Of Mosquitoes And Men A bit about dengue fever, nectar, Middle East and terrorism

[salamangkero 0]

This is something I've thought of while riding a bus traveling along a not-so-well-maintained road so pardon me if my thoughts seem a bit bumpy

 

Suppose you are locked in a room. You are informed, through a disembodied voice, that within three minutes, a set of holes, too small for any part of your anatomy to enter, will open to allow entry to 501 mosquitoes. You are assured that 500 of those mosquitoes are clean, lab-grown males (Male mosquitoes suck nectar, not blood) However, due to a grave c'est la vie error called L.I.F.E. there has slipped, into the population, one female mosquito carrying the fatal dengue virus.

 

You have, with you in the room, two boxes. One contains a mosquito-catching device, a fantastic machine that analyzes mosquitoes one at a time and determines if it carries the dengue pathogen and, for the bureaucratic ones, a mosquito drowning kit that looks suspiciously like a bottle of cooking oil.

 

On the other box, you have... a flamethrower.

 

After the creepy announcement, several holes open along the walls and you heard the distinct humming caused by mosquito wings flapping rapidly in the air just a few yards from you. You have mere seconds to decide what to do. Do you analyze mosquitoes one by one and risk getting infected in the meantime? Or do you torch the whole lot, solving the problem quickly? Sounds like an easy one, don't you think?

 

Now, suppose, this time, you are the president of a nation. You were informed that, in a certain desert city, there is exactly one terrorist holding a detonator. It is scheduled to activate three hours from now; should he press the button anytime from then, the explosives will go Kaboom! The whereabouts of the explosives are still unknown and you also have no information on the the type of explosives. Simply put, he can potentially destroy any country in the world.

 

The trouble is he's hiding in a city with 500 other people. Your humanitarian secretary tells you that they have, in custody, one defector that can identify the detonator's holder. He does, however, need to carefully scrutinize the subject before he can determine whether it is his comrade or not (he has a poor memory for faces)

 

Your secretary of defense, on the other hand, presents you with the latest warhead. It can decimate 501 people in an instant. Its programming is impeccable, you just point your mouse to any city in the world then click and it will hit, it will detonate and, most importantly, it will kill 501 people

 

So now, back to the mosquito room, do you choose the capturer-analyzer-extinguisher combo? Or do you use the flamethrower?

[Saint_Michael 3]

Tricky tricky,First off I am not bug expert so spotting the female fly just like would be impossible to do, so I go with the cooking oil to drown them all and then analyze them one by one. That is due to the fact even though they are dead they still carry the signs in their cells of the dengue virus. Now that being said I would get some of the best signal jamming equipment in the world and coat the area in a 20-25 square area that way the "terrorist" cannot send the signal regardless where he is at. You also have to remember though that most detonators have to be near the explosives so for some extra caution, activate a e-bomb (electronic bomb) to disable not only the electric circuits in the bomb he has but also the detonator itself. Thus drowning the fly in oil and then analyze.or I could be like bush and just drop a bomb and get it over with

[master_bacarra 0]

just so we're clear, it's either the oil or the tracking system, not both.anyway, male mosquitoes don't suck blood, only the females. so it's safe to say that the female mosquito is the first one to be coming at you biting. but mosquito is a mosquito. i don't really think you need to think twice in using the flamethrower.with regards to the terrorist and the bomb, you can't really do like "heck, let's sacrifice everyone. bring on the bomb". it's not helping. it's like saying, i'll kill first before you kill everyone, at the expense of other people's lives. in the first place, you're not even sure if the terrorist is holding the bomb on his hand or stuck on his body or somewhere miles apart from him. and you really can't use the captive defector as someone to track the terrorist because you're already bound to that human error. that's why putting a bunch of "possible" suspects in a line and "picking" who's who isn't the best technique. same applies with that captive defector, unless he knows full and true details, like how the terrorist looks or where his location is. for me the more important thing is to locate the bomb, whether it's far away, or attached with the terrorist himself and most likely to detonate it. or if resources are not scarce, location of both the bomb and the terrorist. in a given limited amount of time, you can't trust the captive defector to detect, since pressuring him would make things worse. putting judgment yourself doesn't help either.

[salamangkero 0]

I go with the cooking oil to drown them all and then analyze them one by one. That is due to the fact even though they are dead they still carry the signs in their cells of the dengue virus.

*sweatdrops* This was not quite the effect I had intended; it's my fault, though, for bringing in something as irrelevant as a bottle of cooking oil into an already-overcrafted analogy. It was meant only as a bureaucratic means of exterminating the female, not that I'm being sexist; mosquitoes are just like that. For all intents and purposes, let's remove the bottle of cooking oil from the scenario and assume that people are brave enough to squish a mosquito between their fingers without fainting, vomiting or screaming, "Eeyw!"

Now that being said I would get some of the best signal jamming equipment in the world and coat the area in a 20-25 square area that way the "terrorist" cannot send the signal regardless where he is at.

That is, of course, assuming you, or your underlings, can reach the location within three hours.

You also have to remember though that most detonators have to be near the explosives so for some extra caution, activate a e-bomb (electronic bomb) to disable not only the electric circuits in the bomb he has but also the detonator itself.

What I do remember is that a certain Mr. Nobel has invented a type of explosive that does not require electronics to detonate. I'd have to point out that an E-bomb or EM pulse is not a sure-fire way to disable the bomb

Thus drowning the fly in oil and then analyze.

At this point, I've already discounted the bottle of cooking oil. However, I'd also like to point out that this is hardly the best way as well. I do hypothesize that drowned mosquitoes have a tendency to die soon, as drowned *anything* are wont to do. At the mildest, what you might be proposing is that we gas the town, then take our time picking out the Al Qaeda operative. Err... terrorist. I meant terrorist.

just so we're clear, it's either the oil or the tracking system, not both.

I'm afraid it's not the case. It is not a tracking system; it's a capture and detect system. Also, the mutually exclusive choices are not the system or cooking oil. The choices are the system and the flamethrower.

and you really can't use the captive defector as someone to track the terrorist because you're already bound to that human error.

Hmmn... I appreciate having a flaw in my analogy pointed out. It's not emotionally uplifting but, at least, it's intellectually satisfying

for me the more important thing is to locate the bomb, whether it's far away, or attached with the terrorist himself and most likely to detonate it. or if resources are not scarce, location of both the bomb and the terrorist.

I'd like to clarify that you already have the general location of the terrorist, though not specific enough for a sniper to solve the problem (unless the sniper uses nuclear warheads for ammo ) The bomb, or bombs, on the other hand, are located somewhere in the world but you really don't have a clue. Given three hours, I don't think the citizens of your country will agree that the top priority is locating the bomb before eliminating the actual threat. Then again, the last statement is just my opinion and I'm not a citizen of your country

in a given limited amount of time, you can't trust the captive defector to detect, since pressuring him would make things worse. putting judgment yourself doesn't help either.

So... what exactly would you have done?

(God, I hate nothing more than explaining my stories. Second to that, I hate myself for having come up with a story full of holes and gaps) >_<