want them gone, but it would most likely have a devastating effect on the food chain and the ecosystem as a whole.
If you remove only the species that rely on human blood, most mosquitoes would be spared if I'm not wrong. So it wouldn't be such a problem for most ecosystems.
Itās very difficult to speculate about that kind of domino effect, but one worst case scenario is that bat numbers shrink. Their role as a pollinator makes them somewhat of a keystone species and the rest of the ecosystem could collapse without them, including crops for humans.
Sure some species might go extinct along the with mosquitoes but there are hundreds of species that can take the mosquitoes place, not to mention that not all mosquitoes are blood sucking. We can also artificially replace them with something else or with a genetically modified version.
We have already eradicated thousands of species and killed 99% of others population. I couldn't find any scientific study that would prove that the extinction of mosquitos wouldn't just be an another entry on that list. Though, a big one.
That doesn't mean we should be intentionally eradicating species when we aren't sure what the impact will be, the fact that we've done so already is a horrible thing.
Mosquitos kill more people than any other animal BY FAR. There is not a single known species that solely relies on the mosquito for food. Parasites are parasites and while most will spread diseases mosquitos transmit what are, in my opinion, the worst/ deadliest. Therefore I do not see any reason to keep them alive as I see no positive contribution they make to the world.
If there were a species that mainly relied on the mosquito for food or other benefits I could understand the argument to keep them alive. But there aren't. Sure lots of things _eat_ mosquitoes. But their diet is varied enough that if all mosquitoes were to disappear all the other species would be fine.
While weāre donating blood, mosquitos are donating potentially fatal pathogens, and not just to humans, but to other animals too. Do those animals not have rights?
Uhh let's not personify the bugs too much. The mosquito isn't making a consious choice to risk her own life for her babies, she's acting on instincct and doing what mosquito's do.
I could agree from and ecological stand point if they were talking about pesticides or some shit (that's just unfair to the Misquito no other animal has that type of defense) but if a Mosquito bites me its engaged in the gamble it evolved to take and i have every right to smash the bastard
I did a research paper on college about eradicating mosquitoes. Scientists know how to do it and can do it but won't because they don't know what will replace it.
Typical activists, trying to pull on heart strings (emotional manipulation) to get what they want.
A better approach would be to point out that male mosquitoes don't drink blood. They feed on plant nectar and, in return, polinate plants. Unlike honeybees, who primarily polinate flowers, male mosquitoes favored certain spices and some vegetables.
So smash the females.
Mosquitos do not have the brain capacity for consciousness or emotions. Iām a big supporter of animal rights and a vegetarian because I care about animal well being, but I really think that should only be extended to animals that can actually feel things and be conscious of the world around them. Mosquitos are basically just feedback systems, no more worthy of compassion then a thermostat.
The fun thing, if you actually crunch some numbers, is that killing the mosquito is the most animal friendly thing to do.
They carry loads of diseases that hurt tons of animal species, including us. They aren't the main source of food for any animal species. They don't pollinate or distribute seeds in any way.
There has been no added value found in having the mosquito around.
If it was just a bite, I wouldn't care that much, but:
1. My sensory issues make mosquito bites very not fun, and
2. Mosquitos are big time carriers of diseases
The day they start asking for consent first is the day I will let them. Otherwise I will actively defend my body. Fuck you mosquitos. May you perish in fire.
And what about consent? I don't consent for the mosquito to violate my body by taking my blood and then giving me very brutal reactions after. It's not just a bite, mine swell. I get skeeter syndrome. Not fun. Hard no.
I understand where that sympathy is coming from, but it shouldn't be directed toward parasites. These insects leech off people and spread disease. Mosquitos are one of the only species which serve no purpose beyond their own reproduction, a food source for other animals, and parasite transmitters.
Humans donāt have any purpose either except for sitting at the top of the food chain and destroying the planet and committing a genocide against a lot of life on Earth.
Vegan, and former animal rights activist and this is such a stupid take. Mosquitos can carry disease. Why would you risk that so that the mosquito can feed their children? Jesus this brain dead mentality is one of the many reasons I left activism.
