[throwanem]

Somebody so often feels the need to say something like this and I've never understood why. What do you feel it adds to this conversation, or any? This world isn't ugly enough for you already, that you feel it will be improved by the thought of even more unthinking slaughter? Is there just not enough human cruelty in an ordinary day for your taste?

I don't know why I bother asking these questions. The next meaningful attempt I see to answer them will be the first, but who knows, maybe you'll pleasantly surprise me. I won't lie, I could use that a lot these days.

[93po]

In the context of animal rights, and providing evidence of wasps being sentient as support for the rights of wasps, I am making the point that wasps are a massive net negative when existing in my immediate vicinity. We all accept the death of insects throughout the course of merely existing - we accidentally step on them, they hit our windshields, etc. I consider it a right to exist in and around my home without being painfully attacked by the fauna, and if that means I kill a hundred wasps in the 200 square feet of my yard then I accept that as the cost to insects for me to live a life unencumbered by painful attacks.

For context, I am vegetarian (no dairy but I eat pasture raised eggs) because I believe in treating animals that have a "life experience" compassionately and reducing my impact to them as much as reasonably possible. But there are limits to what I want to give mental effort to in my life because if I spent an hour a day thinking about this it would be a net negative to the world in the other ways I could be productively spending that time. And I am not convinced wasps have deep enough of a "life experience" that I am depriving them of anything meaningfully when I kill them.

I go out of my way to not kill insects whenever it's not horribly inconvenient. I always let them outside instead of killing them in the home. I'll avoid stepping on ones outside if I see them. I have saved honey bees a few times when I see them immobile and give them a drop of water so they can recover and fly off. I'm not mindlessly cruel to animals or the environment.

[dTal]

It's a defense mechanism, to deal with cognitive dissonance. People hate wasps, they're comfortable being allowed to hate wasps by society, they don't want to be told they suddenly need to have compassion for an outgroup, and so they double down.

For the same reason, a common response of non-vegans to meeting a vegan is a sudden compulsion to list all the "reasons" why that would be impossible for them - "Oh I could never be vegan because I like $FOOD too much / I require $NUTRIENT / I am biologically incompatible for $REASON." These excuses invariably collapse under the mildest scrutiny, but applying that scrutiny causes an emotional response and therein reveals the real reason - the mere presence of a vegan causes cognitive dissonance. To avoid feeling like a bad person, they must double down.

[93po]

I have compassion for wasps as living beings. I also have compassion for myself and not wanting to be painfully stung and that I have a right to defend myself from wasp stings. I am not going to try to eradicate any wasps that don't pose any threat to me both because I recognize they're important to ecosystems but also being they're living beings. As another example, I do not hurt honey bees despite the (much lower) risk they pose to me. If I have a hive attached to my house that I am likely to disturb and cause me injury as a result, I will pay to have them relocated, but not kill them.

The difference with wasps is that their threshold for attacking me is basically me standing still and doing nothing. I have a right to defend myself from wasps and the virtual guarantee they will at one point attack me if I left them live right outside my front door. I will not pay to relocate wasp nests because killing them is an act of self defense, whereas with honey bees it's an act of convenience that I don't want them around.

[throwanem]

In this statement:

> The difference with wasps is that their threshold for attacking me is basically me standing still and doing nothing.

you give yourself the lie in this statement:

> I have compassion for wasps as living beings.

Late last fall I relocated a wasp nest, myself, by hand and with no more protective gear than a pair of thin gloves, into my kitchen, where I looked after them over the course of about a week until the unseasonable early chill broke and we had a day warm enough for them to disperse and find hibernation sites.

This spring, four foundresses began nests on my house, three on the front porch and one on the power junction box around back. One of them was quite literally right outside my front door, directly above the porch light. That nest isn't there any longer, I think because of sparrows, but while it was here I walked past it most often while its foundress was present and looking me square in the face, most days at least twice: once going out to sit on the porch and read, and again going back inside.

I regret that the birds turned out cleverer, if no less vicious, than I gave them credit for; her first daughters were nearly grown, and I was looking very much forward to meeting them. This winter I mean to mount purpose-designed nest boxes with anti-pigeon spikes and whatever other such structural defenses I can devise, in hopes that next spring's foundresses will find in them a safer place to make a home where I'll again have the chance to enjoy their company.

Last year, too, I photographed a European hornet half drunk on rotting fig, with flash, from a distance of about twelve inches. I do that sort of thing as often as I can find the chance, usually from about that close if not closer.

The year before that, I climbed into the middle of the same fig tree hunting bindweed before I noticed the hundred or so bald-faced yellowjackets feasting on rotting fruit, and getting likewise intoxicated. