I think the major difference between this attempt at species destruction and other previous attempts is the massive amount of human disease and death already perpetrated by the clumsy little biters.
It comes down to determining whats better: not messing with the environment and continuing to allow hundreds of thousands of human deaths a year. or trying to kill off mosquitoes.
Wikipedia claims that malaria alone causes 2.23% of yearly human death world wide.
I don't think so, since that too was ultimately aimed at preventing human casualties.
gerggerg is claiming there's a big difference between this and previous deliberate attempts to wipe out a whole species. I'm asking, what are those previous attempts? I can think of none for which human welfare wasn't the main selling point.
What I'm ultimately doing is disagreeing with the gerggerg; I'm saying that human welfare doesn't justify any attempt to wipe out an entire species.
The goal is to eradicate malaria in humans. No one claims that we can extinct any plasmodium as a species, and no one cares.
In addition, there's a bit of a difference between a microbial parasite and mosquitoes, with regard to ecological roles that benefit humans. I'm sure you can see the difference.
You seem to prefer pot-shots to reasoned defences your statements. I'm not surprised; I do occasionally hear statements like "Let's start spraying DDT from planes and dumping oil on wetlands" from people without the means or will to support them, but I am disappointed to hear it on HN.
Malthus might make that argument, but others, like Julian Simon, would say quite the opposite.
The Malthusian theory is that we've only got a certain amount of arable land, and thus can only support a finite number of people. Once we hit that maximum population, mankind stagnates at that point.
The competing theory -- and the one that has proven through history to be correct -- is that the most important resource, the one that outweighs all others, is the human mind. The more people we have, the more creativity we can bring to bear on a problem.
Thus, the problem of agriculture has been largely solved. Humans have invented irrigation, terracing, crop rotation, selective breeding, and genetic manipulation. We spend our time on the edge of disaster, but before we can topple over, the lure of riches to the person who can come up with the solution is sufficient to take us to the next plateau.
Pretty sure you mean partially correct. The wolrd has a long history of famines that show we quite often bump up against Malthusian limits.
In the long run yes production can potentially keep pace with population but what's more relevant is the population growth rate itself will naturally fall once a certain quality of life is achieved.
> The world has a long history of famines that show we quite often bump up against Malthusian limits.
Famine isn't caused by a lack of resources - it's a political problem. 87 million people died of famine in the 20th century, but none of those were in democracies. Source (though I haven't checked the numbers myself): http://markhumphrys.com/end.war.html
To say it's a political problem is to say that you can solve all famine just by just changing over to democracy which simply isn't the case (although it would help!).
That's an error in causation. What's more likely is you're seeing the fact that democracy helps but what helps more is the same societal characteristics that are salient for developing a strong democracy (e.g. a strong, educated middle class) also tend to insulate those societies from shocks to the food supply.
Certainly type of government is important but to say famine isn't also caused by lack of resources is silly.
"Deaths from malnutrition on a large scale have continued across India into modern times. In Maharashtra alone, for example, there were around 45,000 childhood deaths due to mild or severe malnutrition in 2009, according to the Times of India.[145] Another Times of India report in 2010 has stated that 50% of childhood deaths in India are attributable to malnutrition.[146] Around 7.5 million people per year die of malnutrition in modern India, the largest death rate caused by malnutrition for any country."
What's more likely is you're seeing the fact that democracy helps but what helps more is the same societal characteristics that are salient for developing a strong democracy
Yes. More important than democracy itself is a strong system of property rights and a functional market (these are things that tend to be present in democracies, hence the confusion).
The problem in Africa is frequently that property rights are not respected, so warlords and gangsters are able to confiscate the food and sell it themselves, or dole it out to their minions.
and the one that has proven through history to be correct
Something tells me you didn't apply the scientific method here...
We spend our time on the edge of disaster, but before we can topple over, the lure of riches to the person who can come up with the solution is sufficient to take us to the next plateau.
That's implying the pretty optimistic assumption that we're capable of solving any problem that we create for us.
Social sciences, unfortunately, aren't generally amenable to experimentation at the scale we're talking about here.
Which doesn't change the fact that "proven through history to be correct" is a meaningless claim in this context.
You don't have to be a malthusian to acknowledge that the physical resources of our planet are finite and that our track-record of dealing with similar problems on much smaller scales isn't exactly flawless.
There's a long string of data points supporting this assumption. (And I'm sure that survivorship bias isn't playing any role whatsoever ;) )
At least you're adding the winking smiley yourself. ;)
But most people with malaria don't die. Instead they experience malaise and lack of energy (due to anemia). This causes tremendous misery and suffering, keeping entire populations stuck and unable to progress - but alive.
It comes down to determining whats better: not messing with the environment and continuing to allow hundreds of thousands of human deaths a year. or trying to kill off mosquitoes.
Wikipedia claims that malaria alone causes 2.23% of yearly human death world wide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria
Thats a pretty ridiculous number if you think about it.