Do you think its wrong to step on bugs - why or why not?

[jakeyjakey]

I'm 22 years old, was in class two days ago... saw a spider crawling under my desk. I was bored so before it got away I slid my foot over and quietly crunched the little guy.

I tilted my foot over to show the flattened spider to my buddy sitting across, and we sort of snickered when we saw that he was sticking to my muddy running shoe and half alive. As I was doing this from behind me a five foot tall kid behind me called me a bully because I step on bugs. I told him to bend down and kiss my stinking feet. I know, I know... not nice heh. I'm actually a pretty good guy.

Why do people get upset about stuff like this? I've been stepping on bugs my whole life. If bugs are reincarnates of people, well... my thinking is better luck next time. Probably did the little guy a favor... maybe uncle bob or grandma jane shouldn't crawl next to a giant white sneaker unless they want me to crush them.

What are your thoughts? Is it wrong to step on bugs? Why or why not? Will it build bad "karma?"

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

The way you worded this post, it sounds like a crush fetish scenario, than anything else. Lol.

But anyway, the problem with having "insect cruelty laws" is there is simply far too many of them for that to ever be enforceable. There's likely hundreds of bugs in and around your house alone. It'd be kind of ridiculous for insect cruelty laws to exist. So really, I don't see anything too wrong with it, though going out of your way to kill an insect for no reason isn't exactly nice.

And as I do not believe in the existence of karma, that is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Zhukov]

Ugh.

It's just so needless. It's childish sadism at its most basic.

I kill bigs if they're injured (grounded flies for example), but that's it. An injured bug is just spider food waiting to happen and I figure the boot is kinder.

I don't exactly get upset over it, but I instantly think less of people who do it.

EDIT: Just noticed that OP is a first post. Did I just fall for a provocation thread?

 

[jakeyjakey]

Don't think so; didn't think this was a provocative topic anyway.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Depends...why are you stepping on the bug? If you are doing it just to kill something, yeah, bit dodgy.

 

[JoJo]

As far as we know, insects aren't sentient, so I can't see a moral reason why it'd be wrong to kill one. Personally though, I think bugs are pretty cool and so I won't set out to kill one unless it's something like a mosquito which intends to make me it's next meal.

 

[manic_depressive13]

I don't think it's wrong to kill bugs, but I never deliberately kill them and I tend to dislike people who do. It's like if someone deliberately crushed plants. People walk on grass all the time and of course no one cares. But if someone actively went out of their way to stomp on plants I'd think they were a bit unhinged. Same goes for insects. I have infinitely more respect for someone who is calm enough to just ignore an insect/ arachnid than someone who feels compelled to kill it.

Plus, it leaves splattered guts everywhere and that's just fucking gross.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I think it's ok? I mean do you really expect everyone to look up at their shoe after every few step in case they step on a bug?

 

[jakeyjakey]

I would also be a bit leery of someone who went around stomping on plants. That's just weird as hell. I'd also think a person who went around actually searching for bugs to stomp was a little maniacal.

But squashing a spider crawling by seems like a pretty natural thing to do. Or if I'm playing tennis outside and I see a busy little antmound, I'll be honest, I'll probably step on it just to cause a little chaos for them, then move on with my game. Is that sadism? I see it as not much different than kicking a rock -- which there is also no point in doing.

 

[Lilani]

Absolutely not. I'm rather a pacifist when it comes to self-defense against people, but when it comes to bugs in my area I am absolutely merciless. I cannot tolerate bugs in my living space, and I will murder any that are in my sight. Outside I'm a bit more forgiving, but inside all bugs are fair game. ESPECIALLY bees, wasps, and spiders. And trying to catch and release them outside safely is out of the question, I can barely handle getting close enough to kill the wretched things. So since I can barely handle being near them alive and since I value my peace of mind more than I value their lives, I kill them.

A while back some kind of enormous hornet had snuck into my apartment. It wasn't an infestation, it just somehow came through the door with me as I entered. I didn't have a proper can of Raid, but I did have some regular mosquito spray. I found where it was hiding and I hit it with some of that, which disoriented it and kept it from flying more than a few inches off the ground. It went across the room and landed on the carpet, and I threw a book at it, which trapped it. I then banged and pressed on the book to smush it into the carpet--fuck cleanliness, I can scrub its guts out after it's dead. After all that, it was STILL MOVING. I threw the book back on top and then got a bunch of other heavier textbooks from my bookshelf and piled them on. Then I left it there overnight, and vacuumed up the corpse in the morning.