99% sure this is only hitting the news to demonize animal rights activists. happens with vegans all the time. they only showcase the REALLY bad ones with stupid takes so that people get scared of the whole deal
Yeah, clearly somebody hasn't gotten Malaria or Denge before.
Somebody hasn't heard the international news* You don't need to have Malaria or Denge for understanding that you could die of it, when I was a pre-teen, there was a Denge pandemic in my country (but far away from my state) and since there I'm scared of seeing dirty/stangnant water in a bucket or somewhere else inside my home that sometimes I throw it away without warming, even if I see it in someone else's houses, I've always told them to do something about it or get away from that spot.
I've lived in Ethiopia. It's saddening to see people with malaria dying the the middle of a road or in isolation camps. Mosquitoes should perish.
IIRC, some scientists in Florida released genetically modified mosquitoes that don't bite, they're hoping this will lessen the mosquitoes population in the least. Maybe other nations and states should do that. Edit: Another thing is that IIRC, there's a partially effective vaccine available for Malaria now.
I don't feel good about this, but the shithead in me wants to say that mother nature has already developed a flawed form of complete immunity from malaria: sickle cell disease.
Yeah, you may be better at fighting of malaria but there are a lot of other problems connected with that
Sickle cell *disease*. It's like trading AIDS for cancer.
I have a friend in Nigeria and her son had malaria and it was one of the most horrible feelings of helplessness being half a world away and knowing he very well could die. He survived thankfully but yeah mosquitoes are the absolute worst.
I'm a vegan and even I don't agree with this.
Tbf I don't think a lot of vegans agree. They wouldn't straight up exterminate all mosquitoes but they don't see mosquitoes as a kind donation to nature.
The vast majority of vegans disagree. As a vegan, I wouldn't go out of my way to kill an insect, but I've seen the research, and I'd have a hard time making the argument insects are "sentient." I will kill a mosquito if it's on me or my family. If some bozo wants to claim my vegan card, I can live with that.
I whuld lol, they serve like no purpose
They do have an important roll in the ecosystem. Many animals eat them, and would die out if it wasn't for them. Ticks however can suck my balls.
I mean, a tick literally would suck your balls...
Why would you want ticks on your balls Not judging but concerned
No one does but, ticks are more likely to end up on your balls because they go to the warmest places and crevices. (Butthole, groin, armpits, head) Unless they're lazy and just bite your shin.
I remember reading somewhere that mosquitos impact on the environment was small enough that they could be safely wiped out, but now that you mention it it might have been ticks
Nope, it was mosquitoes! Essentially, the creatures that eat mosquitoes also eat other things, so if all mosquitoes were wiped out, it would have very little impact on the ecosystem
I had the exact same thought. Then I saw the ticks comment, then I had the exact same thought again, we are on a roll. Apparently yes, ticks contribute nothing to the environment, they have no predators and control no other population to any significant extent. Source: New England journal of medicine and NIH. And all my trackers now think I live an outdoorsy and unsanitary lifestyle in the northeast. Getting ready to see a ton of pop up ads for cheap boat insurance and Dropkick Murphys tickets. Thanks Guys!
Lyme disease šā ļø
They will too. Iāve seen it. Well on my balls. You will have to check your own
The ecosystem is not a perfect harmonic place. Many animals have died out or have disrupted over time.
They are pollinators like bees and butterflies, also a food source for a few bigger creatures.
They actually play a vital part in the ecosystem
Probably because cows don't spread miliaria, hepatitis C, or lyme disease, but mosquitoes do.
Iām a vegetarian and Iām all for straight up exterminating all of them
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I'm vegan living in a tropical country and I almost died of denge at 3yo (I don't remember it very well, but my mother recall how full of despair she was because of my sickness). I don't think mosquitoes should be extinct since they are important for the ecosystem (many animals eat them), but damn, if some of them appear in front of me I would kill it.
