[bedobi]

This is hardly the place for this kind of discussion but I can't help but comment on this.

Countless species are already going extinct all the time, both known to us and completely unknown to us, and both "naturally" and from human impact, and no one really cares.

Here's a rare case of a species that there is very good reason to deliberately get rid of, and suddenly people care and object, a lot!?

Of course there's justifiable skepticism and a long, sorry history of unintended consequences of introducing, eradicating or in any way modifying a species or its behavior, but seriously, read up on it, this is not one of those species, pretty much everyone who knows anything about it (including otherwise very environmentally minded people who as a rule would never, ever agree with deliberately eradicating anything) agrees it can be eradicated with no meaningful impact on the ecosystem. (and yes, that includes even the armchair criticism from cynical misanthropes who consider human deaths resulting from this species a good thing "because humans are bad for the environment" - while these mosquitoes do cause a lot of human deaths, the environmental "benefit" of those deaths are completely meaningless in the grand scheme of things)

[somenameforme]

It's the means. If people wanted to look for ways to help reduce stagnant water, as a means of reducing mosquito populations, I suspect exactly 0 people would object. But releasing billions of mosquitos with a bacteria and hoping there's no natural evolution to it, and everything continues to work as planned indefinitely...? There's more than sufficient reason for skepticism there.

Beyond this, I would also consider the arrogance of the present. When you look back at stupid decisions made in times past, it's not like they just blindly rushed into them (well not always at least). They certainly assessed them using the latest knowledge available at the time, and then moved forward after it was deemed safe and effective. It just turns out that we're quite frequently wrong on such assessments, and so things that fail in 'obvious' ways only look obvious with the benefit of hindsight. It's like how NASA can lose a half a billion dollar probe in modern times because nobody bothered to ensure that all systems were using the same unit systems. [1]

Take yourself a decade in the future and imagine reading about these mosquitoes gaining, at the minimum, a resistance to the bacteria being used. Would it really surprise you? Or would you be thinking something more along the lines of, 'Wow, how could they not see that coming?'

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

[epistasis]

Are these the concerns of people who study ecosystems deeply, and dedicate their lives to environmental protection through understanding it deeply?

Or are they the concerns of people who don't know much, though they care deeply? I find these folks often pursue actions with great passion that are effectively neutral or sometimes even detrimental to the environment.

You say that most mistakes of the past have been made after careful consideration, but I do not believe that is the case at all. Most disasters, like the dumping of chemicals from semiconducting manufacturing in Silicon Valley that created so many superfund sites, was just carelessness and complete lack of concern or study.

[zmgsabst]

This is just an appeal to authority with a dash of shaming.

You’re failing to consider the opposite bias, where professionals whose income and prestige depends on a particular idea fail to critically assess it and judge themselves based on their motivations rather than outcomes — and outsiders who only see the claims and outcomes have a less biased view.

That’s the case for gain-of-function research:

- the US banned it despite expert opinions

- a rogue expert circumvented that ban by outsourcing the work to China

- that Chinese lab leaked the studied virus, causing a global pandemic

- the rogue scientist panicked and bribed several peers to help him cover that up and claim a “natural” origin

- millions of people are dead due to hubris and personal biases

[mullingitover]

I don't think OP is talking about the bacteria-inoculated mosquitoes, they're taking about eradicating the species completely with something like a CRISPR gene drive.

I am passionately in favor of this.

[earthboundkid]

I'm pretty sure when they introduced the mongoose to eat rats in Hawaii, it was knowable that this was an idiotic idea because they don't eat rats. :-P

But yes, introducing new species or new variants of a species is basically a big box labelled "unintended consequences."

[bedobi]

> There's more than sufficient reason for skepticism there

there really isn't. it just sounds bad to uneducated laymen - like I said, every expert who studies this, including biologists and environmentalists, agree the mosquitoes can and should be eradicated with zero impact on ecosystems

> It's like how NASA can lose a half a billion dollar probe in modern times because nobody bothered to ensure that all systems were using the same unit systems

this has nothing to do with the subject

> Take yourself a decade in the future and imagine reading about these mosquitoes gaining, at the minimum, a resistance to the bacteria being used. Would it really surprise you? Or would you be thinking something more along the lines of, 'Wow, how could they not see that coming?'

no, the bacteria and/or mosquitoes evolving together is an anticipated outcome and that would surprise absolutely no one. the real question is, when that happens, so what? then we can deploy CRISPR or some other means to extinct the mosquitoes

[erredois]

On this case of the Aedes Aegypti in the Americas, should not even be a big consideration whether to exterminate or not, since it's an invasive species from Asia.

[bedobi]

ah yeah I even forgot that super important thing which self-professed environmentalists also always care so much about

it's astonishing that so many of them (not all, but many) are all for keeping all other invasive species in check but somehow make an exception for Aedes Aegypti, literally the most harmful and destructive one :melting_face:

[Simon_ORourke]

> yes, that includes even the armchair criticism from cynical misanthropes who consider human deaths resulting from this species a good thing

If ever there was a species under no threat whatsoever it's those guys. I'm all for eradicate and move on, nature will be bound to throw something else at humanity so go for the small wins and to heck with it.

[dan-robertson]

I think part of this is that the idea can be unfamiliar and so people try to come to random conclusions or raise concerns that have already been considered (or they just disagree with the prevailing view). The search term for this kind of thing is ‘planned extinction’ and it perhaps won’t surprise you to hear that A. aegypti is the most common candidate. Another case is the (new world) screwworm fly which has been eliminated from North America and most of Central America by the United States (it being easier to try to control spread through Panama than from Mexico). There was a New Yorker article posted here a while ago about the elimination efforts. I’m not sure farmers in Colombia or the rest of South America would mind much if the species were totally eradicated.