I am a big fan of these programs! In fact, I would even support the more aggressive GM mosquito programs. I had even been kicking around the idea of writing an applied ethics paper in defense of these programs. One time I had a chance to discuss this issue with our former South Miami mayor Phil Stoddard, who was a biologist at FIU and who studied bugs. He takes environmental issues very seriously and is thoughtful about this stuff. I told him how much I am in favor of these programs, and he was also on board!
It just seems to me that the chance of doing harm is very small (though we should take those small chances seriously), but the potential benefit is ENORMOUS. Dengue and West Nile are bad enough, but we could eventually use these programs in areas to reduce malaria and reduce human suffering in a big way. Seems like a no brainer to me.
In addition to status quo bias, I think a lot of the resistance to the GM mosquito programs comes from a certain type of anti-science bias. You see similar arguments against GMO crops and among the anti-vax crowd. I've been watching this issue closely for years, and I have never been impressed with the arguments against these programs. Thanks for your post!
Have you found good info on the cost over time? That was my first thought. If they can’t reproduce naturally, we’ll have to keep releasing them. Tried to Google, but I don’t think my search terms were precise enough.
Not sure. They could presumably refrain from repeating the intervention if it didn't seem worth it, and the wild population may then gradually recover over time — no worse than the status quo, then.
I also wonder how the cost compares to the aerial insecticide spraying that Miami-Dade County, for example, currently resorts to on a regular basis to keep the mosquito population in check.
True! Will be interesting to see how it pans out, but I’m excited about the potential. They are a major problem in Louisiana as well, so I’m very happy for new ideas to come along!
Sounds like a great idea. Maybe I misunderstood the reversal test the first I learned of it, but wouldn’t a more accurate reversal test be to suggest an increase in the mosquito population and see whether people will support it? I still see your point even if I’m correct, which usually isn’t the case anyways. I also see how I could be misunderstanding the usage here since the biggest hangup appears to be people’s opposition to human intervention into nature regardless of whether that means increasing or decreasing mosquitoes.
I think the Bostrom/Ord reversal test takes your form (flipping the sign from the same status quo). I prefer my variant: imagining the status quo were different, and asking whether it would be worth intervening to make things as they are now. (I think my version puts more pressure on the question of whether we really believe the current status quo is optimal. But I'd be curious to hear someone make the case for preferring the Bostrom/Ord version!)
When I read your post, I found myself left with this view: There is a real-world policy in Florida that, from any reasonable utilitarian position, looks like an obvious net win. Large numbers of people oppose it for some (presumably) non-utilitarian reasons.
But (after just reading this post) I am not left with the sense I could represent what the opposition's position actually is, which makes it hard to evaluate yours against it, so it looks like you win by default.
Do you think you could state the overall reasons why people are against it? Are they really non-utilitarian, or they utilitarian but wrong on the facts? If the former, what are the reasons, if the latter what are the disputed facts? At the risk of giving people too much credit, is it really just status quo bias or "supporting our local mosquitoes"?
You could tell me to just follow the link (agreed of course), but I think the article would still work better if it did some of the work of really representing the opposition view, if there really are set of coherent view(s) there to represent.
Of course, maybe there isn't a single (or a few) actually coherent view(s) there to represent.
Public comments don't tend to be very substantive. It's basically just a lot of expressed distrust and fear of possible negative consequences. People will say things like "mosquitoes are an essential part of the native food chain" or else mention worries like the one I flag in my footnote. But it's not like they're making any attempt to quantify how the risk compares to the benefit. Ordinary people don't think like that.
I see! So the opposition aren't necessarilly totally non-utilitarian, in that they aren't appealing to something other than consequences. Rather, they might gesture explicitly to expected negative consequences but they are failing to do a fair cost-benefit-analysis e.g. by asking how likely those consequences are, and what are the consequences in the other direction.
Then it looks like people aren't considering consequences for the purpose of deciding whether the policy is good or not. Rather they have already made that judgment via some other path (e.g. vague "bad vibes"), and seek justification post-hoc by a biased appeal to consequences.
From whence the bad vibes? I told my friend about the policy and she said "Oh god, I feel like this is the plague of locusts!"
