If humans went extinct.. um...
Um.
UUMMMM.......!!!!!
this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2025
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I would gladly feed the birds and bats to be rid of mosquitoes.
Only certain mosquitoes for me. There is a very rare a pretty blue one (Sabethes cyaneus) I would be happy to feed occasionally. But aedes aegypti can suck a fat dick and rest in piss.
How about we send all the aegypti to a certain big white house to suck a fatass tinydick? I hear he's into piss.
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I absolutely like pests!
I like them to stay out of my house, mostly.
But you know, all the other stuff that helps keep us alive is a big bonus, too.
We've successfully extinctified hundreds of species through our very excellent human-centric activities. I've yet to see any environmental fallout from it. Where are the secondary and tertiary extinctions of the animals that depended on the first lot we rubbed out? Where are the corpses left in the wake of the dodo's disappearance? Big Environmental Science™ won't tell you, because they can't. They're shills and liars, all of 'em. Rich elites who make bank on selling textbooks at a 1,200% markup.
Who's up for starting a truthseeker podcast with me?
/s
Sounds like something a wasp would say
Wasps are actually pretty cool by in large. I've only been stung twice by them. Once when I was a kid and it sucked and also don't remember what I was doing. The most recent time was a few weeks ago. They built a nest in the control area of a dryer I was selling. I stuck my hand right up in their nest, and felt what I thought was electric shocks despite this dryer being unplugged for a few days. I don't blame them and the pain subsided in minutes(also wasn't very bad to begin with). And they are a critical player in agricultural pest control. I run into wasps all the time and have only been stung twice in forty years. Wasps, like spiders, are bros as far as I'm concerned.
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I call BS on at least some of those claims. Citation or GTFO
The mosquito one is absolutely BS, there's 6k+ species of mosquitoes but only like a couple bite humans
The bats and shit will be fine, it's time to eradicate mosquitoes!
In all honesty, the article said mosquitos in general, not just the ones that bite humans.
Agreed. There is a method that is simple, cheap, and non-toxic (to everything else).
BTI? checks link. Yeahh bti.
Also fucks up fungus gnats
I was gonna comment for anyone who didn't want to read the schpeel that it was just mosquito dunks (or BTI) and any plant parent knows about them.
The sun has a purpose, and it can easily kill you. Merely having a purpose doesn’t make that purpose useful or without dangers.
That's usually the case, but it's just not true for mosquitos. Entomologist quoted in this Nature article:
"If we eradicated them tomorrow, the ecosystems where they are active will hiccup and then get on with life. Something better or worse would take over."
I can tolerate most pests, even cockroaches, but I draw the line at bedbugs. Don't care if they have any purpose, just fuck them
There are many types of mosquitoes, but only a few suck blood. It's the bloodsuckers they're talking about when they say no one would miss them.
i am under the impression that mosquitos, as an invasive species, do not fill an important ecological niche and could go extinct and be replaced by other insects
Invasive where? They can't be invasive in general
Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus are invasive in all of North and South America
Many of the most common species of mosquitos in america are invasive
My back patio, the little shits
They're invading my personal space
This has been a common sentiment but it hasn’t been proven in any substantial way to my knowledge. I personally doubt it’s accurate. That’s not to say the entire ecosystem would collapse but there would likely be consequences.
That said, the other commenter is correct that there are many introduced mosquito species that could probably be eradicated from their non-native range without major ecological harm. And the species that are the worst pests in human cities tend to be introduced, so eliminating them might significantly reduce the level of bites and disease transmission for people.
Mosquitos are a nuisance to every mammal, I think if we could talk to animals this is how it would go down
Human: "So anyways we've been mulling over making the mosquito extinct, but it might have some consequences for yo..."
Mammals: "WTF BRO YOU COULD HAVE DONE THAT THE ENTIRE TIME! WHY TF ARE YOU STILL HERE GET RID OF THOSE FUCKERS!"
Yeah I mean the ethics of how humans relate to wild mammals are so complicated and confusing that I’m not even going to go there.
TBF humans historically have been pretty lax in doing anything simply because it was a good thing to do
I think that's true for the Aedes egypti species at least, they're not native in the Americas and are a main disease-spreading species
What about ticks?
I'm sure they somehow contribute to the stability, but I try so hard to ignore it.
It's spring (your hemisphere may vary) and time to set out tick tubes!
Tick tubes are cardboard tubes stuffed with cotton fluff soaked in permethrin. Mice use the cotton to make nests. The permethrin kills ticks on the mice, reducing the tick load of the area. It doesn't hurt the mice, and is much more targeted than just spraying the whole yard for insects.
How many species of birds and bats eat just mosquitoes though, or a high enough percentage that they would go extinct rather than shift to rely more on their other prey species, even if at a smaller population? And are those particular species of birds and bats worth the consequences of having mosquitoes?
Which would maybe force some other animals to change their behaviour slightly more, which in turn affects yet other species. And so the butterfly effect rolls on.
Or it doesn't and the system stabilises in another state. Who knows, can we actually know it with a high enough certainty or are the dependencies and behavioural guesses too complex?
I mean, has the system ever not eventually stabilized in another state? The fact that we have had extinctions, quite a lot of them even involving most species that have ever existed, and yet complex life and ecosystems still exist, would suggest that life will find a way to adapt around such a loss given time.
Roaches? What?
Smoking roaches gets you high.
And that's important to the nitrogen cycle?
Yeah, if the nitrogen cycle wants to get stoned
Explain humans. Checkmate, scientists!
Humanity is the CEO of earth.
Counterpoint: animals which are clearly not intelligently designed, like pandas and horses