Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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Belindi
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

Post by Belindi »

I wouldn't want to know somebody who kills creatures because he can.
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Thrylix
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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They're just bugs. Is there a better reason for killing them? Squashing the little guys and watching them scramble like all hell to avoid being crushed by your foot is funny. Maybe I'm a bit of a sleazy guy for doing it but there are worse things.
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Thrylix
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

Post by Thrylix »

Belindi wrote: June 25th, 2018, 7:54 am I wouldn't want to know somebody who kills creatures because he can.
Why would that be? I'm considered quite a nice and friendly guy by everyone I know. I'm respectful to others and don't have any vices. I run and swim competitively, I've volunteered as an EMT in college. I don't participate in violence toward others -- unless one considers my purposely stamping my feet down on bugs a violent act. Surely I don't sound so bad.
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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STepping on bugs is not right or wrong. It is, instead, right or left. Depending on the foot you use.
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LuckyR
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

Post by LuckyR »

Thrylix wrote: June 27th, 2018, 4:12 am They're just bugs. Is there a better reason for killing them? Squashing the little guys and watching them scramble like all hell to avoid being crushed by your foot is funny. Maybe I'm a bit of a sleazy guy for doing it but there are worse things.
In my opinion you are being way too hard on yourself. I would not usually use the wording of "sleazy" to describe an adult who derives entertainment value from watching bugs scrambling around after being stepped on in a nonlethal manner. Sleazy implies a personality defect, and I believe this topic for most folks lies in a completely different area than personality (though I admit that there are those few where it is a clue into personality types, but that is likely rare).
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Belindi
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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Lucky, I don't think it indicates a personality but that it indicates mindless vandalism i.e. ignorance. Thrylix will probably live more and learn.
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

Post by Thinking critical »

Belindi wrote: June 25th, 2018, 7:54 am I wouldn't want to know somebody who kills creatures because he can.
I was raised on a farm where hunting and fishing for food (and sports) was a regular event.
As I have educated myself throughout the past 10 years or so, I have gradually learned to appreciate just how sacred life is, the thought of ending life for sport or pleasure now seems somewhat barbaric.
It is a subject I am often forced to keep to myself in order to not offend or agitate other family members. Funny thing is, most of my friends and family who hunt for sport are also Christians, they believe humans are superior and have a God ordained right to kill lower species. Whereas my view is we all evolved from common ancestors and we are all living things sharing this tiny planet which is but microscopic spec within an unfathomably large cosmos.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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Thinking critical wrote: July 3rd, 2018, 8:58 amFunny thing is, most of my friends and family who hunt for sport are also Christians, they believe humans are superior and have a God ordained right to kill lower species.
It's an interesting thing. I note that Trump's evangelical base (and equivalent reactionary neocon types elsewhere) figure that we can demolish all ecosystems and simply keep using technological solutions. Some religions and denominations are fighting back against science, which had curtailed their power.

Many evangelists today look forward to "the end of days" which will hasten "God's rule". The idea is that nature is ruined and degraded anyway, so there's no point in people going without to save ANY of it. Develop, develop, develop - and when everything is developed, go upwards. As if the Earth wasn't a natural system that can readily be pushed into dangerous imbalances.

All of this harks back to the fight with science and a refusal to accept research findings. So these kinds of anti-science, anti-"elites" theists don't appreciate that extinctions increase desertification and reduce land fertility. They don't accept the basic physics of the greenhouse effect. They don't accept that other animals can think and feel. In fact, they barely ascribe humanity to their ideological enemies. All is ripe for a perfect storm because increasing numbers of people cannot bring themselves to empathise beyond their immediate circle.
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Thrylix
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

Post by Thrylix »

Belindi wrote: June 27th, 2018, 1:37 pm Lucky, I don't think it indicates a personality but that it indicates mindless vandalism i.e. ignorance. Thrylix will probably live more and learn.
Wait, mindless I'll grant you. But vandalism?
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Sy Borg
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

Post by Sy Borg »

Yes, vandalism. The breaking of order. A bug is far more complex and ordered than a building. And a whole lot more sensate.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Stepping on a bug is neither right or wrong until you have a context.
If you have no practical reason it is wrong.
I recently killed 3 large hornets which had entered my sleeping space. I'd been told that they are usually harmless, but would not have slept easily with them in the room.
It seems an uninterrupted sleep is more important to me that the lives of three hornets.
Were hornets endangered as a species I would have taken more steps to evict them rather than kill them.
Killing for pleasure has no credibility and rather distasteful.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

Post by Sy Borg »

Another angle on the hornet situation. Animals that cannot hurt us and are easy to catch like Christmas beetles are much more likely to be shown mercy and just evicted from human territory than biting, stinging, hard-to-catch and food pilfering species.

