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

[Kolby Jack]

Of course not. If I stopped to consider the moral implications of every bug squashed, I'd likely lose my mind. It's a bug. They breed in the THOUSANDS. I'm not harming the species by killing it, and the individual's feelings (if it has any, which it hardly does) are insignificant. The bug was a nuisance, killing it solves the problem is the quickest way possible.

Now, I will avoid squishing most bugs bigger than a dime, but that's just because bug guts make me gag like crazy.

I'm no fan of needless cruelty to animals, but I am more of a "humans above all else" kind of person. And again, bugs are such an insignificant lifeform that I consider "being mildly annoying" reason enough to kill one.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

I try not to kill bugs when I can, obviously though considering the size difference between me and the average insect, accidents happen. I dont think you should kill them just because though, they are alive.
Also to the comment about them being like robots, thats an incredibly stupid statement. Insects are the the most successful living group of animals on the planet. Notice I didnt say "one of the most successful". There is no other animal phyla existing that even comes close to the diversity and abundance of the insects. And despite their size, they still have the ability to kill humans directly (see poisonous insects) or indirectly (spreading disease, and destroying food sources)
With all that in mind, you gotta show them a little more respect. Insects arent living on the planet of men, men are living on the planet of insects.

Also after reading Terra Formars, im deathly afraid of being mean to insects and them developing a grudge

 

[PsychoticHamster]

Its not wrong if it happens, but to deliberately stomp on a bug is pretty childish and unnecessary. Also if you have to say "I'm a pretty good guy" chances are, you aren't.

 

[michael87cn]

you seem (overly) confident that you've done nothing wrong, but you ask total strangers if you were wrong or not.

I'm guessing the "five foot guy" (I'm guessing you're taller than him, and that's why you even mentioned his height at all....) actually did bother you.

IMO... you aren't wrong for killing the bug. you're wrong for being incredibly cocky about it.

imo.... attitude is everything. Kill a bug? Cool... fine. Have a reason for it. Oh, you just thought it was fun? Hmmm... may be a sign of psychological disorder.

Hey, brutally honest... yeah, but you asked!

 

[michael87cn]

It's a bug. There are literally millions where it came from. Hell creatures like us killing them all the time is expected that's why the reproduce so dramatically. There's nothing sadistic about killing a bug every now and then. Going around and wiping out nests though that's another matter.

litterally millions, huh? That's your logic? You realize there are billions of humans (way more than your millions of insects) and in actuallity, probably trillions of insects. If not more. I mean... ants alone.... there are so many.....

 

[EHKOS]

It highly depends. If it's not hurting anything and if it doesn't make me want to scream and run away, I'll let it live. Like a moth or one of those corner spiders. But if it's intruding in my home and it scares me or is a hazard to my health, then it's dead. Flys are a grey area, they piss me off, but they really haven't done anything, so I let them live, but not for lack of trying. If I kill it, I kill it, if it gets away and disappears, then I'm glad I didn't have to extinguish its shitty little life.

 

[Fijiman]

I don't really care. Plus, as a personal rule, if they have entered my house they have basically guaranteed death, especially if I catch them out in the open.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I don't kill. Any bugs inside my home will either be ignored or transplanted outside, depending on the season. This is pretty difficult because of how much I loathe bugs, but I won't intentionally harm another living creature. Of course sometimes I accidentally kill a bug or two, some of them are pretty fragile, and also mowing the lawn is certain to have some casualties, but as far as I see it that's unavoidable.

The way I see it is that if some advanced alien race were to come to Earth they might see us as nothing more than insects or vermin, and so I try to preserve all life in the hope that anything that finds us may also do the same. Also, bonus points if it turns out that we will have judgment passed on us based on the actions of our lives.

 

[jakeyjakey]

you seem (overly) confident that you've done nothing wrong, but you ask total strangers if you were wrong or not.

I'm guessing the "five foot guy" (I'm guessing you're taller than him, and that's why you even mentioned his height at all....) actually did bother you.

IMO... you aren't wrong for killing the bug. you're wrong for being incredibly cocky about it.

imo.... attitude is everything. Kill a bug? Cool... fine. Have a reason for it. Oh, you just thought it was fun? Hmmm... may be a sign of psychological disorder.

Hey, brutally honest... yeah, but you asked!

Yeah, his comment did sort of bother me. I know for a fact that he is hindu, but I don't know if that's why he got upset.

I don't think it's accurate to say I kill for fun. Spiders don't belong inside anyway. And in the grand scheme their lives are pretty insignificant. Hell, the smell of my feet could probably kill these guys.

