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Comment by bluSCALE4 | Hacker News Reader

This is why I was concerned when I heard Google, of all companies, released lab grown mosquitos to wipe them out. I'm curious what happened with this effort. It's not exactly a vote of confidence when the other guy trying to do this is Bill Gates.

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History runs in circles. Everybody wants to be an hero, so they will refuse to see the danger or to understand that ecosystems don't grant a second try if you change something and regret it later.

Mao died in 1976. Sparrows still remain extinct in most of China.

Generally those efforts are targeted at disease carrying mosquitoes. There are other species of mosquitoes in the same regions and there aren't any animals that only eat one kind of mosquito.

To add to this, the disease carrying mosquito species like aedes aegypti and aedes albopictus are invasive species in the Americas.

These mosquitoes do some pollination but given that they're invasive it probably wouldn't be a big deal to wipe them out.

Also, invasiveness is true of a lot of pests in North America: the American cockroach isn't American, it's from Africa. Brown rats, red/fire ants, and wild pigs are also imported/invasive.

a complication to eradicating a invasive species is when that species has replaced a native species ecological niche. getting rid of it at that point may cause more problems then it solves.

Luckily or unluckily depending on your perspective, there is no lack of other species of mosquitoes.

Not when you’re talking about wild pigs…

I dunno, i think these pale in comparison to humans. Pot kettle black, and all that.

The Gates’ have a pretty spectacular track record, what do you mean?

Like buying up farmland an using GMOs.

I was more referring to their work with malaria. I suppose it’s up for debate how much good they have done, but the scales weigh petty clearly from where I sit.

Just to make sure, are you saying that GMOs are somehow bad?

"released lab grown mosquitos to wipe them out"

Spoiler alert. We lose fish. All fresh water fish. Not as bad as fucking with bees. But a close second.

bats and birds would suffer also

Bill Gates foundation is also sponsoring GMOs in Africa. These include lab designed mosquitos that can be introduced in the existing population to eradicate mosquitos.

> It's not exactly a vote of confidence when the other guy trying to do this is Bill Gates

yeah, a super-villain trying to wipe out malaria - what is his cunning plan?

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