One thing I've never been able to understand is why people seem so casual about killing insects. It's a common practice to kill them simply because they entered a house, irrelevant of whether or not the insect's presence in that house is a good thing or not.
Common arguments I hear generally target wasps and flies, and are generally along the lines of "They might sting me if they stay in the house", or "They are unhygienic to have in the house, so I have to get rid of them."
Now, I can understand both of these. What I cant understand is why that means they should be killed. It's possible to capture either of them and take them outside with a glass and a sheet of paper. So why do people not do this? The only possible excuse I can see for wasps is that someone in the house is allergic to wasp stings, so catching it may be risky as it may agitate the wasp. Anything else is just laziness.
But the bizarre thing is, flies and wasps don't take nearly as much hatred as spiders. And this is something that really baffles me. Most spiders are hardly a threat. There are those that are, and I can understand having to kill them, but somehow people seem to group spiders that are perfectly harmless to humans in with the dangerous ones. This is an equivalent to shooting domestic cats because they are in the same family as lions.
Nearly all the arguments I hear are weak, and yet it continues, leading me to think that people regard insects as worthless life forms. Why do people regard them as such? Why is killing them with so little provocation considered so normal?
Discuss.
[small]Note: I just know that this thread is going to attract people who like to post enlarged images of insects and claim that as their argument. Although I don't want this to happen, it is pretty much inevitable, so please at least use spoiler tags if you do.[/small]
EDIT: Just to make it clear, I'm not against killing them, I'm against killing them purely out of laziness or cruelty.
Common arguments I hear generally target wasps and flies, and are generally along the lines of "They might sting me if they stay in the house", or "They are unhygienic to have in the house, so I have to get rid of them."
Now, I can understand both of these. What I cant understand is why that means they should be killed. It's possible to capture either of them and take them outside with a glass and a sheet of paper. So why do people not do this? The only possible excuse I can see for wasps is that someone in the house is allergic to wasp stings, so catching it may be risky as it may agitate the wasp. Anything else is just laziness.
But the bizarre thing is, flies and wasps don't take nearly as much hatred as spiders. And this is something that really baffles me. Most spiders are hardly a threat. There are those that are, and I can understand having to kill them, but somehow people seem to group spiders that are perfectly harmless to humans in with the dangerous ones. This is an equivalent to shooting domestic cats because they are in the same family as lions.
Nearly all the arguments I hear are weak, and yet it continues, leading me to think that people regard insects as worthless life forms. Why do people regard them as such? Why is killing them with so little provocation considered so normal?
Discuss.
[small]Note: I just know that this thread is going to attract people who like to post enlarged images of insects and claim that as their argument. Although I don't want this to happen, it is pretty much inevitable, so please at least use spoiler tags if you do.[/small]
EDIT: Just to make it clear, I'm not against killing them, I'm against killing them purely out of laziness or cruelty.
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