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Comment by stephc_int13 | Hacker News Reader

There are sampling methodology issues with this type of studies.

The main conclusion is that insecticide chemicals used for agriculture are pretty effective at killing insects (especially Neonicotinoid but probably also other classes).

A more rigorous sampling methodology would produce a different picture, with huge differences depending on the distance from highly cultivated areas.

This is not apocalypse, this is actionable, invertebrates species populations can rebound at a surprising speed in less poisonous ecosystem.

Politics should act to ban some classes of insecticides.

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> Politics should act to ban some classes of insecticides.

My fear (in the US anyway) is that this will never happen because of one simple reason: Iowa Corn Farmers.

Presidential elections in the US start and end for many candidates in one state. Iowa. That's where the first primary election is held.

And the key to winning Iowa is the make the corn lobby and corn farmers happy.

The Democrats have voted to change the first primaries (I know Iowa has a caucus) to North Carolina. That should change things a bit.

*South Carolina.

What they (and others) should be doing is looking at nationwide same day primaries to remove the bias, not just shift it around.

Fucking thank you. I can’t believe the DNC lets their absurd primary rules stand year after year. Superdelegates are still a thing too, even after the Hillary/Bernie debacle. Tuck that one away in your memory because it’ll become relevant again 25 years down the road, even though everyone thought they were abolished after 2016.

What debacle? The more popular candidate won

A fair vote should be held. Showing one candidate with a massive lead, even if artificial, can influence voters.

Yes, I agree Hillary would have won no matter what. That doesn’t mean the DNC primary system wasn’t rigged. It still is. Staggered primaries mean earlier elections influence later elections and superdelegates allow individuals to steal the votes of voters for themselves.

This isn’t like the 2020 election conspiracies. DNC primary rules are demonstrably unfair with no benefit other than to allow party elites to override voter choices.

You mean the party is allowed to influence the selection of the candidate that will represent them? And put their thumb on the scales against populist candidates from the fringe with rabidly delusional adherents?

One could argue that the GOP primary process would be better off with superdelegates in order to avoid the tendency to nominate fringe weirdos with absurd populist policies.

Perhaps, but we'll never know for sure considering that the DNC leadership manipulated the process to tilt the scales in favor of their preferred candidate.

The point of staggered primaries is to ensure that the eventual winner gets the majority of funds for the general election.

Weaker candidates are identified early and fall out of the race - leaving the eventual winner with a larger donor base.

"Weaker candidates are identified early and fall out of the race"

Not really true. They are only the weaker candidates in those states. You have plenty of attractive candidates in other states drop out before those primaries.

You can approach this as a statistical sampling problem. Out of a field N candidates, one will become the representative of the party in the national election. Your optimization challenge is to identify the winner with high confidence while conducting the fewest number of tests. Each test exacts a financial and political cost on the eventual candidate. To have the most viable candidate in the general election, you want to do the fewest number of tests that give you the final result with high confidence.

The staggered system of primaries does just that.

"The staggered system of primaries does just that."

It actually causes the devaluation of the votes of later primaries. Due to the difference in concerns of different geographic areas, you would have a shitty sample based on the current line-up.

"Your optimization challenge is to identify the winner with high confidence while conducting the fewest number of tests."

If that were the case, you wouldn't even do primaries and you'd just rely on the surveys, which arguably have better sampling (primaries are biases toward the vocal minority due to the low turn outs and not necessarily the overall voter pool).

> It actually causes the devaluation of the votes of later primaries.

Does it really though? California votes blue. Doesn't matter which Dem candidate - they will win California. Because California votes blue regardless of candidate, California has self-selected itself out of the primary system.

> If that were the case, you wouldn't even do primaries and you'd just rely on the surveys

You certainly could do that. But voting is necessary to receive the consent of the populace.

"California votes blue. Doesn't matter which Dem candidate"

Yeah and Pennsylvania is one of the later primaries but has the potential to go either way.

"But voting is necessary to receive the consent of the populace."

