[HN Gopher] Do Insects Feel Pain?
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Do Insects Feel Pain?
Author : Hooke
Score : 11 points
Date : 2025-01-29 21:15 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| ge96 wrote:
| Man I always feel bad having to kill a pest insect.
| can16358p wrote:
| I never intentionally harm a single insect... except flies and
| mosquitos. I hope they do feel the pain as they deserve it!
|
| Other than that I respect all of them.
| unshavedyak wrote:
| For me it's various forms of fruit flies. That they come into
| my office and just fly at my face or in my food randomly...
| well, i hope they suffer lol.
| Retr0id wrote:
| I'm plagued by fruit flies but I can't say I've ever wished
| them harm. Which is weird because they're incredibly
| annoying. I think something has to be annoying me "on
| purpose" for that. And sure, I might swat at them or
| whatever, but that's just to make them go away.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| I used to never harm insects until I found ticks and mosquitos
| on my dog...So now I kill ticks and mosquitos.
|
| I like spiders though. I have had one living in my bathroom
| window for about six months now. It seems to be eating other
| spiders that try to crawl in based on the contents of its web.
| I consider this rent payment and allow it to stay.
| c12 wrote:
| I have a similar spider story, for the past nine years a
| rather large spider (for the UK) had been living under the
| bookcase by my front door. I have left it alone, but do
| hoover up the graveyard of consumed insects every couple of
| months. I caught it a few months ago when I had new carpet
| laid, released it back to its spot once the bookcase was back
| in place :D
| vharuck wrote:
| I've had to relax my rule to never needlessly harm insects, and
| never do it just because it's the easiest way to get rid of
| them. For example, a single ant gets scooped up and thrown
| outside, but a line that found food is getting killed and their
| pheromone trail bleached.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| By definition, all life responds to stimulus, the most important
| of course being injurious phenomena.
| kakapo1988 wrote:
| I wonder if the invading aliens will wonder if we feel pain?
| However they decide, I just hope they make it quick.
| Clubber wrote:
| I suspect most living creatures feel pain; it's a survival
| mechanism.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Pain only makes sense if an animal can learn. It is a teaching
| mechanism to modify future behavior. A very simple creature may
| act purely automatically, not even instinct but raw dna-
| programmed responses. Pain makes little sense there as there is
| no learning to be done. I doubt bacteria feel pain.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Evidence suggests bacteria can learn. I'm not suggesting you
| should feel bad about taking an antibiotic but cellular life
| is more complex than many people imagine.
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1154456
| baxtr wrote:
| I think a more relevant question is: do mosquitoes feel bad about
| killing humans?
|
| Billions of us, most of them children.
| colordrops wrote:
| Mosquitos are only one type of countless types of insects, most
| of which are harmless or even beneficial to humans.
|
| In any case if you are going to have such a war-like attitude,
| it's the humans that deserve to be destroyed by the animals,
| not the other way around. We are the ones fucking up the
| planet.
|
| And we kill almost 100 billion animals a year for food, and who
| knows how many others from other human activities.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Humans are animals, very successful ones. The only reason
| other animals are kept in check, is because they eat their
| food source until there's too little left to sustain them.
|
| Goats will eat everything bare, locusts destroy everything,
| beetles ruin forests, beavers dam rivers changing ecosystems
| so much, it can be seen from space.
|
| Every single lifeform on this planet expands, grows,
| multiplies without restraint. Animals don't csre one wit
| about conservation, or balance, or restraint. They never
| consider such things, ever, beyond filling their belly.
|
| You act as if other animals are somehow noble, yet it is only
| humans that take deep, strong thought and care about the
| environment.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Humans are just another animal though, a lot of animals
| change the local environment.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I don't feel any compunction about killing mosquitoes, but I
| prefer one good hit with a heavy object and its over. I'd
| consider it unethical to torture one by dismembering it while
| it's alive, for example, and I'm not a fan of using poisons.
| yesfitz wrote:
| How is that more relevant?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Descartes' ideas about automatism have had an unhealthy effect on
| the development of modern society.
| adamgordonbell wrote:
| http://www.gourmet.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ma...
|
| Consider the lobster
| kazinator wrote:
| [delayed]
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