Poll: Harmless insects

[elbowlick]

It really depends. Tiny bugs I usually try to leave alone, or at most relocate. It they're what I consider over-sized (like these motherfuckers http://www.funny-potato.com/images/animals/insects/giant-insects.jpg, http://www.biblelandstudios.com/nuke/images/upload/Giant_Grasshopper_hand%20400.jpg ) I'd still probably wouldn't kill it, in fact I'd probably do my best to avoid touching it, but I'd pray for its death.

 

[guyy]

Just one fire ant sting in years? Wow. Where I'm from, if you manage to avoid being stung by them for more than a week, it's because you haven't left the house.
Poisoning fire ant mounds falls under my "Self defense" excuse for killing. Stupid things don't belong in this ecosystem anyway.

There's no fire ants at all where I live; the one bite I got was on vacation, and I'm not even sure it was a fire ant (but definitely a stinging ant).

Instead, we have tiny black ants, which, instead of biting, pour into your house by the thousands to eat a single piece of cereal you dropped on the floor. Vacuum them up, spray some cleaning chemical in the crumb-sized hole they came in through...and the next day ten times as many will march in through a different hole because a piece of cat food fell outside the food bowl (which has to have a line of dish soap at the base to keep every ant in a ten-mile radius from parading in to devour it). Fun, eh?

 

[Hobo Joe]

I love insects and spiders, in fact one thing I'm often forced to do is protect my little scuttling comrades from my brutish friends.

 

[Marmooset]

I try not to kill Sandkings, unless they're infesting my pool.

 

[Lineoutt]

If I could, I would erase EVERY fly and mosquito from existence without a second thought.

Mosquitos serve no productive purpose on this earth, they live only to make us miserable.

I agree. Them, fleas, bed bugs, and any other biting type insect. Oh yes and giant spiders.

OT: Bugs (all bugs) scare the living shit out of me. If I even think there's a bug on me I will panic and run around hitting myself for about 15 minutes. The only problem is I cant kill anything thats not a flea. I cant kill mozzies because they are too big and everything else I feel bad about. I swear to god every time I accidentally kill an ant I give it funeral.

Mmmm, well I'm not trying to sound all high and mighty and take the high road here, they are insects for God's sake.

But really I feel horrible whenever I kill/see someone kill an insect/bug whatever.
I don't know why.

On a side note: One of my friends knows I feel this way and he is a jackass, so whenever he sees an ant or something he does his best to kill it then say "You know what? That ant probably had a family and stuff, and I just killed it."
Douche.

Ditto lol. My friend will bring a spider/ant over to be and try to touch to me and then squish it and shove its convulsing body in my face. He also drips chicken bone marrow on my plate even though he knows I am a vegetarian.
Why am I friends with him again?

 

[joshthor]

dude. the bug doesnt even have to annoy me. it just has to be in my line of sight.

 

[superbatranger]

I love killing bugs.
I poured boiling water down an ant hill when I was 10 once.

I remember sticking firecrackers in an ant hill a long time ago.

If the bug really bothers me, it's dead. But, if it just crawls past me or flies around a bit then goes somewhere else, I'm not gonna follow it just so I can kill it. Waste of time if you ask me.

 

[ultrachicken]

Depends on how big it is. If it's a fly, sometimes the buzzing won't bother me. If it's some large spider or beetle, I pick up a chair and beat it to death.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

There is no reason [i/]not[/i] to kill it and it was breaking my concentration. Bugs don't have feelings, bugs don't care if one of their family members is killed and if you smash it completely, it won't feel pain either.

 

[Antiparticle]

I'd try to catch it and release it outside. It has a much better chance of survival there and it won't bother me anymore too.

 

[MrMixelPixel]

I more or less agree with this. Even more so I actually enjoy presence of bugs. I find most of them, even the most common fascinating. So no, I rarely ever kill bugs. I don't think the killing of a bug is that bad a thing though. For one they can not feel pain of any kind. So any death you give them is totally painless. Also, they do not feel emotion. They are strictly instinct driven animals.

Never having been an insect to my knowledge, I make no claims as to their capacity for pain or emotion.
I do think they can feel fear, or fear's most basic primitive root. Just watch a cricket trying to escape a spider web - that survival instinct, the pressing primal need to escape from a dangerous situation, is something most critters have, humans included. We may feel it more elaborately, but it all stems from the same basic desire to survive.

But that's really beside the point. The fact that it's a living thing is enough for me to treat it with respect and not end that life without some kind of cause.
And, like you said, bugs are fascinating anyway.

Glad to hear you agree...
But getting a little off topic. Humans can tell through the lack of certain nerves in a bugs body that they can not feel pain. Example: "if you gently grab an insect's leg and hold it, it will struggle violently. If you snap the leg off, it stops struggling and calmly limps away. If they felt pain, it would be the exact opposite." Said by an Anonymous Entomologist

Survival Instinct they of course have... The want for food, water, reproduction, and the want to stay not dead. Now to suggest that fear can cause any emotional distress would be incorrect. Which I doubt you is what you were trying to get across... just in case ^^'

 

[blackbobcat]

If I could, I would erase EVERY fly and mosquito from existence without a second thought.

