Given how fast human progress is going, it won’t be long before we have more efficient moth traps that can respond to adaptation, or before we find a reliable “one fell swoop” solution (like gene drives for mosquitoes, chemotherapy for cancer, or mass vaccination for smallpox).
We do, in fact, already have several foolproof methods of moth elimination, involving setting the ambient temperature to several hundred degrees, entirely evacuating the air from the space, or a small thermonuclear warhead. The reason that we don’t use these methods, of course, is that there are things we’re trying to optimise for that aren’t merely Moth Death, such as “continuing to have a house afterwards”. This is probably also an analogy for something.
Hello! Indeed, and those are all one fell swoop solutions, and they are messy and destructive. What I meant by “reliable one fell swoop solution” and by the examples of gene drives, chemotherapy and mass vaccination, is that you could target moths on a dimension so specific to them that only they get damaged. The three examples demonstrate this, as gene drives target specific species without interfering with others, chemotherapy is targeted to the tumor (chemo is the most iffy of the three), and mass distribution of smallpox vaccines only affects smallpox.
If you understand your enemy well enough you can fight it on a battlefield so specific to it that no collateral damage occurs. This is what I referred to as “finding the smallest button”.
The point is to build a moth trap, which is very precise, on a scale that can actually achieve Moth Death. The three solutions I’m positing against moths are “pure brute force” (thermonuclear warhead in your house), targeted subtle button-pushing (moth traps), or a combination of the two, which could very well be gene drives (which would end the 250 million year old bloodlines of moths forever without so much as touching anything else we care about). I’m saying that we don’t have that last option just yet but if we really wanted to, current technology could probably let us (which is kind of insane). It’s that third solution I was getting at, not the first.
We do, in fact, already have several foolproof methods of moth elimination, involving setting the ambient temperature to several hundred degrees, entirely evacuating the air from the space, or a small thermonuclear warhead. The reason that we don’t use these methods, of course, is that there are things we’re trying to optimise for that aren’t merely Moth Death, such as “continuing to have a house afterwards”. This is probably also an analogy for something.
Hello! Indeed, and those are all one fell swoop solutions, and they are messy and destructive. What I meant by “reliable one fell swoop solution” and by the examples of gene drives, chemotherapy and mass vaccination, is that you could target moths on a dimension so specific to them that only they get damaged. The three examples demonstrate this, as gene drives target specific species without interfering with others, chemotherapy is targeted to the tumor (chemo is the most iffy of the three), and mass distribution of smallpox vaccines only affects smallpox.
If you understand your enemy well enough you can fight it on a battlefield so specific to it that no collateral damage occurs. This is what I referred to as “finding the smallest button”.
The point is to build a moth trap, which is very precise, on a scale that can actually achieve Moth Death. The three solutions I’m positing against moths are “pure brute force” (thermonuclear warhead in your house), targeted subtle button-pushing (moth traps), or a combination of the two, which could very well be gene drives (which would end the 250 million year old bloodlines of moths forever without so much as touching anything else we care about). I’m saying that we don’t have that last option just yet but if we really wanted to, current technology could probably let us (which is kind of insane). It’s that third solution I was getting at, not the first.