Only for the general election. Parties can set their own rules about selection.

No one wants to remove the bias, they want to shift the bias so they win.

The argument I’ve heard for Iowa being the first state is it somewhat levels the playing field for candidates. Iowa is a small enough state you can drive around it and meet people, without having the budget for a bunch of flights. The media market is also smaller and thus cheaper.

South Carolina - Too late to edit.

"Presidential elections in the US start and end for many candidates in one state."

Eh, this isn't the biggest issue. If it was, we would have had bills for this that were vetoed. There has to also be support for banning this in the legislature, which depends on many other states.

Corn doesn't get much insecticide, herbicide yes.

"The chemical compound glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide, can weaken the immune systems of insects ..."

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2021/ingredient-in-common-weed-...

Negative Effects of Common Herbicides on Non-target Invertebrates

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.c...

Direct and Indirect Effects of Herbicides on Insect Herbivores in Rice, Oryza sativa

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6502833/

Iowa has been replaced by South Carolina. But New Hampshire law has introduced a race condition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire_presidential_pri... "New Hampshire state law[6] stipulates that the presidential primary shall be on the second Tuesday in March (the date when town meetings and non-partisan municipal elections are traditionally held), but that the Secretary of State must, if necessary, change the date to ensure that the New Hampshire primary will take place at least seven days before any "similar election" in any other state. The Iowa caucuses are not considered to be a similar election. In recent election cycles, the New Hampshire primary has taken place the week after the Iowa caucus."

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/democrats-vote-to-chan... "PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Democratic Party on Saturday approved the reordering of its 2024 presidential primary, replacing Iowa with South Carolina in the leadoff spot as part of a major shake-up meant to empower Black and other minority voters critical to its base of support."

Only by the Democrats. Iowa is still first in the nation for Republicans, and most of those Iowa corn farmers are voting for them anyway.

Today's Republicans were never going to vote for anyone that will allow the EPA to do anything anyway.

A third of that corn is used for animal agriculture as feed, a third for production of ethanol (environmentally worse than gas anyway), and just one third is for human consumption [0].

We could easily eliminate 2/3 of that crop (by switching to electric and plant based) and 2/3 of associated pesticides/herbicides as well.

[0] https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2019/07/29/corn-americas-lar...

Not so easy considering it requires decimatàtion of corn belt state GDP

We could always grow different crops and practices.

Just because we subsidize bad things now (meat, dairy, corn ethanol), doesn't mean it's wise to do so in perpetuity.

I'm not arguing status quo is wise, but it's folly to pretend that upending the economic mainstay of that whole region would be done "easily".

Similarly, replacing corn with a crop that is profitable (without subsidies), suited to the region, and also doesn't require pesticides that affect insects would not be easy.

> upending the economic mainstay of that whole region would be done "easily"

Change the incentives (remove animal subsidies), and the problem will solve itself.

There is a big demand for plant based protein now ... we know how to grow peas, beans, lentils ... however it's not profitable to do so now because we continue to subsidize animal agriculture (one of the most harmful things we can do to the environment) with obscene amount of money. That's the main reason plant-based cheeses cost 3x more than cow-milk-based, although it should be other way around.

> crop that is profitable (without subsidies), suited to the region, and also doesn't require pesticides that affect insects would not be easy

Easy is not the important part. Easy led us to the hell (or purgatory), where we currently are.

Those problems you're writing about can be solved with biodiversity. Let's imagine smaller fields, with different crops, interplanted with trees and shrubs to enable a lot of life [0], and you won't have problems with mice or bugs, because diversity will take care of any infestations.

If you're interested how to farm economically without pesticides/herbicides, may I suggest movie The Biggest Little Farm (2018), where the role of biodiversity is nicely illustrated.

[0] https://fotobanka.chrudimskenoviny.cz/sites/default/files/im...

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8969332/

>Change the incentives (remove animal subsidies), and the problem will solve itself.