Mosquitos serve no productive purpose on this earth, they live only to make us miserable.

um this is actually incorrect.... mosquitoes play a huge role in the ecosystem and foodchain and all around the world.... the are the most common animal on the entire planet... bar none

 

[Cowabungaa]

Never having been an insect to my knowledge, I make no claims as to their capacity for pain or emotion.

One cán do so, based on their neurological capabilities. Which are, safe to say, extremely limited and not able to experience sensations like pain. In some way it's an advantage, having such a simple mind. It's a reason why they can react so quickly.

That said, I pretty much only kill parasites, includes flies as they leech of my food. I usually don't bother beetles and stuff.

Spiders however get a very different treatment; I promptly turn around and make sure it's out of my sight, then let someone remove it. Except for jumping spiders, they're cute, and daddy long-legs as they're so fragile they're almost pathetic.

um this is actually incorrect.... mosquitoes play a huge role in the ecosystem and foodchain and all around the world.... the are the most common animal on the entire planet... bar none

Actually no, that'd be ants, if I remember correctly. They have the largest combined biomass of any species (well, all species of ants combined) of animal on the planet.

 

[Evilsanta]

Yes i would...(Sees a mosquito, pulls out the flamethrower) DIE MOTHA FUCKA DIE!!!Now you will annoy the devil in hell! MOAHHAHAHAHAHAHA! Ermh...I dont like bugs and i terminate them as son as i see them.

 

[The Afrodactyl]

If it's a moth type thing, I scoop it up and let it go.
If it's a fly, it gets shoo'd away.
If it's a mosquito, it gets crushed in my palm.
If it's a spider, but smaller than:
____
|___|
|___|

I smash it with a shoe.

If it's bigger than that, I throw the shoe at it and run away screaming like a little girl.

 

[The Forces of Chaos]

Wow after reading this thread I?m kind of reminded of that Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episode about him freaking out over cockroaches in his apartment.

As for killing insects sometimes i do sometimes i live and let live. Its far more humane, I think to use a glass and a card with spiders and though it out the door though.

 

[neoontime]

I tend to keep ants and caterpillers alive because I think there actually cute, though I rather not see them with a magnifying glass.

 

[Audio]

I throw wasps out the window..but leave the big flies to starve

 

[Au Naturel.]

I leave them be. Bugs are cool.

 

[Lerxst]

I more or less agree with this. Even more so I actually enjoy presence of bugs. I find most of them, even the most common fascinating. So no, I rarely ever kill bugs. I don't think the killing of a bug is that bad a thing though. For one they can not feel pain of any kind. So any death you give them is totally painless. Also, they do not feel emotion. They are strictly instinct driven animals.

Never having been an insect to my knowledge, I make no claims as to their capacity for pain or emotion.
I do think they can feel fear, or fear's most basic primitive root. Just watch a cricket trying to escape a spider web - that survival instinct, the pressing primal need to escape from a dangerous situation, is something most critters have, humans included. We may feel it more elaborately, but it all stems from the same basic desire to survive.

But that's really beside the point. The fact that it's a living thing is enough for me to treat it with respect and not end that life without some kind of cause.
And, like you said, bugs are fascinating anyway.

Glad to hear you agree...
But getting a little off topic. Humans can tell through the lack of certain nerves in a bugs body that they can not feel pain. Example: "if you gently grab an insect's leg and hold it, it will struggle violently. If you snap the leg off, it stops struggling and calmly limps away. If they felt pain, it would be the exact opposite." Said by an Anonymous Entomologist

Survival Instinct they of course have... The want for food, water, reproduction, and the want to stay not dead. Now to suggest that fear can cause any emotional distress would be incorrect. Which I doubt you is what you were trying to get across... just in case ^^'

I agree, but I disagree at the same time. You cut an earthworm in half, it squirms, coils into a ball and flops around. You cut a plant in half, it just lies there and rots away. Anything with even the slightest brain function has the capacity to feel pain. The further down the insect kingdom you go, the smaller that capacity may be, but it doesn't mean it isn't there.

Even if you still don;t agree with that, you can at least agree that insects have a desire to live and not die even if it's on an instinctual level; it's also one we share with them. The second we start become mindful of these things, it's difficult to rationalize killing anything that desires to live.

Self defense I can understand, but even a scorpion won't kill someone, may make you sick, but not kill you. So exacting revenge on a scorpion is still mindless killing IMO.

So as for the OP - NO, anything and everything in my house lives even Black Widows, Scorpions, bees and those nasty looking beetle things. Number of times I've gotten stung over the years - zero. Guess karma makes some sense after all...