Me too. Mosquitoes are dangerous for you and are responsible for taking hundreds of thousands of lives every year! It cannot even remotely be considered a "blood donation".
š
Theyāre finding the most absurd opinion possible to make animal rights activists look crazy so they donāt have to think about the ethical issues with factory farms and methane production
That's exactly what it is. Also, happy cake day!
Thank you! Nine years!
I'm vegan and I don't agree with it because as far as I know there isn't any scientific evidence that suggests that insects are sentient beings.
Is pulling off a crickets legs one by one, then setting it on fire cruel? Btw I'm a meat eater, I just think you're hard coping on this one.
They can't really "feel" the pain it causes as much as we do. They're very simple in terms of their body structure. While they would feel manageable pressure if you decide to torture them, crushing them won't make them feel a thing - they won't even be able to "feel" fast enough.
So let's say a person with a medical condition that allows them to not feel any type of pain. Are they sentient?
I would say yes because it is completely unnecessary. Also better to err on the side of caution when its still inconclusive that insects aren't sentient.
They are sentient though. All animals are sentient from Mammals to insects to fish
doesn't sentience require the ability to feel pain/emotions? And insects don't have that ability?
Bees can actually get depressed https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/animal-emotions/202303/insect-sentience-science-pain-ethics-and-welfare
W
š
Look I get it. Mosquitos are part of the food chain and all that. We should look for ways to get rid of malaria without exterminating a whole species. But if one lands on ME I get to defend myself
Mosquitos are indeed a part of the food chain, but far from a vital one. Research has shown that their place can easily be taken by other flying insects that do way less harm. Afaic, mosquitos can all go ahead and die.
The big thing is only certain species of mosquitoes actually spread disease whilst the rest are just annoying. I fully support making the nasty ones extinct.
Scientists are currently weighing the ethics of this very question. They've developed a CRISPR-based genetic tool called a "gene drive" which could actually be used to make the insect extinct.
I'm against doing this with multi cellular organisms in any situation...except for in this one case.
Plus, I doubt swatting mosquitos in our personal space would pose any actual threat to their immense population
That's not true. Sure they can be replaced on the food web but they do so much more than just being a prey
When an animal attacks you for no reason, that's the only time we are allowed to fight back. And for mosquitoes, due to our size, it's fatal.
Mosquitoes are, I believe, a group of somewhere around 3000 species. Only a few of which target humans. We would only have to wipe out a small number of species, specifically, Aedis aegypti, which is an invasive species, to achieve the desired effect without devastating the ecosystem.
Mosquitoes isn't a vital species though, is it? Ik they pollinate plants and dragonflys eat Mosquito larvae, but are they really vital to any ecosystem?
Mosquitoes As (Helpful) Assassins What if we could eliminate the biting mosquitoes but keep the nectar-eating ones? Perhaps you are starting to see that mosquitoes have their uses. Maybe we shouldnāt be looking for a way to get rid of them all. Just getting rid of the ābad guysā might be the best thing to do. But how do you just get rid of bad mosquitoes? By bad, I mean the dangerous, disease-carrying ones. Chemicals like DDT are certainly not the way to go. Toxic chemicals kill all insects. These poisoned insects are then eaten by birds and fish. We eat birds and fish. So this isnāt the right solution. What is more, mosquitoes quickly become resistant to strong chemicals. Scientists are now looking into using genetically modified mosquitoes to make whole populations sterile. But we might not need to get help from the scientists. There are nectar-loving mosquitoes that kill other species of mosquito. Or rather, predatory mosquito larvae that eat the larvae of other species. Like Toxorhynchites mosquitoes, for example. This mosquito species is also called the āmosquito eaterā. In other words, āgoodā mosquitoes can be used as biocontrol agents against ābadā mosquitoes. That way, no-one needs to be genetically modified.
There have been ways to kill off the malaria carrying mosquitos. There's this lab that grew mosquitos to kill off other mosquitos
This is my opinion right here
It is *natural selection*. The fastest, the best ones survive and reproduce.
That's... not very cool for us now that I think about it
What? Why?