But note I am not even the worst person in the world when it comes to this. I resort to extreme measures of self-defense, but my goal is getting it dead as soon as possible. My boss is a total sadist when it comes to bugs. He recently bought an older house and has been fixing it up, and has found many brown recluse spiders. He captures them, and puts them into a clear plastic container where he lets them starve to death. He once had one trapped in there and caught another kind of spider, and then put it in there with the larger recluse, which he watched attack and devour the other spider. It's like his own little social experiment with spiders.

*shudder* Now excuse me, I need to go not think about spiders for a while.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Is that sadism? I see it as not much different than kicking a rock -- which there is also no point in doing.

But insects are alive. Rocks aren't. Killing "because I'm bored" is sadistic and more than a little childish, what can I tell you. You think killing bugs is natural, I think unless they pose some sort of threat to you it only shows a lack of basic empathy towards other living things. Like the replicants in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

snip

This is really interesting. Lilanli, I always saw you as a soft, sensitive soul who could never harm anyone. I guess appearances are disappearing. Tell me though, as someone who also has arachnophobia, why do you wish them dead so much? Is it the fear? You want the feeling the scaredness gone quick? Or what? This post just seemed really out of character for everything else I've seen you post on here.

 

[Lilani]

snip

This is really interesting. Lilanli, I always saw you as a soft, sensitive soul who could never harm anyone. I guess appearances are disappearing. Tell me though, as someone who also has arachnophobia, why do you wish them dead so much? Is it the fear? You want the feeling the scaredness gone quick? Or what? This post just seemed really out of character for everything else I've seen you post on here.

Lol, thanks It's nice to know I leave a decent impression here...

I am very afraid of them, and I think it's that I want them gone quick, but also with as little contact between me and them as possible. When I was chasing down that hornet in my apartment, I was hunched over and cowering as I searched for it. My heart was pounding and I couldn't do anything else until I knew it was compromised. My method of attacking it was more out of fear than anything else, in fact a cleaner death would have been much less terrifying on my end, but like I said I had no spray that would kill it instantly. I also live alone so I couldn't pawn the task onto anyone else braver and more humane. My boyfriend would have caught and released it, but I'm just a bit too prideful to call him to my place just to handle a bug (though I'm pretty sure he would).

I also attribute absolutely no personhood to bugs. I don't attack people and I think animal cruelty is worse than cruelty towards people, and I see an inherent value in the life of plants. But I see as much value in the life of bugs as I see in the life of black mold or the Ebola virus.

So...yeah, lol. I really am a nice person I think, I just can't handle bugs. At least bugs that can bite or sting me, flies or roaches are just more disgusting than anything else. I'll get rid of them, but I'm much more composed so it's a lot faster. And it's less out of fear and more out of a desire for a clean and sanitary living space.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

snip

I meant no offense, you're one of my favourite poster on here.

Anyway, I live in Australia. I also live in a rural area. The catch + i I inherited arachnophobia from my mother. I don't think I need to explain what follows, but if I do.. well, google Huntsem Spiders.. they can grow as big as your hand. Haha, I certainly understand the fear and wanting the creature gone from your house. But even still, I've always felt regret after sucking them up the vacuum cleaner. I would think if I was born a spider. When it rains, I'd want to seek shelter. It'd be horrible if said shelter was also a death warrant.

'Ya know what I'm hinting at here? It just seems unfortunate that bugs are so hated that they're killed so mercilessly without remorse.

 

[jakeyjakey]

Is that sadism? I see it as not much different than kicking a rock -- which there is also no point in doing.

But insects are alive. Rocks aren't. Killing "because I'm bored" is sadistic and more than a little childish, what can I tell you. You think killing bugs is natural, I think unless they pose some sort of threat to you it only shows a lack of basic empathy towards other living things. Like the replicants in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

So you really think that stepping on a spider that's already crawling by my feet is a sadistic act? Getting instantly crushed doesn't seem so bad, does it?

Yes they are alive, but in the end they're just bugs -- little more than robots. Would you consider it to be sadistic to step on tiny robots zooming around on the floor? To me, stepping on an anthill is like stepping on a tiny automated robot factory that will self-repair. Watching them scramble like all hell afterward is actually interesting. Is any significant harm done, considering how fast they reproduce?

 

[Lilani]

snip

I meant no offense, you're one of my favourite poster on here.

