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Thought experiment: The most environmentally-friendly way to bring cockroaches to extinction?


RainDreamer

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So the cockroaches breach another of my sanctuary again - the bathroom. One of the place where I am most vulnerable, the place where I am literally naked and exposed...and they defiled it! In fact, I was already took off my clothes and about to walk into the shower before I notice one of them just lying there in the corner of the sliding door....waiting for me to come in. After a series of actual spoken out loud "nopenopenopenopenope" as I get the hell out of there, I made up my mind.

They made it personal....They declared war on my sensibilities... I evacuated all of my important stuff like tooth brushes and towels and shower creams and shampoos, and cosmetics and all the things I use on my body before I turn it to a gas chamber with Raid. I don't care if it is just a single one. I don't know if there are more. I can't never be sure. They must be exterminated...Even if what I am doing is committing a war crime.

Before anyone saying I am a little bit irrational with this, yes, I know it is irrational. A phobia is irrational. And it is a powerful thing. I will unlikely to actually seriously plot out the extermination of cockroaches for real when I am calmed down, but in the meanwhile while I am still in hysteria mode...please, distract me from my irrational fear.

Here is thequestion:

Given the natural resilient of cockroaches, there are not a lot of things that can exterminate them for good from the planet naturally. They can possibly survive even nukes. What can human do to get rid of them, of all species of cockroaches for good from the planet then? And preferably, as environmentally friendly as possible, since the more we destroy, the more likely we will die before them. It has to be surgical. It has to be extremely precise. And something possibly will have to be increased to fill in the blank they left behind in the ecosystem, if it is required and possible.

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A species that decides they want to completely wipe out another species just because they don't like them is far more disgusting and is a true threat to life. Maybe we should be thinking of the most environmentally friendly way to bring humans to extinction.

Edited by |Velocity|
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it's simple, don't think about them... I am no environmentalist, but they very much belong here on Earth as much as we do! They are a critical part of the natural ecosystem!

*mad scientist mode* We can modify the natural ecosystem! We can make a more aesthetically pleasing replacement for them. We can engineer a way to destroy them. We can create life and take it as will! We are gods and goddess of science! All will be shaped in our wills! Muahahahah! /madscienceoff

And while rationally, I know it is easier to just leave them alone, let them being trash eater and food for other things higher on the food chain, fear is not a rational thing. I think it might be even easier to create biodomes where human can be actually separated from nature, living in a controlled environment of their own free of pests. But this is me in hysteric mode. I want destruction and death to something I fear. Exterminate them all! (please don't take me seriously. I just have serious phobia of them.)

I don't know. Maybe you could get your hands on some Jewel Wasps?

They tried that before in hawaii 1941. While the jewel wasp is very precise in the way they kill those cockroaches, they are very territorial, limiting their expansion, and they also only hunt in a very small scale. It was unsuccessful. Unless we bioengineer them, which is actually one of my idea, as they are now, it is not going to work.

A species that decides they want to completely wipe out another species just because they don't like them is far more disgusting and is a true threat to life. Maybe we should be thinking of the most environmentally friendly way to bring humans to extinction.

I don't think I am a representative of humanity. I am just a person who has a serious phobia of cockroaches, and sometimes I had insane ideas during my hysterical stage, and I want to distract myself from my fear by fantasizing the destruction of my fear. It might sound like I am calm when writing this, but I am currently with 4 stuffed animals surrounding me.

And it might be actually easy to bring human to extinction by embracing transhumanism, digitalize human minds and then live as digital lifeforms on an automated server orbiting earth and survive with pure solar energy. Hey, that may cure my phobia.

Edited by RainDreamer
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I think your best chance of escaping them would be to apply for a long-term exposure experiment on the ISS.

If we killed them all, if we're lucky other detritivores will take their place and your dirty kitchen will still be full of bugs.

If we're unlucky, the nitrogen cycle shuts down and kills all life on earth.