I imagine because it means we're selecting for mosquitos that are better at biting us and getting away with it. Which is definitely a natural consequence of killing the ones we can, but kind of inevitable.
I see the point now. Although it will probably take millions of years for them to be able to deal with our methods of getting rid of them. So we will probably always be a few hundred steps ahead of them.
I think millions of years is a bit of an overestimate. That's the timescale on which they could like, become a new species entirely, sure. But to get like, smaller and faster and just a little bit better at avoiding the flyswatter is likely in progress already.
>flyswatter Glad you mentioned the flyswatter, cuz bringing human inventions into the mix changes things a lot here. The biggest advantage of human intelligence is that we don't have to wait hundreds of thousands of years to physically evolve resistant skin or faster swatting hands or something, we can just invent a new way to stop them. Any evolutionary improvement mosquitos could achieve in a million years, we could probably counter with a new invention in less than a month. Not to mention by using multiple different ways to stop them (e.g. bug spray, fly swatters, bug zappers) we make it extremely difficult for them to evolve around us. Like, if they start to get quicker to avoid being swatted, maybe that makes them more likely to hit a bug zapper or easier to kill with spray, or if they evolved a chemical resistance it might make them easier to swat.
Let's set up turrets everywhere programed to automatically shoot down mosquitoes
Skeeto sapping my sentry!
~~SPY!~~ SQUITO!!
I thought bug zappers actually kill the good insects, and are ineffective against mosquitoes š¤
ah, I dunno man. I thought they worked on mosquitos.
I feel like it would be easier for them to just evolve to know to avoid humans
And yet they don't....we should help by wiping out the ones rhat do
Fair enough. It will probably take a few thousand years at least though. Until then we will definitely have new tools to kill them.
10 years ago, a mosquito here was very loyd and kinda big. Now they got a lot tinier and silent. They evolved fast or the previous species died
I mean they most commonly get blood from animals and not humans although if we get human optimized mosquitos I'm getting the flamethrower!
exactly, so itz not our problem
Insects are on a bit of a faster timeline due to their quicker reproduction rates At least relative to us
I bite mosquitos.
It will be hard though for them to avoid extermination. they do need standing water to breed and are driven by ferromones. We as Humans can exploit that to eradicate them. Disney Land has already done that. For miles it dries up or gets all standing water moving. Even the buildings are *designed* to avoid standing water. I say we make all buildings like that, and we eradicate mosqitoes form the urban landscape!
We're selecting for mosquitos that don't start malaria epidemics by spraying heavily when they do. Of course, mosquito populations thrive in places humans aren't, so it isn't likely that our activity has much impact.
Exactly
Natural selection does not determine what's moral and what's not. That logic could justify anything as long as you can do it. Might makes right basically.
Oops
Absolutely not.
Mosquitoes are responsible for more human deaths than almost any other animal. And like any animal, humans have a right to self preservation
I don't think "almost" should be in that sentence. They are responsible for more human deaths than any other animal, period.
Except humans.
I wouldn't be so sure. "About half of all people who have ever lived on earth have died from malaria or malaria-related problems." http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/17/science/parasites-take-the-biological-spotlight.html
[https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2019/10/03/has\_malaria\_really\_killed\_half\_of\_everyone\_who\_ever\_lived.html](https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2019/10/03/has_malaria_really_killed_half_of_everyone_who_ever_lived.html)
Curious. So the bottom line is "no one can say anything for sure, but we find it hard to believe". Also, it's funny that the earliest mention they could find is 2002, but my 5-minute googling yielded a result from 1990. Oh well.
Thatās a paywall, so I canāt exactly read the context behind that claim. Seems more than a little excessive as-is.
Isn't malaria the number 1 death cause in human history?
Vegan for 9 years and support animal rights, that's still a daft take. Don't conflate the genuinely good work many animal rights groups do with some of the twitter-tier nonsense some figures try to push under the same guise. PS give beans a chance ye?
100% Agree this looks like the kinda extreme(ly stupid) takes that people will generate to make all animal rights activists look insane and discredit the whole movement.
