Inspired by poll results from https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/35979-which-animals-could-britons-beat-fight about which animals American and British men and women think they could beat in a fight. I've added some of the options from that survey to start off, but feel free to add non-animal options too. For each option I'll conduct a yes/no poll on Manifold and resolve according to the majority vote.
1,000
3.00@TheAllMemeingEye The technique is to tell him lots of fallacious reasoning about how AI can't be dangerous, and he'll collapse to the ground.
@traders New polls:
https://manifold.markets/gregrosent/could-you-unarmed-beat-eliezer-yudk
https://manifold.markets/gregrosent/could-you-unarmed-beat-michael-vsau
https://manifold.markets/gregrosent/could-you-unarmed-beat-1-million-mo
https://manifold.markets/gregrosent/could-you-unarmed-beat-kanye-west-i
https://manifold.markets/gregrosent/could-you-unarmed-beat-mark-zuckerb
@Odoacre How would you actually fight the mosquitoes though? They would just bite you and probably give you malaria, and there isn't that much you could do, it would take unreasonably long amount of time to kill them.
@ShadowyZephyr Roll around on the ground so that any mosquitos that stay on your body long enough to bite you get squished.
@Odoacre honestly I think the greatest danger is you'd breath in too many mosquitos and suffocate.
Second worst would be some kind of anaphylactic reaction to getting bitten too many times.
Other than that, mosquitos, even a million of them, don't really pose a large threat in themselves. In a life or death scenario I would proably pick those vs Timothy Chalamet.
@Odoacre Blood loss is a real concern. Even before you die from blood loss your defense will become slow and weak. This fight is all about strategy. How do you win?
To get into the details, the mosquito is Culex Pipiens, the most common one in the us and europe. Via chatgpt: "When a female Culex pipiens feeds, it typically ingests about 0.001 to 0.005 milliliters (mL) of blood in a single meal." This translates to as little as 400,000 bites for 2 liters of blood loss, which is considered deadly.
@NoRespect I think it takes quite a while for a mosquito to suck out more than double it's weight in blood, so presumably if you are aware ad expecting the bites you'd be able to react by squashing the mosquitos before they can extract blood.
Also, I think mosquito bites cannot really go deep and can only therefore suck very superficial blood, this means they can't suck out two liters of blood even if they all were allowed to bite you at the same time.
@NoRespect How much blood do you think Timothee Chalamet could drink in a single meal? I bet he could get 3 liters easy.
@Odoacre if you're suffering from blood loss, your body stops putting it in nonessential places (via vasoconstriction). Not sure at what point that kicks in to proof you from mosquito-based draining, but I'd be more worried about 100000x allergens in the mosquito saliva triggering anaphylactic shock.
@Odoacre I think it would not be too hard to not breathe too many mosquitos, the anaphylactic reaction would be the main problem I think.
@dionisos I'm not sure, at high enough concentrations the mosquotos would behave like a liquid and it would be very hard not to breathe them in. I guess it depends on how small the small room is. If it's like a broom closet, on the one hand it's easier to jam yourself in a corner to protect some of your body (squishing a few thousand mosquitos in the process) on the other hand breathing is a major issue.
@JoeandSeth re anaphylactic shock, maybe you can do some training and expose youself to propressively larger (but still normal) amounts of mosquitos to make yourself resistant.
@Odoacre I think if the room is really too small the mosquitoes will be unable to flight (most of them at least), also it means you will kill most of them in no time (and you can not breathe for a minute if it is really a probable at the start).
And by just putting your hand on your mouth, I think you avoid most of them, and most would go out when you are expiring if they are starting to block air too much.
Thinking about it a little more, I think there is mostly no chance 2.5kg of mosquitoes kill you by asphyxia.
@dionisos i don't know, maybe I have a phobia of getting insects in my mouth, but in my mind's eye I visualize in like this:
a few mosquitos get in your airways
you start coughing by reflex
the air is 50% mosquitos so by coughing you actually make things worse
repeat
RIP
@dionisos Let's just say the room is a 10ft cube. Is that a good size for a "small room"? Someone can figure out the density if they like.
[beweted]