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Do Insects Feel Pain?

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Re: Do Insects Feel Pain?

#11

Post by galleywest200 »

can16358p wrote: post #3

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.

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.

Re: Do Insects Feel Pain?

#12

Post by adamgordonbell »

http://www.gourmet.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ma...

Consider the lobster

    The fact that even the most highly evolved nonhuman mammals can’t use language to communicate with us about their subjective mental experience is only the first layer of additional complication in trying to extend our reasoning about pain and morality to animals. And everything gets progressively more abstract and convolved as we move farther and farther out from the higher-type mammals into cattle and swine and dogs and cats and rodents, and then birds and fish, and finally invertebrates like lobsters.

Re: Do Insects Feel Pain?

#13

Post by colordrops »

baxtr wrote: post #9

I think a more relevant question is: do mosquitoes feel bad about killing humans? Billions of us, most of them children.

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.

Re: Do Insects Feel Pain?

#14

Post by sandworm101 »

Clubber wrote: post #8

I suspect most living creatures feel pain; it's a survival mechanism.

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.

Re: Do Insects Feel Pain?

#15

Post by vharuck »

can16358p wrote: post #3

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.

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.

Re: Do Insects Feel Pain?

#16

Post by anigbrowl »

baxtr wrote: post #9

I think a more relevant question is: do mosquitoes feel bad about killing humans? Billions of us, most of them children.

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.

Re: Do Insects Feel Pain?

#19

Post by anigbrowl »

sandworm101 wrote: post #14
Clubber wrote: post #8

I suspect most living creatures feel pain; it's a survival mechanism.

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.

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

Re: Do Insects Feel Pain?

#20

Post by c12 »

galleywest200 wrote: post #11
can16358p wrote: post #3

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.

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.

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
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