Let’s say that a group of Dopers, weary of the machinations of that diseased maniac Fabulous Creature, storm his Evil Overlord’s citadel and depose him. Examining all the cool gadgets (and disabling all the booby traps and self-destruct devices, they decide to immediately destroy most of the gadgets. Obviously no good will result from using the Sun-Snuffer, the Cask of Endless Hurricanes, or the Adolphe Menjou Re-Animator
But one device gives them pause. Examining FC’s notes, the Dopers conclude that the Worldwide Mosquito Disintegrator does exactly what it says. Flick a switch, and every specimen of family Culicidae on Earth (including larvae and unhatched eggs) will be vaporized, using a magic process that (a) has no deleterious environmental side effects, (b) only works on mosquitos, and (c) cannot be reversed.
An argument breaks out, naturally. “Do you know how many diseases mosquitos are vectors for?” one side says. “We have to use this!” The other side responds, “Hold on–let’s think this through. We’re in a freaking evil lair. I don’t care if we’ve disabled all the self-destruct devices; there’s no way FC would have started work on this thing if it didn’t have evil applications.”
What do you think? What’s the hidden downside of killing all the mosquitos at once?
This might be a stretch, but one could argue that killing all those mosquitoes and halting the spread of infectious disease in poor, equatorial nations in and of itself is a bad thing. I’m not sure what percentage of those nations’ population succumbs to mosquito borne diseases but immediately halting that mortality might overwhelm the already struggling economies and food-stores of those nations due to the sudden abnormal bloat in population.
There are connections beyond the bats that we either don’t know about or don’t understand. Eliminating any species in it’s entirety could cause unexpected ripples, I would think.
I don’t buy it. These economies aren’t suffering due to a lack of manpower. Overpopulation is the key issue in these nations and some death probably helps what little food they have go a little farther.
Female mosquitoes don’t suck blood because of a shortage of flowers - they do it to get the nutrients necessary to produce lots of eggs. The flowers will attract them to your house, then when they’re ready to reproduce, they’ll suck your blood. So the advice in the article you linked sounds counterproductive at best.
When a very large percentage of your population is suffering from chronic, low-grade malaria, manpower is an issue - if you are a subsistence farmer and are too sick to get out to the fields, or to sick to go out there and work hard all day, who is going to get your food? Also, overpopulation is not an issue in sub-Saharan Africa (which is hugely affected by mosquito-borne illnesses)
But it’s early yet, and I am not sure what I (or you people) are talking about.
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yams!!
I don’t believe that FC has such a machine. He is too fond of radioactive mosquitos and their being released on his enemies (IE, anyone who happens to annoy him) to ever consider destroying them all.
Hey, that’s just the rationalization for all the mosquitos dying in a puff of illogic.
But to answer in the same vein: FabCre is eeeevvvvvviiiiillllll, as we all know He’d keep such a machine around for one of three reasons:
He knows that killing all the mosquitos at once is a bad idea, and he figures that, if he were ever defeated and his fortress ransacked by the Justice Legion of Fantastic X-Avengers, they’ll use the device and thus be responsible for the devastation os Sub-saharan Africa.
He knows that obliterating the mosquitos will be harmless, but he figures the JLFXA will think he has some underhanded motive for keeping the machine around, and so after Captain Marvel smashes it, a message will appear saying “hah! you guys could have solved the malaria problem, and yet your cynicism and paranoia caused you to condemn millions to needless suffering! See what listening to Batman gets you?”
He beat it on weekend while his wife was out of town and he was bored and was keeping it around until he could think of an evil application.
Ok, so instead of eliminating the mosquitoes, we genetically re-engineer them so they become a species of jellyfish that function superbly as condoms, with a propensity to get sucked up by waterspouts and distributed across the globe, like the frogs in Magnolia. In fact, they don’t just land in clumps, they seek out sources of moisture and shelter: guys’ dicks. And they give off phernomes so women will prefer to have sex with the guys wearing them.