Do Insects Feel Pain? • Hacker News Board

Re: Do Insects Feel Pain?

#71

Post by nemo » Sat, Feb 01, 2025, 11:56 PM UTC

spants wrote: post #60

nemo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bird watcher, I go out a fair amount so I've seen a lot of predation, not just of insects but other birds and mammals. I still don't want to do needless harm to any animals, even insects. I'll still take out roaches, fire ants, flour moths, and other invasive/pest insects, but I actually feel some remorse when I kill the moths and others since I believe they do suffer by my hand even if I don't have another cho…

and you still eat animals?

No, I'm a vegetarian, actually. I haven't eaten meat intentionally for around 35 years now.

Re: Do Insects Feel Pain?

#72

Post by BrandoElFollito » Sun, Feb 02, 2025, 8:28 PM UTC

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 kill flies, mosquitoes, ticks and other insects that are dangerous to me.

I borderline do not care about the ones that I do not like because they gross me out but I am not actively killing them.

I protect many that I am not otherwise fond of, like spiders. I let them live their life in my apartment hoping that they will maybe pay me back by eating mosquitoes.

I think I do not care about 99% of animals (but I will protect them when needed), hate 0.5% and like 0.5%

Re: Do Insects Feel Pain?

#73

Post by jojobas » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 1:17 AM UTC

TheNewsIsHere wrote: post #67

jojobas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be still ethical if it was conclusively proven they did. There's no shortage of ethical theories ranging from Jainism to Nietzsche and they basically follow the laws of natural selection.

Are you suggesting that the ultimate arbiter of whether something is ethical or not is whether it would be allowed by natural selection?

Yes, natural selection judges ethical models just like it judges everything else.

Re: Do Insects Feel Pain?

#74

Post by ultrarunner » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:23 PM UTC

brap wrote: post #62

ultrarunner wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it merely preferential, then?

It’s a preference that’s somewhat hardcoded in our brain, kind of like preferring to seek friendships, achieve goals, etc.

In that case, I don't think there's any reason to believe that it's objectively good. Some preferences are met, some are not, but there isn't any requirement that they are either way. In that sense, I suppose it is indeed all meaningless chemical signaling.

(for what it's worth, I do not accept this view as truth, in part because if it is "true" there isn't any real sense of truth for it to be of significance)

Re: Do Insects Feel Pain?

#75

Post by ultrarunner » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:24 PM UTC

dwaltrip wrote: post #54

donatj wrote: post #36

Honest question. If you remove religious and spiritual aspects and come at it from a place of pure reason, does it really matter? What is pain but a chemical signal something is wrong?

I’m not sure I’m understanding. You’re saying it’s fine if someone punches you in the face?

I suspect they're saying there is no such thing as "fine" except in the eye of the receiver of the chemical signals. Seems like a strong stance for something lacking any foundation.

Re: Do Insects Feel Pain?

#76

Post by TheNewsIsHere » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 1:31 PM UTC

jgwil2 wrote: post #69

TheNewsIsHere wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had tremendous difficulty navigating to read this. For whatever reason I could only visit page 1 and 10, so I wasn’t able to form any assessment of the article you posted. So it is without that background or knowing exactly where you stand that I offer: The lack of a commonly understood mechanism that can be used to communicate about pain with a lobster doesn’t mean that lobsters are incapable of feeling pain any m…

It's a pretty well known essay--you should be able to find out in PDF format pretty easily by googling. It's very much on the non-lobster-eating side and touches on both physiological and philosophical arguments.

I was unaware. Thank you!