Why are insects and other small creatures the subject of so much hatred?

[Azraellod]

You don't understand. I like insects, I even think they are really cute, but I live in Australia where an insect with a body of less than 1cm thickness can kill a human in under an hour.

I don't consider them 'worthless lifeforms'. I consider them formidable combatants.

Actually, I do understand. This is something I agree with. You actually have a valid reason for killing them, as they can realistically be a threat to you. What gets to me is the people that kill them simply because it's quicker then taking them outside.

 

[The Heik]

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]

Generally speaking, I rarely kill insects. I even welcome ones that are beneficial or beautiful, like a ladybug or a spider(I know it's an arachnid). The only ones I kill are the ones that pose a significant danger to me even if I left them alone ie. mosquitoes. In cases where they're (wasps, bees, etc.) just defending itself I put them outside away from the house so as to protect both of us.

In case of other small animals: I have a cat, and a big one at that. They either leave or get eaten, so it's a non-issue.

 

[Azraellod]

-snip-

I'm glad you added in that disclaimer, even if you removed it shortly afterwards.

Anyway, that's not exactly a very strong reason for killing them rather then releasing them. How difficult can it be to trap a spider in a glass, slide some paper under it so it cant escape, and then put it outside? Even if you kill it by accident while you're doing that, at least you tried.

Also, killing something and then saying that the species as a whole wont take much of an impact doesn't seem like a very good defense to me.

Spiders are not insects.

Sorry, did I say they were? Where was that?

I did try to make the title in such a way as to indicate that I knew they weren't.

 

[niglett]

1- not everyone knows what spiders are dangerous. its just safer to group all of them as dangerous and not take chances.

2- i kill most all bugs to keep them from eating my plants. that's where my food comes from.

3- if no one killed insects they would over populate and become uncontrollable.

4- have you ever had a ant problem or even a termite problem. that's not safe or sanitary.

5- it can be fun! go out side with a magnifying glass and burn a few. its sadistic but fun!

6- i are superior there for it must die!

7- that's how many i killed writing this post.

 

[HeySeansOnline]

Azraellod, I am an insectiphobe, I hate the buggers, no pun intended. They have freaked me out since that one day when a gang of six snails almost stole my stuffed dragon and I had to launch a rescue assault. I think ever since then I've hated and feared them.

Now to jump to your one point that struck me, the whole, tak ethem out peacefully, no. There are thousands of them, ok maybe hundreds, one peacefull take away and the bug will either be 1) Eaten by a bigger animal. 2) Come back to the free food place. or 3) He's a scout and will now have the colony on our butts.

Now to the flies, wasps, and spiders, I get it, some are not a threat, and I do kill them, probably out of my fear, but If I were sane It would make sense to oh say keep the spiders, AND GO MASS GENOCIDE ON EVERYTHING ELSE. No bug I can think of off the top of my head is useful to us besides the common house spider. Mostly they risk death by pet and human for the food sources we leave, open dog food bags, crumbs, skin flakes, etc.

Yet your points are valid, and maybe I'll pull back my shoe next spider I see.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

I kill them because I hate bugs with a passion.

 

[Raven's Nest]

I don't really have a personal problem with bugs. I'd rather they didn't crawl on me but I certainly won't kill it for having the quads to enter my house (or the tenacity to return).

I am however, horrendously allergic to wasp/bee/hornet stings so I tend to run the hell away from them rather than actually attacking them...

I can understand why people do not place value on the life on the common housefly... They literally serve no purpose other than to feed other animals, lay eggs and spread disease... And they have a 24 hour life expectancy to boot...

Spiders are awesome though. They kill less desirable and even house damaging bugs. No insect is particularly dangerous to humans here in the UK so we don't really have an excuse to kill domestic insects here. I do feel sorry for the Aussies with their rather frightening variety of poisonous snakes, spiders, insects and lizards. Black widows and funnel-webs must suck to have around... But you get Koala bears and other cute marsupielles to make up for it!

There are soldier ants in South America that literally force people out of their homes for a day or two as they march through. Fortunately this is beneficial to the home owners as they will completely an utterly destroy any other living thing in their path, which includes nuisance bugs. However, if the people did not leave they could actually suffer a very horrible death... Not quite the Indy 4 dragging them under the ground death, but death nonetheless...

 

[niglett]

i kill them because they burnt our crops pillaged our village raped our women and poisoned our wells.

 

[HeySeansOnline]

One thing I've never been able to understand is why people seem so casual about killing insects.

You don't understand. I like insects, I even think they are really cute, but I live in Australia where an insect with a body of less than 1cm thickness can kill a human in under an hour.

I don't consider them 'worthless lifeforms'. I consider them formidable combatants.

Oh yeah, you guys have bulldog ants, right?