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Depends what you mean by 'cockroaches'. Wiping out the four or five species that act as pests is s a very different proposition to taking out the entire order Blattodea, and I don't see how you practically do the latter without taking out entire ecosystems.

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I think your best chance of escaping them would be to apply for a long-term exposure experiment on the ISS.

If we killed them all, if we're lucky other detritivores will take their place and your dirty kitchen will still be full of bugs.

If we're unlucky, the nitrogen cycle shuts down and kills all life on earth.

Can we bioengineer a replacement species? Like ants? Or, maybe we can take a bit more risk with a grey goo situation and try for nanobots? This is a thought experiment, let's go a bit crazy.

Depends what you mean by 'cockroaches'. Wiping out the four or five species that act as pests is s a very different proposition to taking out the entire order Blattodea, and I don't see how you practically do the latter without taking out entire ecosystems.

Eh, maybe not. Just the pest ones, since they are more likely to be in contact with human settlement.

Not trying to be religious in any way, but destruction of an entire species due to one's phobia is foolish the real thing that needs to be fixed is, no offense, you! Face your fears and train yourself to accept them.

It is my coping mechanism to fantasizing destruction of what I fear. I think I would be more likely to opt for living my life in a biodome with climate controlled environment and cleaned of pest rather than killing things senselessly, actually. I am scientifically mind, but I also understand the importance of life. But when I am afraid...>x< Uggh... I would take a shower now if my bathroom is not currently likely full of poison. Fear is a powerful thing. I retain enough rationality to not act on it. But gaah.

Edited by RainDreamer
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I don't think I am a representative of humanity. I am just a person who has a serious phobia of cockroaches, and sometimes I had insane ideas during my hysterical stage, and I want to distract myself from my fear by fantasizing the destruction of my fear. It might sound like I am calm when writing this, but I am currently with 4 stuffed animals surrounding me.

The human urge to destroy those things that they fear and don't understand, rather than trying to understand and appreciate those things, is one of our greater evils. You should not fantasize committing acts of evil, especially the destruction of several mostly harmless and beneficial species.

And it might be actually easy to bring human to extinction by embracing transhumanism, digitalize human minds and then live as digital lifeforms on an automated server orbiting earth and survive with pure solar energy. Hey, that may cure my phobia.

That is not extinction so much as it is evolution. And there's not reason to think that biological humans would not continue. I suppose if you were of the species Homo Erectus, then you'd consider that your species going extinct was something terrible, something to be feared, something to be prevented? Do you let fear control all your beliefs and desires?

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Just send them all to a landfill to make them decompose all of our trash (why can we not recycle, reuse, use compostable or biodegradable, and reduce or murdering of fellow species) or a dooms day bunker full of Twinkies (eat Twinkies and roaches to survive).

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Just send them all to a landfill to make them decompose all of our trash (why can we not recycle, reuse, use compostable or biodegradable, and reduce or murdering of fellow species) or a dooms day bunker full of Twinkies (eat Twinkies and roaches to survive).

Wall-E reference?

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having a species that attacks them to take and completely fill their niche, would be the most ecofriendly. the extinction would take a while, though and you would be stuck with the substitute cockroaches afterwards. (tribbles anyone?)

the most effective would be a virus (or other parasite) that only attacks cockroaches and makes them highly contagious and hungry for their own eggs . but then you would have to somehow fill the gap their extinction left.

for household use, get a pet that eats cockroaches. two that come to mind are crazy cats and chameleons, but I guess a dog could also be trained to catch roaches and trash your place in the progress...

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Um...have you tried cleaning your apartament? Cockroaches need food. If they won't find anything to eat, they will leave for greener pastures (so to speak). Maybe they have easy access to cereals or other storeable food in cabinets? If that fails, there's always traps and toxins.

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A species that decides they want to completely wipe out another species just because they don't like them is far more disgusting and is a true threat to life. Maybe we should be thinking of the most environmentally friendly way to bring humans to extinction.

