Crowdfunded mosquito-confusing patch to be sent to Uganda

boing
22

See, that’s a responsible view!

We’re SUPPOSED to be terrified that our passions will convince us that something important is true that isn’t, or vice-versa, that’s why we have that methody thing the sciencey types came up with. . . the one they use for that thing. It’s on the tip of my tongue. Well, whatever it is, it works pretty well.

:wink:

More importantly, we’re also poorly trained as human beings in general. We don’t just need to accept mistakes, we need to seek them out, to EMBRACE them. We need to know that finding a mistake is AWESOME because that’s how we get better at things.

So, that being said, my preferred approach is to change the environment and motivations of the people who are doing the testing, and to make sure everybody involved knows the sort of mistakes we humans are prone to making (there are some pretty good TED talks in the ‘our brains, predictably irrational’ playlist that contain some good elements)

As for big picture stuff, I’m waiting eagerly for somebody with resources and connections to connect and combine Valve, Mondragon, The Venus Project, a few TED talks, and Citizen’s United. in the most obvious way and make a coopernation, it’s potentially a far more viable steady-state than anything we have, and as long as our Monkeyspheres are taken into account there’s the potential to create a nation without dependence on dirt inside our most powerful framework as a democracy of choice and do a complete end-around of the existing system.

(hey, you asked!)

1 Like
23

Testing stuff on foreign brown people when you don’t want to test it on your own (mostly white) people … sounds wrong and possibly racist, don’t you think?

24

What if you, yourself, are a foreign brown person?

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Well. We could test it on local white people , but since we don’t have malaria here, it would be for naught. Or do you propose importing infected Mosquitos from Uganda and releasing them near the Mayo clinic?

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26

There’s always another side … how about exporting local white people to areas prone to malaria? :wink:

27

How would it be for naught? It affects mosquitoes whether they’re malaria-infected or not. Mosquitoes can carry the West Nile virus in North America. Plus they’re fucking annoying. What I want is a wearable death-ray that tracks and kills insects near me. Pew pew motherfuckers.

28

Just wear a shirt with a few jumping spiders tethered to it! Solved!

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29

What is this fascination with jumping spiders? Also, do I really want to know? I’m afraid. Hold me.

30

Well, they’re small and very mobile, so you’d only need a small number, compared to how many web building spiders you’d need, and a few dragonflies would be really annoying, right?

And of the option, they ARE the least horrifying. Some of them are even kind of . . . cute.

31

That is a weird coincidence. That is very much like my own mating dance. The white gloves are a nice touch. I’ll have to give it a try.

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