Google looks to release millions of mosquitoes in massive debugging effort | RISING

本站添加: 2026-06-04

[00:00:05]Here's an interesting story. Tech giant Google is seeking federal approval from the US government to release up to 32 million mosquitoes. And California in an effort to quote stop bad bugs with good bugs. Called the debug program. Google aims or Google's aim is to release millions of sterile mosquitoes to eliminate the ones that carry disease.

[00:00:27]On its project homepage, Google debug writes, quote, "Attacking mosquitoes with pesticides is unsustainable because they're becoming less effective over time and can be toxic and clearing standard water is not enough because people can never find all the places that mosquitoes breed." As a result, Google says a new approach is needed.

[00:00:46]They continue quote, "Good bugs are the same of are the same species of mosquito as the bad bugs that spread disease. Our good bugs are male mosquitoes that have a naturally occurring bacteria called wubakia which makes them unable to have offspring with wild female mosquitoes.

[00:01:03]This sounds crazy and dystopian and I am terrified of the idea of thinking that not the CDC, not an organization that the government might trust with health decisions, but Google, the search engine, billionaires that want to do it their way are suggesting that they want to cure environmental issues on their own. I don't know.

[00:01:23]>> They're asking the government for >> Yeah, I know. But I don't know that I want Google getting into the environment and it becomes a for-profit situation.

[00:01:29]like I want CDC and some organizations like that overseeing the environment and that that's the concerning part for a lot of people that like okay this one time and then it becomes what after this like I and I also was not the fan of the people just releasing pesticides over our heads that was happen during our childhood >> okay I have some concerns too but >> to steal man the argument for this this is in place of doing pesticides which is the improvement they're saying we can't just keep using pesticides is bad for the environment. Um pesticides are better than letting mosquitoes spread a huge amount of disease particularly in Africa. Uh a lot of um they spread pain.

[00:02:10]They're it's they're bad. There's a pest. We want to get rid of them.

[00:02:13]Pesticides have uh harms to the environment. So this is a plan to get rid of them without doing pesticides, which is that these these mosquitoes can't reproduce. So I guess it's all the female mosquitoes will come. They're kind of having sex with them and they're just they're trying and it doesn't work.

[00:02:32]I'm a little I don't understand though how that I'm a little confused.

[00:02:36]>> They said they're releasing only male mosquitoes. Male mosquitoes don't bite humans. The males carry this bacteria.

[00:02:42]So they're going to like like you said get >> but they don't reproduce. So then why don't I know these ones just all >> the eggs don't hatch. Yeah. They'll never hatch. They'll just be >> eggs that just turn into something else.

[00:02:51]>> Um so then the population will crash.

[00:02:54]>> I don't know. It'll be more of the male ones that don't bite humans. Allegedly, it says like more mosquitoes now for fewer ones later that carry disease. Um, so I understand what they're trying to sell. I just don't know that I'm buying it specific.

[00:03:06]>> Government run pest extermination uh campaigns have a history of miserable failure. Have you ever heard of the four pest campaigns in China?

[00:03:18]>> Tell me about it.

[00:03:18]>> This is a great story. This is one of the um horrific disasters of in communist China. This partly led to the famine. They had the four pest campaigns where they encouraged people to in their villages to go around killing these four types of creatures. One of them being the sparrow. They wanted sparrows eliminated. And so everyone you you could turn in a dead sparrow to your local Chinese communist uh mandarin and they would give you they would give you money for it. Um the Oh, that's a we got a Tim Burton quote on screen right now.

[00:03:50]Anyway, they they eliminated the sparrow. They dramatically reduced the sparrow population, Lindsay. Okay.

[00:03:57]>> But it turned out the sparrows ate the locusts.

[00:04:00]>> Okay.

[00:04:01]>> And so with the sparrows gone, the locust population surged and they had widespread crop failures that led to the famines of the Great Leap Forward during communist China. So beware the lesson of central planning when it comes to pests.

[00:04:16]>> No, but beware of the lesson of any major plan because let's say these males kill off all the female mosquitoes. We don't get the disease. Are we sure? Is Google sure that nothing else will come of this? Is Google sure this is a good strategy. We won't have locust come down the line because of their decision.

[00:04:31]That's what I'm saying.

[00:04:31]>> That falling on Google is more concerning than that falling on the government. Now I know the government I totally disagree with you. The government is ineffective. argue that the government, but I don't know that the company that already has every single piece of information about us because we all agreed to it by getting a Gmail and everywhere else that they can track us just to use all of their apps and everything that they own now has even more information about the environment. I don't trust you the CDC more than you trust Google. Think about that for a minute. I I >> the CDC I don't think you do.

[00:05:00]>> The CDC has let us down with CO. I said that. But I do trust that there are public health experts and doctors and people that actually have studied and done a tremendous amount amount of research that's valuable as opposed to people that are really masterminds in the digital tech.

[00:05:12]>> The current CDC is under the opices of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who you might have some feelings about.

[00:05:17]>> I have a lot of feelings about it. Uh and I hope that people are revoling against him which we see people quitting from underneath him when he makes bad decisions and I've always been critical of that. But I do think that some people have stayed. There's a decision you have to make when you don't like the leadership, right? You can be within and try to fight your way and your ideas through or you can just quit. Throw your hands up and say this is not the type of party I'm trying to engage into. And so the people that did stay, hopefully they didn't just all fall in line and they stick to some values. This is about that decision-m again. Why I like people with good sound decision-m and good personalities because your moral character shows in times where it gets hard, specifically when you're working on hard things. The CDC at the onset of the CO 19 pandemic forbid anyone uh private entities from making their own COVID tests and instead centralized the COVID test making process and then screwed it up horrifically and did it wrong. So that's actually a perfect example of the private sector innovated perfectly correct and successful and valid COVID tests. The CDC centralized control of it and screwed it up. which is why I argue for uh private market-based decision-making, not top- down central authority from some government uh uh planners who uh are liable to get it wrong as they did.

[00:06:35]>> But you're so you are upset about CO rightfully so. You're annoyed with the way it was handled in the CDC. So now in the long history of the CDC, have they not accomplished anything? Have they not done any roll out well? Have they not protected the public from a slew of other diseases and provided guidance that actually worked really well? So, you pick out one moment, you say the CDC, but to throw the whole agency away.

[00:06:54]>> They were made for, Lindsay. You're the central disease authority and we have a once in a century pandemic starts. This is what you are made for. This is go team. This is call the Avengers. It's time. And you make and it would be better if you had not existed in this moment. We would have been better off >> and all the years of success that the agency had been better if they didn't.

[00:07:17]>> I think it's a pretty damning indictment if in our moment of greatest need supposedly for your thing, you screw it up that badly. No one We have never messed anything up as badly as they did.

[00:07:31]>> Okay. Well, give it a chance to redeem itself. I don't think we should just then go to Google from there.

[00:07:35]>> Fair enough. All right.

[00:07:36]>> That does it for us on Rising Live.

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