I know. Make it an imperative to completely extinguish the cockroach, the roach of course will survive, but humans will not.

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its kind of an important species to exterminate in masse. but they are enough of a health concern to justify extermination in ones home. my personal favorite is boric acid.

last apartment i was in had mice. they are more of a nucince/health concern than roaches, because they can chew their way into food containers and leave little presants behind. their other favorite pass time was getting into the toilet paper and shredding it. this kind of infestation can be delt with by a couple of cats. they were still around but more limited in their movement, because if they tried to get in the kitchen they would get eaten. and unlike a roach, a mouse is kind of cute.

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Um...have you tried cleaning your apartament? Cockroaches need food. If they won't find anything to eat, they will leave for greener pastures (so to speak). Maybe they have easy access to cereals or other storeable food in cabinets? If that fails, there's always traps and toxins.

I live right next to a river in a newly developed area where there are still a bunch of empty lots with wild vegetation all over the place. There is no escape....from nature!

My phobia aside, life is pretty amazing here to study. Each empty lot separated by houses are its own mini biosphere with different environment, and it is fascinating to watch the interaction of species there. There are feral cats roaming around, frogs and toads, lizards, and I even saw a snake the other day slithering on the concrete sidewalk to get to another empty lot.

But lots of cockroaches start to find a good hiding place inside houses, as they can escape their natural predators which are usually bigger and will be detected by human. Food is not a concern for them considering they can go out any time even if there are no available food in the house. They tend to live behind the walls or on the roof, or other hollow structural elements and start making colonies there. ughhh

There is no way to really get rid of them from my house unless I drop napalm all over the area surrounding me...so yeah, trap and stuff is only temporary. Hence my interest in replacing them in the ecosystem. And destroy them....I am insane, am I? D=

I think I heard about certain researches with ultrasonic waves devices to deter cockroaches, that might be a better solution here. Or I should start keeping pet lizards and let them free roam...though they might just run off to the wild.

Hah. Nuke them from orbit, maybe. I would even deal with robotic self replicate spiders. I am fine with spiders.

its kind of an important species to exterminate in masse. but they are enough of a health concern to justify extermination in ones home. my personal favorite is boric acid.

last apartment i was in had mice. they are more of a nucince/health concern than roaches, because they can chew their way into food containers and leave little presants behind. their other favorite pass time was getting into the toilet paper and shredding it. this kind of infestation can be delt with by a couple of cats. they were still around but more limited in their movement, because if they tried to get in the kitchen they would get eaten. and unlike a roach, a mouse is kind of cute.

I have rats here too, due to the wild environment around me, but funny enough they don't often get into houses. They have more food outside with less risk of being attacked or trapped. They only seem to start going insides houses whenever the clan of feral cats start roaming in the vicinities.

Edited by RainDreamer
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As it's been mentioned - without food and water they will leave. If you don't leave any bits of food, clean the place regularly (yes, this means moving the furniture from time to time to access all the places) the place would become unsuitable for their living. Of course, if you don't live in a standalone house they might come from your neighbors, so there are slow poison baits that act slowly allowing a single cockroach to live long enough to get to their nest and poison all its mates. It also prevents them from breeding. I found it very effective some time ago. If you live in the cold country you can turn off the heating and open windows for several hours - cockroaches hate cold.

Also, a myth about cockroaches outlive humans is just that - a myth. They won't live any longer than humans. They are parasites and without us they won't have any food / places to live. Besides, some biologists say that cockroaches will soon extinct completely. Some 20-30 years ago cockroaches were a scourge of any urban area where I live. Now I cannot even remember the time I saw one for the last time. There is hypothesis that they hate electromagnetic emissions we have surrounded ourselves with. Cell phones, wi-fi routers, etc. all of this apparently makes them uncomfortable. Add some new materials and mass infestation baits that affect their ability to reproduce.

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