From: Spike (spike66@comcast.net)
Date: Mon Jul 14 2003 - 20:26:36 MDT
Anders Sandberg
>>...Just breed a dominant clade that dislikes human smells and blood.
>
> Of course, this solution might be interpreted by
> some misguided souls as cruelty to animals. spike
Sure. Childless mosquito couples are a tragedy, much worse than
killed mosquitos. But mosquito scientists are working on in vitro
hatching.
No, what I meant was that humans would be selfish
to take care of their own while cheerfully allowing
the other animal species to suffer from the mosquitos.
But now that I think about it, I do not recall seeing
mosquitos hanging around my dogs, so perhaps most
mammals' fur is sufficient to protect their skin.
This observation causes me to wonder what happened
to our fur? How could it have evolved away, when
it has so many clear advantages?
I just realized that the biggest fault in my scheme is that I actually
have to let the mosquitos bite me and escape unscatched for it to work!
Talk about cruelty to animals - me! They are violating my
self-ownership! My blood is mine! All mine! :-) Anders Sandberg
Ah Anders, surely we could work out an arrangement where
outdated pints in the bloodbank could be converted
into hordes of sterile or non-human-blood-lusting
mosquitos.
I favor the notion however that humans could
eventually eliminate mosquitos from the planet,
should we determine to do water control correctly.
Perhaps this attitude comes from having grown up in
Florida, where the old-timers would absolutely marvel
at how successful the state's mosquito control efforts
have been. They have not been eradicated, but the
absolute number of mosquitos has dropped to perhaps
10% what they were in the 1920s. I may be wrong but
my perception is that the problem has dropped in half
since my own childhood in the 60s. Water control is
the key to bug control. spike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Jul 14 2003 - 20:33:30 MDT