 

[Batou667]

As a kid I used to run outside after it had finished raining and rescue worms and snails from the pavement so they wouldn't get trodden on. I'd still never kill a spider (I carefully catch them and put them outside) but wasps and houseflies are fair game - if I open a window and they don't get the hint and leave, then *splat*.

The deal breaker for me is whether the animal is likely to sting or is carrying germs. I've been ruthlessly killing house mice recently and I feel no remorse whatsoever. My family's health outweighs a mouse's right to crap over my kitchen work surfaces.

 

[UmberHulk]

I love bugs if I see an interesting looking one I'll usually pick it up to get a closer look. That being said I understand why some people don't like them I feel the same way about worms.

 

[DEAD34345]

Killing insects just for the fun of it is enough to make me instantly dislike someone. If there's any kind of valid reason, I can understand it, though I personally try to spare them when I can. Cruelty for the sake of cruelty however is just sad. Surely that's obvious if you have any kind of moral conscience?

Also, spiders are pretty smart. They've been proven to be capable of learning and adapting to different kinds of prey using trial and error, so I'd say they're far removed from "robots".

 

[Pinkamena]

They're lesser creatures, so I don't care much. There's no fun to get out of it, it's more of a chore. But morality is no factor in my decision to kill a bug.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I have a phobia of being touched by insects. ANY insects. If the most beautiful rare butterfly in the world landed on me, it'd end up a smear. And any insect that comes into my apartment will die; this is my territory and I will defend it. But I don't torment them; I kill them as quickly as possible.

And outside, where the insects belong? If they're no threat to me, then I just leave them alone.

And call me judgemental if you want, but deriving pleasure from causing needless cruelty to a living creature marks you as a bad person in my books.

 

[The Claudia]

"I don't think it's accurate to say I kill for fun. Spiders don't belong inside anyway. And in the grand scheme their lives are pretty insignificant. Hell, the smell of my feet could probably kill these guys."

What a ridiculous conclusion.

No bug has a concept of "inside" and to say they don't belong "inside" makes no sense. People don't naturally "belong inside" either. Where ever you are living, some kind of a habitat was destroyed for that place to be there, and as such I believe people have no right to complain (and especially no right to kill) when an insect is inside of their house.

To take a life for the no purpose IS wrong, no question. Who are you to think you understand just how much pain an insect does or does not feel? Why does the intelligence of a creature determine its right to live on Earth in the first place?

Just because there are trillions of insects and they easily replace any losses in their population is no reason to kill them. It's as if saying it would be okay to kill you and your entire family and friends because, ultimately, it wouldn't matter and the world would keep on spinning. In the "grand scheme of things" your life is equally insignificant.

Not only do you clearly have no understanding of life on this planet, and absolutely no empathy towards it, but yes-- I believe you are a bad person because of that.

 

[JimB]

If a bug is in my home, I kill it. I live in a trailer; I don't need insect life burrowing through the cheap plywood that forms my floor, my walls, my ceiling. The place is flimsy enough as is. Otherwise, I don't kill them because I have no reason to. No insect wants anything more to do with me than I want to do with it, and I am happy to live and let live.

"Evil" is a tricky word to define, but my best effort is, "Doing harm for a reason other than necessity." Harming another being for the pleasure it gives you to do so is, as best I can pin the word down, an evil thing to do.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Bugs don't really bother me too much, so I usually just leave them alone. The only exceptions being if the bug is somehow dangerous to me or my property, or if it's a mosquito because fuck mosquitoes.

That said, I'm arachnophobic. I'm terrified of spiders, and for most of my life I've killed them on sight. Over the past couple years though I've been trying to get over my fear by letting them go about their business. These days if I see a spider that's set up shop in a corner, I'll just leave it there, figuring that it's eating the more harmful (albeit less terrifying) insects in my home.

That said, I have three exceptions. The first is that the spider cannot come within three feet of my bed, my dresser, or my computer desk. The second is that the spider cannot touch me. The third is that the spider cannot be of the larger variety if it's in my home (the two largest spiders in my state are the Wolf Spider [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_spider] and the Grass Spider [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_spider]). If the spider fails any of these three things I will attempt to capture it and set it outside, but there's no promises they won't get squished (especially if they're Wolf or Grass Spiders).

 

[Mr Cwtchy]

Like other people have said, if it's in my home, it dies. With the rare exception of (small!)spiders that reside in the corners of rooms, since they generally mind their own business.

But anything that flies around, is noisy or scares the crap outta me(bees, wasps, daddy-long-legs, etc) dies.

The outside I generally regard as 'their turf', so I leave them be in those cases.

 

[Navvan]

The troubling thing about your scenerio isn't that you killed a spider. Its that you're actively taking some sort of sadistic pleasure from crushing a spider.