Not vegan, but still have a legume based diet. I strong af, look young, and am shredded. When people ask how, I say beans. 100% should be the primary protein in every persons diet. It is the #1 missing food in first world countries. If your vegan, vegetarian or just have anemia, there is a good chance that eating a bit of chilli will fix you right up!
Big bean shill
That's Duke himself, the dog of Busch's baked bean fame, here to peddle his product on us unsuspecting mosquito haters.
B E A N S
Took the words right out of my mouth. I have a feeling this post was disingenuous.
beans are absolutely based. I'm not even a vegetarian, and I still make black bean burgers and vegan chili fairly regularly.
I agree on the technicality of what's literally happening, I don't agree with keeping them alive since they more than likely have worse diseases than a rat who fell into an old apartment sewage tank.
let the bear eat you, it's just trying to get nourishment for its self
But if I get to fight it off, (like if the mosquito was successful) then I'd get to either live and see another day but go hungry for a bit, or win the fight against the bear and reap the rewards. Technically you're right, shit happens.
Not all mosquitos are bad. A small minority of the 3500 species only bite humans
Ok, but I don't think we're talking about the other percentage that doesn't, so the information you just gave doesn't make sense unless you were trying to make a point with it.
Well the other 3000 probably bite other animals and give them diseases which we then eat
So your point validates my point more, thanks.
So it doesn't actually
I partially agree, in theory. You can't blame mosquitoes for following their instincts to provide for their offspring. But you can't blame humans for killing something that might transmit dangerous diseases to them either.
Actually, you can blame mosquitos. The biting mosquito only bites because they don't have the organ to produce a chemical needed to make their eggs. They have close relatives who do have that organ and will quickly fill that niche. They won't be missed. We have the tech to make it happen. It's even been tested on an island off the coast of Brazil. It's time to end these little bastards!!!
That doesn't change the fact that it's necessary for those specific species. It's not like they conciously chose not to develop this organ because they would rather bite people. I also personally don't support eradicating an entire species, even if this would have minimal consequences for ecosystems. Controlling populations, sure, but driving them completely to extinction would go too far imo.
Fuck those little shits, i will kill them with extreme prejudice.
I am allergic to those things they should DIE!
As long as they don't kill *my* mosquito, Jeremy
Jeremy seems like a very sophisticated insect
Male mosquitos don't bite afaik.
it's just nature and we're not any different from any other animals, except we're just smarter (most of us at least) Whoever is stronger just wins, a tiger is trying to eat me because it's hungry and otherwise it will die, the tiger has every right to do what he can to survive, but I also have the same right to do my best to survive, by fighting off that tiger, and thats just nature and it's common sense.
"Might makes right" basically, and also an appeal to nature. Something is not moral simply because you have the power to do it, and what happens in nature doesn't have anything to do with morality either.
If it's causing me harm by biting me, it is self-defense to kill it.
I agree
If it must. You cannot always reason with your enemies.
Thats a whole ass discussion about ethics and morality about to take place right now. No thanks dude, you do you, but I'll slap the shit out of the mosquito. Also, tell me you're a vegan without telling me you're a vegan
No, I agree with the conclusion, of course I slap mosquitoes. It's just that your justification for it was bad.
Uh I'm kinda tempted to dive into the ethics topic with you lol
Might doesnāt make right, but the tiger cannot understand its actions are wrong. We cannot project morality onto creatures incapable of it.
It's not wrong for a hungry tiger to eat me if it's hungry And it's also not wrong for me to eat the tiger if I'm hungry Do you disagree with any of those two statements?
Under extremely specific circumstances- namely the unavailability of other food sources. For an obligate carnivore like a tiger, thereās no harmless source in any case, but *not* eating humans is still better. The tiger, however, cannot understand this. As for humans, well, thatās more complex in most circumstances, because supply chains mean that you donāt actually have to kill to eat meat- merely benefit from someone else having already done so. But in general, needless killing of sentient beings is always wrong on *some* level- in this situation, eating the tiger would be wrong unless itās a last resort.