It's not uncommon for an unwitting animal to suffer the penalty of death for bumbling into a top species' territory, and they need not be predators - elephants, hippos, rhinos, kangaroos, cape buffalo, wild pigs will also kill interlopers. So we are not being out of order in killing bugs that invade our space. However, as humans we have the option of showing mercy.

As things stand, if the hornets were hard to evict I would have killed them too rather than tolerated them buzzing around me, and maybe landing on me, all night. I still remember Mum's horror from many decades ago after a cockroach crawled over her lips while she slept. It's easy to understand why our ancestors would have liked sleeping by a campfire, aside from the warmth and light.
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Greta wrote: August 14th, 2018, 5:18 pm Another angle on the hornet situation. Animals that cannot hurt us and are easy to catch like Christmas beetles are much more likely to be shown mercy and just evicted from human territory than biting, stinging, hard-to-catch and food pilfering species.

It's not uncommon for an unwitting animal to suffer the penalty of death for bumbling into a top species' territory, and they need not be predators - elephants, hippos, rhinos, kangaroos, cape buffalo, wild pigs will also kill interlopers. So we are not being out of order in killing bugs that invade our space. However, as humans we have the option of showing mercy.

As things stand, if the hornets were hard to evict I would have killed them too rather than tolerated them buzzing around me, and maybe landing on me, all night. I still remember Mum's horror from many decades ago after a cockroach crawled over her lips while she slept. It's easy to understand why our ancestors would have liked sleeping by a campfire, aside from the warmth and light.
I'd never seen a roach until I lived in LA. I think the worst time was when I was awoken with one drinking from my eyes. URRGGHHGHGHGHG!
On waking I squashed it on my face. It is weird but I felt the sensation fo weeks after. No shower was capable of removing the idea of it.
... And I'm not a squeamish person.

Apparently Hippos are the most common mammalian killer of people in Africa - not including humans, of course!
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Sy Borg
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

Post by Sy Borg »

ThomasHobbes wrote: August 14th, 2018, 6:22 pm
Greta wrote: August 14th, 2018, 5:18 pm Another angle on the hornet situation. Animals that cannot hurt us and are easy to catch like Christmas beetles are much more likely to be shown mercy and just evicted from human territory than biting, stinging, hard-to-catch and food pilfering species.

It's not uncommon for an unwitting animal to suffer the penalty of death for bumbling into a top species' territory, and they need not be predators - elephants, hippos, rhinos, kangaroos, cape buffalo, wild pigs will also kill interlopers. So we are not being out of order in killing bugs that invade our space. However, as humans we have the option of showing mercy.

As things stand, if the hornets were hard to evict I would have killed them too rather than tolerated them buzzing around me, and maybe landing on me, all night. I still remember Mum's horror from many decades ago after a cockroach crawled over her lips while she slept. It's easy to understand why our ancestors would have liked sleeping by a campfire, aside from the warmth and light.
I'd never seen a roach until I lived in LA. I think the worst time was when I was awoken with one drinking from my eyes. URRGGHHGHGHGHG!
On waking I squashed it on my face. It is weird but I felt the sensation fo weeks after. No shower was capable of removing the idea of it.
... And I'm not a squeamish person.

Apparently Hippos are the most common mammalian killer of people in Africa - not including humans, of course!
:lol: :lol: if the roach had gone a bit further it would have been even worse than the poor woman who had a roach burrow into her ear and had to endure it in there until the insect was surgically removed - in pieces. Oh lordy lordy!

Cockies are just one of millions of beetle species, and perhaps the smartest, but somehow they give people the heebies in a way that the vast majority of beetle types don't. I think it's their invasiveness and their complete lack of endearing beetle clumsiness. Rather, they are sleek little kleptoparasites that go to icky places and bring the ick into our space :)

But consider the situation from the cockroaches' POV. To the roach you must seem like a hot, steaming, heaving, active landscape, like a volcanic area about to erupt. But it feels moist there and the critter is thirsty ... hmm, scary, have to be quick. Ah, a puddle! ... lap lap lap ... ohshitohshit it's starting to blow! Then the volcano emits a roar loud enough to bend its feelers and throws out a gigantic boulder shaped exactly like a hand that lands on to the roach, killing it.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Greta wrote: August 14th, 2018, 9:16 pm
Cockies are just one of millions of beetle species,
That is a complete insult to beetles.
Beetles are not even the same ORDER!!
Beetles are nice.
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