this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 238 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Mosquitoes have killed more humans than every disease ever (edit: when you obviously exclude malaria) along with every war ever, combined.

Fuck those little shits. Let them all die, it will literally change nothing on this planet because nothing solely survives off predation on mosquitoes or their larvae.

[–] [email protected] 166 points 1 month ago (2 children)

But what will happen when the humans lose their natural predators, we might destroy our habita- ah, right. Nevermind

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Mosquitos are just trying to save the planet by murdering as many humans as possible

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Here's a Venn diagram:

O Humans getting killed by mosquitos

O Humans at fault for habitat destruction

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Yep. I was trying to be funny but the reality is brutally bad.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

If those creatures that also eat mosquitoes cannot eat them anymore, that means they would have to eat other bugs more frequently, and possibly fucking up all the ecosystem.

That said, fuck mosquitoes, they can take blood from other places.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 month ago (2 children)

All of our best data on the impact says that it really wouldn't matter. Sometimes a species is a linchpin for the ecosystem, and sometimes it isn't.

Sucks for mosquitoes, but there's a very real chance that we'll smallpox them, and the biggest concern will be our confidence that the virus we use doesn't impact other species unintentionally.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Hopefully we can do the same for bedbugs. Fuck bedbugs. I can smell the little fuckers

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Hey, at least pubic lice are going extinct!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I read that as public. I was pretty confused as to what you were talking about

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Just imagine what would happen if all lice were privatised.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oh no! My patriotic merkin startup plans are ruined! I guess 'MericaMerkins was never meant to be...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Don't let Trump hear this idea

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Haven't read closely on it, but I've seen plenty of articles about the lack of effect we'd see over killing off mosquitoes. I have a feeling that, along with what you said, it's because they're tiny.

Consider the dragonfly. They hunt mosquitoes efficiently. But relative to their size, a mosquito is like us eating a candy bar, or even less. Meanwhile, they could snatch about anything else and it would be like a 3-pound steak.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Now that you say that, average us candy bar contains 200..250 kcal a piece. That's about 1/7th of BMR of an average healthy male.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago

They're largely applying this technique to invasive species of mosquitoes, eg Aedes aegypti, which is a potent vector of disease and native of Africa that has spread worldwide only within the past 200 years

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

They also eat nectar and are pollinators of various plants.

There's no way we could simply remove a creature as numerous and widespread as mosquitoes without any consequences.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (3 children)

If we were to somehow magically remove mosquitos from existence in an instant, we'd better hope something fills their ecological niche quickly

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago

Nothing eats them exclusively, that I know of. And they're tiny. Any insectivore is getting far more nutrition out of about anything else.

Maybe I'm wrong, but biologists seem to think eradication is a non-issue.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I think the purpose of the original genetic modification is to make them unable to bite humans (and spread malaria) but to otherwise leave them capable of feeding, thus not wiping them out and upsetting the ecosystem they're part of

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That niche being flying bloodsucker? I'm not sure the alternative will be any better

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

The niche being food for fish that share their ecosystem in larval stages, and birds/bats/frogs that share their ecosystem in their adult stage.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Found the mosquito.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I understand what you're saying here, but the set of people killed by "every disease ever" includes the entire set of people killed by mosquito-borne diseases. Mosquitoes can't have killed more people than every disease ever because mosquitoes' kill count is part of every disease ever.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago

Edit: when excluding malaria.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Mosquitoes have killed more humans than every disease ever

How do they kill us outside of spreading disease?

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They manipulate the weather using space lasers from their fake hollow moon above our flat earth.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Jew mosquitos or mosquito Jews?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

By distracting drivers into causing accidents? Statistically speaking... probably.