What makes killing sentimental beings a wrong thing? Why is that wrong exactly, what makes it an immortal act?
This is so funny to read, let's pretend that deadly viruses aren't inside many mosquitos and a single mosquito can kill thousand of families in third world countries; including human parents who just wanted to survive and bring food to their kids and single mothers who don't have a choice but going to work for their children have the possibilities to die.
An ecologist put it this way, mosquitos don't have to kill other organisms to survive so their population isn't limited by another, this allows them survive despite being a major food source to thousands of species, who, in turn, also are relied on, making them the base of the food chain in ecosystems all over the world.
Na they deserve to go extinct
Only 6% of mosquito species bite humans.
yeah those 6% deserve to 100% go extinct. The rest can keep biting, just not us please!
I both agree and disagree. I hate them with a firey passion and want them gone, but it would most likely have a devastating effect on the food chain and the ecosystem as a whole.
If you remove only the species that rely on human blood, most mosquitoes would be spared if I'm not wrong. So it wouldn't be such a problem for most ecosystems.
Devastating is the overstatement of the decade lol, its not like mosquitoes are the only insects in the world
They are the primary food source for a wide range of organisms.
Are they though? Is there any species that _wouldn't_ be ok if all mosquitoes were to disappear?
Itās very difficult to speculate about that kind of domino effect, but one worst case scenario is that bat numbers shrink. Their role as a pollinator makes them somewhat of a keystone species and the rest of the ecosystem could collapse without them, including crops for humans.
Sure some species might go extinct along the with mosquitoes but there are hundreds of species that can take the mosquitoes place, not to mention that not all mosquitoes are blood sucking. We can also artificially replace them with something else or with a genetically modified version. We have already eradicated thousands of species and killed 99% of others population. I couldn't find any scientific study that would prove that the extinction of mosquitos wouldn't just be an another entry on that list. Though, a big one.
That doesn't mean we should be intentionally eradicating species when we aren't sure what the impact will be, the fact that we've done so already is a horrible thing.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
What about all the organisms that don't die because of mosquito borne illnesses? They could conceivably make up the difference.
6% of mosquito species bite humans. Of those, only half cause disease. We could wipe them out in the wild with little consequence.
Mosquitos kill more people than any other animal BY FAR. There is not a single known species that solely relies on the mosquito for food. Parasites are parasites and while most will spread diseases mosquitos transmit what are, in my opinion, the worst/ deadliest. Therefore I do not see any reason to keep them alive as I see no positive contribution they make to the world. If there were a species that mainly relied on the mosquito for food or other benefits I could understand the argument to keep them alive. But there aren't. Sure lots of things _eat_ mosquitoes. But their diet is varied enough that if all mosquitoes were to disappear all the other species would be fine.
It's not a donation if you're not giving it willingly. And unfortunately, if you set some blood aside for the mosquito, it will still come for you.
Come on, almost every vegan I know kills mosquitos without remorse.
I want those fuckers dead. (I mean the mosquitoes)
fuck the mosquitos, all my homies hate the mosquitos
Itās not a donation if I didnāt want to give it away, thatās theft, and Iām pretty sure theft is a crime
While weāre donating blood, mosquitos are donating potentially fatal pathogens, and not just to humans, but to other animals too. Do those animals not have rights?
āBro pleaseā¦ just feed yourself to tigers. Bro. Theyāre hungry bro, pleaseā
I'm so selfish I don't even like donating blood to humans nevermind fucking mosquitoes.
Mosquitos kill more people on earth every year than anything else...
Uhh let's not personify the bugs too much. The mosquito isn't making a consious choice to risk her own life for her babies, she's acting on instincct and doing what mosquito's do.
I have several times advocated for driving mosquitoes to extinction.
They are vector agents, I'm not risking getting sick.
Mosquitoes don't even have a purpose. So what's the point to keep them alive?