Anyway, I live in Australia. I also live in a rural area. The catch + i I inherited arachnophobia from my mother. I don't think I need to explain what follows, but if I do.. well, google Huntsem Spiders.. they can grow as big as your hand. Haha, I certainly understand the fear and wanting the creature gone from your house. But even still, I've always felt regret after sucking them up the vacuum cleaner. I would think if I was born a spider. When it rains, I'd want to seek shelter. It'd be horrible if said shelter was also a death warrant.

'Ya know what I'm hinting at here? It just seems unfortunate that bugs are so hated that they're killed so mercilessly without remorse.

Ah, I see what you mean. Yeah, glad I live here and not in Australia I understand all the positive things about spiders, in theory. I know that they (at least the ones here in Missouri) eat flies and mosquitoes and other bugs which can spread disease, and I know they and hornets and bees don't bite people unless they feel threatened. However, in my one experience getting stung by a wasp, I wasn't purposefully doing anything threatening. I was just playing at a playground, and out of nowhere it just stung me. I must have done something which made it feel threatened, but I have no idea what it was.

I was scared of them before that, but I think that just solidified and legitimized my fear. And spiders are so creepy and can bite and sometimes venomous I lump them in the same category, though AFAIK I've never been bitten by one.

Anyway, I get and totally respect why some people catch spiders and release them outside. And I get that they do feel pain of a sort and I know I should care about them more, but unfortunately whenever I'm faced with one I go into survival mode and the only thing I can bring myself to care about is making it dead, but from as far away as possible.

 

[Bravo Company]

The way you worded this post, it sounds like a crush fetish.

Seems like a bit of a stretch, but a possibility

But squashing a spider crawling by seems like a pretty natural thing to do. Or if I'm playing tennis outside and I see a busy little antmound, I'll be honest, I'll probably step on it just to cause a little chaos for them, then move on with my game. Is that sadism? I see it as not much different than kicking a rock -- which there is also no point in doing.

Confirmed: OP has insect crush/aggitation fetish



Anyways.......I'll only KoS insects if they're actually on me or in my house. Other than that I let them do their thing. However, I don't care if people go around murdering insects; I may find it rather strange if you seem to have a life goal of murdering every insect in sight, but I won't feel bad for the insects.

 

[Silvanus]

I'll kill mosquitos and flies if they're inside the house, but usually I prefer to catch them in a glass and let them outside. Not for moral reasons; just because I'd prefer not to have bits of dead fly to clean up.

I don't see a problem with killing insects, generally. They're tremendously unlikely to possess any significant mental capacity. Pain, for them, is likely to be quite a rudimentary experience. I don't tend to kill spiders, but that's primarily because I don't want to get too close. Bit arachnophobic. Plus, they're supposedly quite a bit smarter than insects.

For reference, I don't buy meat (or have it bought for me) for moral reasons.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

snip

Nah, that all makes sense. My mother got her arachnophobia when her father was trying to catch a spider, and it actually jumped on her. As in on her head. She's been shit scared of them ever since, and that has since spread to me. The thing is, it's an irrational fear. 99% of the team, a spider who is disturbed will just try and run away to safety, than try to bother anyone. But if still terrifies us. We need to thank our complex brains for this weakness, haha. Oh well, but I do wonder if "insect rights" will become a thing one day, in our distant future. It's interesting to think about.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Is that sadism? I see it as not much different than kicking a rock -- which there is also no point in doing.

But insects are alive. Rocks aren't. Killing "because I'm bored" is sadistic and more than a little childish, what can I tell you. You think killing bugs is natural, I think unless they pose some sort of threat to you it only shows a lack of basic empathy towards other living things. Like the replicants in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

So you really think that stepping on a spider that's already crawling by my feet is a sadistic act?

Yes.

Getting instantly crushed doesn't seem so bad, does it?

I have an answer to this, but I'm afraid it would come across as an insult.

Yes they are alive, but in the end they're just bugs -- little more than robots.

Robots aren't alive.

Would you consider it to be sadistic to step on tiny robots zooming around on the floor?

If you're deriving pleasure from their destruction, then yes.

To me, stepping on an anthill is like stepping on a tiny automated robot factory that will self-repair. Watching them scramble like all hell afterward is actually interesting.

Yeah, and Mengele was also very interested in his work.

Is any significant harm done, considering how fast they reproduce?

By that rationale you can also go around killing other fast-reproducing species, like bunnies, or people for that matter, seeing as how over-population is becoming a thing with each day.

Mate, I can't teach you to respect life or develop basic empathy towards it. If you don't have it by now then nothing short of a traumatic experience will change it for you. But I appreciate the curiosity and I hope you're getting something outta this thread.