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brianpan

Serious answer in the form of a question:

What is good about humans or dogs or trees? What does good even mean- how do you define it? Good in what sense?

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I generally share the same view but it seems pretty clear to me they’re asking from the perspective of human benefit.

I think the question was ecological benefit not human benefit.

good is what help maintaining life as a whole, so a human with a high carbon footprint is more bad than good, but a lizard or a bird plays a role in the ecosystem, and at least doesn't have a negative pollution impact, so they're not bad

trees: that's the symbol of life, of usefulness, they help to improve life in the ground and around, hold humidity, store carbon for most of them, are homes of many species, provide food, ...

dogs or any pets: not useful at all for the ecosystem, actually detrimental from their food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_food#Impact and other services dedicated to them and their direct negative impact on the local wild life

mosquitoes: useful because their larva feed a large ecosystem, they also feed other insects, they also pollinate

Good if it's useful to us humans, bad if it's harmful.

For example wasps are extremely precious, for their role in pollination, in the ecosystem in general https://www.thoughtco.com/what-good-are-wasps-1968081

But I'm sure most people will say they're bad because of the risk of a bite, neglicting and/or ignoring how they indirectly help us to live

OK, TIL wasps are pollinators

Yup, in fact there are some fig genus that depend solely on some specific wasps for pollination

Mosquitos too, for that matter, for orchids.

https://www.thoughtco.com/insect-pollinators-that-arent-bees...

most flying insects do pollinate, or even ants

Some wasps are, but unfortunately not the ones that are pests to humans.

Plus it’s ironic to talk about wasps being good pollinators when they attack bees and other pollinators.

Too simplistic views don't work in ecology. I'm pleased to inform you that yes, there are many species of wasps, big and small, and for sure, wasps (and flies, and mosquitoes) are good pollinators. Sometimes even the only pollinators.

... but their role as predators of caterpillars is more interesting for us

None of what you put contradicts what I said.

wasp do as much pollination than bees, please do your own research on this, wasps don't deserve this undeserved bad press

I’ve read plenty on this. I also live next door to a bee keeper on one side, and a farm on the other. So have first hand experience too.

It's a bit like sharks, or wolves. If you are more experienced on this, on the complexity of ecosystems, you will start to figure the direct loss of production they can cause is relatively small and very well compensated by the role their indirect role in the ecosystem, less wasps could mean more caterpillars or other parasites (bad for farmer and beekeeper since bees will have less plants to forage). Bees know since a long time how to protect themselves. There's a reason scientist explain how sharks, wolves, wasps are highly beneficial. I think fortunately there's a growing awareness about this, more and more farmers understand these things as the condition for farming, pollution, drought, climate changes make things way harder for conventional agriculture methods

> If you are more experienced on this, on the complexity of ecosystems, you will start to figure the direct loss of production they can cause is relatively small and very well compensated by the role their indirect role in the ecosystem

Steady on there with the arrogance mate. At no point did I say all wasps should die or that their environmental impact was precisely zero.

No wasp at all should be eliminated, and their environmental impact is of course beneficial like basically all wild life (compared to the detrimental impact of a human, a pet), even the one you call "pest" for just turning around humans and killing a super small percentage of bees, let's stop living on opinions, best

Are polar bears useful or bad for humans?

Would a toddler at the zoo and a polar resident have differing opinions?

Dogs peeing on trees in cities also has a net negative effect.

There is no such thing as objective good. Good is relative to the individual making the judgement.

Dogs and trees make us happy. It’s amazing to go for a walk in the forest and breathe the fresh air. The smells of the forest are very pleasant and calming. Unfortunately, forests also tend to have mosquitoes everywhere due to the way shade preserves pools of standing water. Forests would be much more enjoyable to walk through without mosquitoes biting us all the time.

It’s as simple as that, really. We’re allowed to be biased. All other animals are biased. Foxes will kill every single chicken in a henhouse. The difference with us humans is that we can plan for the future in a sophisticated way. That’s why we build the henhouse rather than kill all the chickens immediately.

The rest of the job is just ecological study. If we can determine that the eradication of mosquitoes won’t cause the food chain to collapse and lead to widespread unintended problems, why not do it?

What is good from an ecological perspective? It’s what we humans prefer. Not just in the immediate term but in the long term. We know we like idyllic forests and meadows full of butterflies and reefs teaming with colourful fish. We don’t much like swamps teaming with mosquitoes and other biting insects but we recognize their value as habits for things we do like, mainly waterfowl. So if we can determine whether it’s safe to get rid of mosquitoes without disrupting the other things we do like, why not? After all, we created seedless bananas, grapes, and watermelons.

> There is no such thing as objective good. Good is relative to the individual making the judgement.

This is a pretty sweeping claim that requires some motivation.

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