Gene drives are we playing god?

[The Grand Nudger]

Ish.  The flowers of the world would survive in the absence of mosquitos, and particularly in that there would still be plenty of mosquitos anyway - since we're looking to get rid of a couple specific ss. The pollination and food source angles on this aren;t the unknown risks. It's one of those genie out of the bottle unknown unknown type things. We can;t find any reason not to do it, the common objections have been looked into, and alot of people die from malaria. It's just that we couldn't stop it, once we started it. The risks have more to due with transfer than with mosquitos. What if it made it's way into some other pop "somehow"?

Going back to ddt, we understood some of the risks (and I want to point out that the local wildflower population didn't collapse when we were spraying the shit weekly nor did the absence of mosquitos starve out the local fauna)..we called those acceptable. What we -didn't- know..at the time..was that we'd be killing brown pelicans (other animals as well, but, in florida, that became -the- cause to stop ddt). Thing with ddt was that, obviously, we could stop spraying it. It's a little more difficult to see how we'd halt the spread of mosquito genetics once released into the wild.

........I guess there's always ddt.

Essentially, the objection that may have the most merit as an objection is the same objection to genetic engineering in the general, in field crops..for example. As an objection it's compelling..but on the basis of observation it may not be as likely or inevitable as some of us fear. It leaves us weighing a "what if" that hasn't yet materialized against the death of millions of people - ironically, the question of the moral or ethical issues with killing the fuckers may be misplaced..there may be moral or ethical issues to -not- killing them.

[vorlon13]

Interesting. Still, pollinators are pollinators, and I bet a lot shit eats mosquitoes. It's hard to tell what the result would be. We're known for our limited thinking.

[Huggy Bear]

They are, not in any sense useful to humans..but, you know.

Mosquitoes feed on plant nectar, the female mosquitoes only need blood to produce eggs...

That being said, how do you know how much of an impact they make, especially in cooler climates?

[The Grand Nudger]

Because we've already eradicated them in the past.  I can;t recall where I read it...but I do remember something about mosquitos being more important in places with relatively lower insect populations..though those places aren;t at a high risk for malaria and zika..so, not exactly the main targets of the tech and certainly not agricultural centers themselves.