Comment by privateSFacct
8 years ago
Interesting to see the first world perspective folks here. Probably all high privilege, fat and rich / well sheltered.
"Stupid idea" - you wouldn't be saying that if your kids were dying around you from something preventable because in some cases a non-native species of mosquito is spreading a deadly disease.
Mosquito abatement is not stupid, and targeting things narrowly here as they are proposing is even less stupid.
I'm serious - have you ever lived in a developing country, or even stayed for a few months? The cluelessness and heartlessness here of the entitled and privileged is kind of shocking.
> "Stupid idea" - you wouldn't be saying that if your kids were dying around you from something preventable because in some cases a non-native species of mosquito is spreading a deadly disease.
Should we always let people with dying kids make important decisions? I'm not saying you're wrong, but this is a strange argument to make.
The point I am making is that someone in a rich / sheltered / high lifespan country is calling an idea stupid because it affects a one out of many species of mosquito in a specific area, that is non-native to the area. They seem to totally ignore the benefit in terms of lives saved, both old and young - perhaps because they will not experience the benefit themselves.
Ironically, what I've noticed. Those same folks go totally ape and over-react to even relatively modest threats to their OWN lifespan.
Your point is not wrong - the dying kids argument is often used in high lifespan countries to overreact to things. In this case I think it's not an unreasonable point however.