This is an important consideration that almost nobody has talked about (hence my comment that flagged the topic).
Despite the uncertainty, this might well change completely the expected value of bednets, if they are not accompanied with some actions such as donations to offset the negative effects.
I’ve seen rapid joke comments about the killing of mosquitoes, but it’s pretty rare that people talk about the suffering caused by insecticides—especially in an attempt to quantify and compare seriously.
If anybody else has done a serious analysis, I’d be interested. But I don’t expect much more depth than arguments similar to “these AI safety people believe in terminator sci-fi scenarios, how silly”.
Thanks for writing this.
This is an important consideration that almost nobody has talked about (hence my comment that flagged the topic).
Despite the uncertainty, this might well change completely the expected value of bednets, if they are not accompanied with some actions such as donations to offset the negative effects.
I’ve heard people talk about it quite a lot, usually as a joke
Really? I haven’t seen that.
I’ve seen rapid joke comments about the killing of mosquitoes, but it’s pretty rare that people talk about the suffering caused by insecticides—especially in an attempt to quantify and compare seriously.
If anybody else has done a serious analysis, I’d be interested. But I don’t expect much more depth than arguments similar to “these AI safety people believe in terminator sci-fi scenarios, how silly”.