Hacker News Reader

Comment by mjburgess | Hacker News Reader

I havent heard this claim before. When we build bridges, I dont hear it. Nor roads, or cities; nor houses, nor farms.

Actually, I've only ever heard it said about eliminating the single largest source of death in human history. Perhaps I dont get out much.

View on HN

Isn’t it implicitly the claim made whenever a construction project is stalled for environmental review?

> I've only ever heard it said about eliminating the single largest source of death in human history.

Is this true? I'm not sure if you're being hyperbolic here, but if that is a defensible claim I want to hear how you arrived at that conclusion.

AIUI mosquito-borne illness is estimated to have killed more than 4% of all of the humans that have ever lived https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2019/10/03/has_malaria...

"Malaria may have killed half of all the people that ever lived"

https://www.nature.com/articles/news021001-6#:~:text=Malaria....

I think people forget quite how long the population tail in Africa is and people also forget that malaria used to be endemic to Europe.

And that previous attempts to curb the reign of mosquitoes include things like "draining all swamps everywhere".

Take a look at the coastline of Long Island on satellite maps, and all the scars left by that time they tried to eliminate all of the salt marshes to get rid of mosquitoes near NYC.

> the single largest source of death in human history.

Government?

Religion

To be fair, eliminating human deaths is absolutely terrible for the environment.

> I've only ever heard it said about eliminating the single largest source of death in human history.

Let's take a step back.

What makes you think human lives are worthier than mosquito lives?

I wonder if the person you're replying to is secretly a human.

Wait, y'all aren't dogs using the internet while humans are away?

human lives are worthier because we are humans. We have agency, and care for our children.

That's just your opinion man. The mosquito probably thinks the same thing.

It is unlikely that mosquitos have true agency, and we know they don't care for their children. Moreso, they are unable to develop technology to eliminate us, while we can develop technology to eliminate them.

It's actually "that's just, like, your opinion, man".

> Moreso, they are unable to develop technology to eliminate us, while we can develop technology to eliminate them.

Wow. Just, wow. I hope you realize that that's a dangerous line of thinking.

But then again it's not very surprising. Historically humans don't have a good track record of preserving the lives of other humans (in other lands). Let alone other creatures.

Also your statement isn't even really true. The reason those mosquitoes are targeted is because nature inadvertently came up with diseases that eliminate humans.

Yet I'm not entirely sure that's a justification for eradicating a sub-species of mosquitoes.

Just something to think about.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com