That's still not easy. That is like saying ending entitlements is an easy way to save a lot of money in the federal budget. That's the entirety of my point.

And no offense but I have to chuckle at your example - (and note that organic veggie gardening is my chief hobby and I've studied advances in market gardening for years out of personal interest, and the model absolutely fills a niche). But around the time of the documentary, Apricot Lane Farm was USDA 'small scale' meaning income of sub-$250k a year at a time they had 60 employees... Basically you are suggesting we can replace government subsidies with venture capitalists.

There are wicked problems in agriculture and getting even a slight net improvement across environmental/social/economic sustainability metrics is going to be the result of incremental policy, technological and cultural changes, it isn't going to happen by handwaving industrial corn fields currently forming the backbone of rural communities into angel-investor backed biodynamic farms that don't actually need to make money on outputs.

>Change the incentives (remove animal subsidies), and the problem will solve itself.

That's still not easy. That is like saying ending entitlements is an easy way to save a lot of money in the federal budget. That's the entirety of my point - its a bit facile to call a change easy just because you can put it in one sentence.

We could replace corn fields with solar panels for like 10x the energy yield.

Politics should act to ban some classes of insecticides.

And people need to be educated so they don’t hire pesticide companies to bomb their entire yard every year with insecticide because they want fewer mosquitos and other bugs outside.

This. I can't understand people who want their plot of land to be without natural life. Might as well sell the house and move to a flat instead.

If that were the only difference between a house and a flat then there would be reason to be confused. Few chose a flat vs a house mainly based on how much they love nature itself.

I don’t think anyone wants their plot of land to be without natural life. Maybe without mosquitos though.

Yea but like, there's topical applications instead of bombing the backyard. Or plant lots of citrus in the yard. Rip a small branch off and scrunch up the leaves and keep it near. The citrus fumes from the leaves can keep them at bay.

I don’t think citrus grows in the Midwest. Or in most places, really.

Oh shit really? That's crazy. Y'all don't have have a sneaky lemon tree that you dash out to when u need a lemon for something?

It would die in the winter. You can grow one indoors though.

It's mostly mosquitoes. I don't like them but all the plants I have are from the local environment to help insects and birds.

Dunno. I'm one of the people who don't want mosquitos, though I don't care about bugs which don't suck my blood. I have a fan-powered mosquito trap which seems to work well enough. No chemistry.

There's always BTI, which so far is specific just to mosquitoes (biological, not chemical).

We put up mosquito traps. They emit a bit of CO2 or something like that to attract the little pests. Seems to work pretty well for us, and we still have a really healthy insect population in our yard more generally. It helps that we leave our leafs around the trees and we always cordon of a section of the lawn to leave unmowed all spring and summer.

This is the biggest factor I've personally seen.

My house and neighbor don't spray. I chave a corn field behind me, which I think is BT because I don't see them spray. We have plenty of bumble bees, beetles, and other insects. Although I will say there are fewer butterflies than I remeber as a kid.

My in-laws live in a development where they and almost everyone else sprays. There are very few insects. Still plenty of annoying yellow jackets though.

What's the alternative? The public is much more afraid about GMO crops than dying insects and the farmers clearly don't want to be the losers in this situation.

Yeah, this is unfortunate. Same story with Nuclear power.

Birds are the only insect control I use in my garden. I am not growing miles of corn or another monoculture. It is a hard sell to some farmers to diversify their fields and plant trees for the birds to roost.

It feels like this is also where natural selection and evolution kick in. Surely insects will evolve resistance to insecticides given their ubiquity, rapid life cycle, and prodigious ability to reproduce?

There are always some chemicals that evolving resistance to is tricky.

Humans are particularly poor at lava resistance... Despite groups of humans having had access to lava for millions of years.

Its a red queen situation though because the agricultural industry is constantly coming up with ways to get around resistance when it does appear

I think in this tit for tat insects have the long term advantage. The insecticides have to be relatively harmless to mammals, otherwise other methods of production for food become economically viable. I wager on the roaches.

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