 

[DkLnBr]

the only insects I kill in my house are ants, because if they go back to the hive/nest/colony then more ants will come into my house because they know the ways in and that there is food. But otherwise I agree, killing those poor little bugs is just stupid. Unless they're Mosquitoes... you dont need a reason to kill mosquitoes =D

 

[monkey_man]

To keep up the flow FUCK WASPS

i'll explain :
they traumatised me in a rollercoaster
it was the first time i was allowed in the biggest rollercoater of a nearby Sixflags (now walaby world or something)and i was around 7 or 8.
a wasp stung me, in my neck, at the start of the ride.
(that wasn't too bad, it just wasn't pleasant)
but i found the SAME wasp 60 minutes later IN MY SHIRT!
it scared the hell out of me (knowing it crawled there for that long)
now they terrify me, along with all of them flying small ugly F*ckers
so they die, i don't care about "putting them outside" i make them suffer if they enter my room/house because one of them made me suffer.

i kill them because they burnt our crops pillaged our village raped our women and poisoned our wells.

they do? *freaks out**mumbles* they can't find me here, they can't find me here, they can't find me here, they can't find me here*mumbles*
another reason to hate them

 

[Cosplay Horatio]

I'm the one that kills the bugs in the family. Everyone else is scared of them and calls on me to get rid of the pests.

 

[iPhenoix]

I love having spiders, they eat other bugs. Unless I know its a dangerous spider, I usually leave 'em alone. As for other bugs I kill them because I don't really care enough about a bug to bother taking each and every one outside. If you consider the large population of all the bugs, killing a few in laziness isn't really that bad.

 

[Greeboz]

I get Wolf Spiders the size of my fist in my bathroom daily during Spring. I know they won't attack me but I've had a deep hatred of spiders ever since I was bitten by a Black Widow when I was young. Put me out of(watching) the superbowl. Hated all of them ever since. As for the rest the bugs, I like the crunch. I'm human, I like violence, money, and being at the top of the food chain.

 

[Thisbedutch]

Look at a spider and tell me there's anything right with it. Do iiiiit.

But seriously, I tend to pick insects up and put them outside. Except for the 8-legged bad boys, I don't care how they're dealt with so long as they're gone when I come back.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

To keep up the flow FUCK WASPS

i'll explain :
they traumatised me in a rollercoaster
it was the first time i was allowed in the biggest rollercoater of a nearby Sixflags (now walaby world or something)and i was around 7 or 8.
a wasp stung me, in my neck, at the start of the ride.
(that wasn't too bad, it just wasn't pleasant)
but i found the SAME wasp 60 minutes later IN MY SHIRT!
it scared the hell out of me (knowing it crawled there for that long)
now they terrify me, along with all of them flying small ugly F*ckers
so they die, i don't care about "putting them outside" i make them suffer if they enter my room/house because one of them made me suffer.

i kill them because they burnt our crops pillaged our village raped our women and poisoned our wells.

they do? *freaks out**mumbles* they can't find me here, they can't find me here, they can't find me here, they can't find me here*mumbles*
another reason to hate them

I was mountain biking and found myself on top of a wasps nest that my brother had disturbed on his way past. At least 30 stings, and a 20 foot drop into a river(which turned out to be about 4 inches deep)later, I don't react well when a wasp is near me. Being in the woods, I had to walk myself a half mile out to where the paramedics could find me...sucked. Similiarly to your story, one flew out when I was taking my clothes off at the hospital too...I freaked.

 

[Azraellod]

Spoiler: -snip-

1- not everyone knows what spiders are dangerous. its just safer to group all of them as dangerous and not take chances.

2- i kill most all bugs to keep them from eating my plants. that's where my food comes from.

3- if no one killed insects they would over populate and become uncontrollable.

4- have you ever had a ant problem or even a termite problem. that's not safe or sanitary.

5- it can be fun! go out side with a magnifying glass and burn a few. its sadistic but fun!

6- i are superior there for it must die!

7- that's how many i killed writing this post.

Just to clarify, I'm against killing them out of laziness or cruelty. If there's an actual point to killing them aside from those, then I'm generally ok with it.

Assuming (6) and (7) are jokes, the only one out of those I really disagree with is (5). (1) bothers me, but I can see how it might be necessary.

-snip-

I do understand if you have a phobia of them. I have a phobia of my own, so I know what it feels like. I still disagree with just killing them, but I can understand. (Unless that phobia was a joke. The story seems to say it might be, but I'm not sure how much of that you were serious about.)

Although whether or not they came back would probably depend on what sort of lifestyle they led. A spider doesn't seem likely to come back to me as it just eats other insects. Wasps and flies might I guess, but I don't think that's ever happened to any of the ones I released. The flies always seemed to be trying to leave anyway, and I never notice wasps returning when I release them. In fact, unless I'm forgetting something, the only things I can really think of that's likely to come back in greater numbers are ants.

And hey, if the creatures I release get eaten, at least there was a real point to the death.