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Comment by Victerius | Hacker News Reader

How there hasn't been a horror movie about mosquitoes is beyond me.

Jaws has made almost everyone afraid of sharks. Yet, in the last century, there have been only 1,000 recorded deadly shark attacks. Mosquitoes kill between 1,500 and 2,000 people every day. Source: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/08/chart-of-the-day-mosq...

On a more scientific note, it is my firm belief that the benefits of exterminating all species of mosquitoes on the globe far outweigh the consequences on the food chain. If I had Bill Gates money, this is one of the projects I would work on.

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The Gates foundation has granted billions of dollars for malaria research including mosquito control. And Bill himself released some (possibly imaginary) mosquitoes into the TED audience to make this point, which was pretty hilarious. “There’s no reason only poor people should have the experience,” he said.

96 percent of deaths are in Africa and 80 percent of deaths in Africa are children below 5 years old..

I do not want to be cynical but that statistic might explain inaction...

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria

My theory is it’s because people respond emotionally to drama but not numbers. A shark attack, a plane crash, and an explosion are all much more dramatic but less deadly. What would the dramatic terror scene be? Someone swiping away a mosquito? Very boring. So that’s not what gets made into movies.

Secondly, the Gates Foundation does a TON of work with mosquitos and protective nets! They have saved tens of millions of lives. Whenever I have some money to donate and do research on what is the most effective use of each dollar, mosquito nets rise to the top.

I don't understand why there's so much Gates love in this thread. Mosquito nets have been around for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Nobody is all bad. Not even him.

Hundreds of millions of people simply don’t have them. They aren’t free and they get holes in them over time

I present to you 1994's Mosquito

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_(film)

Don’t forget ‘93s Skeeter

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0108154/

I enjoyed Mansquito:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430334/

Same reason we have horror movies about nuclear plant accidents, but none about coal plants that emit more pollution and kill more people.

Mosquitoes aren't just deadly, they're boring, and that's an even worse sin.

If you are reasonably healthy, reasonably young, and reasonably well-off, you’ll most probably not die from any mosquito-transmitted disease. And most people think that they belong to that group. None of the above will protect you from a shark once it found you.

Even in that group, you're still probably more likely to die by mosquito then shark?

I guess it depends on your Bayesian updating model.

To add, sharks are literal scary freaks...in pictures, not to talk of seeing such a beast in real life.

On the other hand, I've killed more mosquitoes than I care to remember.

> Jaws has made almost everyone afraid of sharks. Yet, in the last century, there have been only 1,000 recorded deadly shark attacks.

Ghosts and zombies have claimed even fewer lives. Meanwhile, no horror movies are about cancer or heart disease.

The Mist does a pretty good job of making mosquitos terrifying.

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