I am a big fan of these programs! In fact, I would even support the more aggressive GM mosquito programs. I had even been kicking around the idea of writing an applied ethics paper in defense of these programs. One time I had a chance to discuss this issue with our former South Miami mayor Phil Stoddard, who was a biologist at FIU and who studied bugs. He takes environmental issues very seriously and is thoughtful about this stuff. I told him how much I am in favor of these programs, and he was also on board!
It just seems to me that the chance of doing harm is very small (though we should take those small chances seriously), but the potential benefit is ENORMOUS. Dengue and West Nile are bad enough, but we could eventually use these programs in areas to reduce malaria and reduce human suffering in a big way. Seems like a no brainer to me.
In addition to status quo bias, I think a lot of the resistance to the GM mosquito programs comes from a certain type of anti-science bias. You see similar arguments against GMO crops and among the anti-vax crowd. I've been watching this issue closely for years, and I have never been impressed with the arguments against these programs. Thanks for your post!
I just wish they would do something similar for ticks
Have you found good info on the cost over time? That was my first thought. If they can’t reproduce naturally, we’ll have to keep releasing them. Tried to Google, but I don’t think my search terms were precise enough.
Not sure. They could presumably refrain from repeating the intervention if it didn't seem worth it, and the wild population may then gradually recover over time — no worse than the status quo, then.
I also wonder how the cost compares to the aerial insecticide spraying that Miami-Dade County, for example, currently resorts to on a regular basis to keep the mosquito population in check.
True! Will be interesting to see how it pans out, but I’m excited about the potential. They are a major problem in Louisiana as well, so I’m very happy for new ideas to come along!
I recommend anyone with a minute to submit a positive comment :)
https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2025-3951-0001/comment
More background here:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/MSEJXCXuiHaJDcekT/a-chance-to-support-large-scale-mosquito-eradication-in-the
Sounds like a great idea. Maybe I misunderstood the reversal test the first I learned of it, but wouldn’t a more accurate reversal test be to suggest an increase in the mosquito population and see whether people will support it? I still see your point even if I’m correct, which usually isn’t the case anyways. I also see how I could be misunderstanding the usage here since the biggest hangup appears to be people’s opposition to human intervention into nature regardless of whether that means increasing or decreasing mosquitoes.
I think the Bostrom/Ord reversal test takes your form (flipping the sign from the same status quo). I prefer my variant: imagining the status quo were different, and asking whether it would be worth intervening to make things as they are now. (I think my version puts more pressure on the question of whether we really believe the current status quo is optimal. But I'd be curious to hear someone make the case for preferring the Bostrom/Ord version!)
I like yours too. I’m sure there’s special cases for each approach being more effective than the other.
When I read your post, I found myself left with this view: There is a real-world policy in Florida that, from any reasonable utilitarian position, looks like an obvious net win. Large numbers of people oppose it for some (presumably) non-utilitarian reasons.
But (after just reading this post) I am not left with the sense I could represent what the opposition's position actually is, which makes it hard to evaluate yours against it, so it looks like you win by default.
Do you think you could state the overall reasons why people are against it? Are they really non-utilitarian, or they utilitarian but wrong on the facts? If the former, what are the reasons, if the latter what are the disputed facts? At the risk of giving people too much credit, is it really just status quo bias or "supporting our local mosquitoes"?
You could tell me to just follow the link (agreed of course), but I think the article would still work better if it did some of the work of really representing the opposition view, if there really are set of coherent view(s) there to represent.
Of course, maybe there isn't a single (or a few) actually coherent view(s) there to represent.
Public comments don't tend to be very substantive. It's basically just a lot of expressed distrust and fear of possible negative consequences. People will say things like "mosquitoes are an essential part of the native food chain" or else mention worries like the one I flag in my footnote. But it's not like they're making any attempt to quantify how the risk compares to the benefit. Ordinary people don't think like that.
I see! So the opposition aren't necessarilly totally non-utilitarian, in that they aren't appealing to something other than consequences. Rather, they might gesture explicitly to expected negative consequences but they are failing to do a fair cost-benefit-analysis e.g. by asking how likely those consequences are, and what are the consequences in the other direction.
Then it looks like people aren't considering consequences for the purpose of deciding whether the policy is good or not. Rather they have already made that judgment via some other path (e.g. vague "bad vibes"), and seek justification post-hoc by a biased appeal to consequences.
From whence the bad vibes? I told my friend about the policy and she said "Oh god, I feel like this is the plague of locusts!"