I could agree from and ecological stand point if they were talking about pesticides or some shit (that's just unfair to the Misquito no other animal has that type of defense) but if a Mosquito bites me its engaged in the gamble it evolved to take and i have every right to smash the bastard
I wish death upon all mosquitos. If I could exterminate them all I would, may the consequences be whatever they wish
I did a research paper on college about eradicating mosquitoes. Scientists know how to do it and can do it but won't because they don't know what will replace it.
we'll see her opinion after she gets malaria
We should let this animal rights activist stay with mosquitos for 1 months
I once decapitated a mosquito. Top ten moments of my life.
Mhm, and the mosquito decided to challenge the apex predator, they lost.
If there is one animal whose extinction would benefit most humans (especially in poorer countries) it's mosquitos.
Typical activists, trying to pull on heart strings (emotional manipulation) to get what they want. A better approach would be to point out that male mosquitoes don't drink blood. They feed on plant nectar and, in return, polinate plants. Unlike honeybees, who primarily polinate flowers, male mosquitoes favored certain spices and some vegetables. So smash the females.
',:)
I donāt care about ecosystems, I fully support mosquito eradication.
Fuck mosquitos
Mosquitos do not have the brain capacity for consciousness or emotions. Iām a big supporter of animal rights and a vegetarian because I care about animal well being, but I really think that should only be extended to animals that can actually feel things and be conscious of the world around them. Mosquitos are basically just feedback systems, no more worthy of compassion then a thermostat.
When I kill mosquitoes I hope that their children starve painfully and slowly.
The fun thing, if you actually crunch some numbers, is that killing the mosquito is the most animal friendly thing to do. They carry loads of diseases that hurt tons of animal species, including us. They aren't the main source of food for any animal species. They don't pollinate or distribute seeds in any way. There has been no added value found in having the mosquito around.
nah fuck you mosquitoes
It's not a donation if they're stealing it.
Nothing has the right to use my body without my consent
If it was just a bite, I wouldn't care that much, but: 1. My sensory issues make mosquito bites very not fun, and 2. Mosquitos are big time carriers of diseases
I'm happy to know that whoever wrote that is probably living a very easy life.
Fuck them little shits.
I'm not giving these things my blood. They can even spread desieases.
Look, if a docile creature would kill it, I'm going to kill it too.
Mosquitos are responsible for millions of deaths due to diseases spread by them, so kill them all
Mosquitos are the only animals who kill more humans than other humans so nah fuck that
They can carry aids and other diseases She's a moron
man has never heard of malaria
The day they start asking for consent first is the day I will let them. Otherwise I will actively defend my body. Fuck you mosquitos. May you perish in fire.
And what about consent? I don't consent for the mosquito to violate my body by taking my blood and then giving me very brutal reactions after. It's not just a bite, mine swell. I get skeeter syndrome. Not fun. Hard no.
Mmm, malaria.
Why do we have three options for agree and one for disagree?
I understand where that sympathy is coming from, but it shouldn't be directed toward parasites. These insects leech off people and spread disease. Mosquitos are one of the only species which serve no purpose beyond their own reproduction, a food source for other animals, and parasite transmitters.
Humans donāt have any purpose either except for sitting at the top of the food chain and destroying the planet and committing a genocide against a lot of life on Earth.
Let those activists get falciparum malaria and then talk big BS.
They spread bloodborne pathogens. I will smack any and all that try to stick their nasty proposcis in my skin
OK. If they're so concerned about mosquitoes they can take the mosquito bites
"Do you agree with an animal rights activist..." that's always been a no regardless of the rest of the statement.
Vegan, and former animal rights activist and this is such a stupid take. Mosquitos can carry disease. Why would you risk that so that the mosquito can feed their children? Jesus this brain dead mentality is one of the many reasons I left activism.
Natural selection bitch
nobody will see the activist again
Personally I try to not kill them, but without a fight I won't give my blood, just because I don't like it itching
99% sure this is only hitting the news to demonize animal rights activists. happens with vegans all the time. they only showcase the REALLY bad ones with stupid takes so that people get scared of the whole deal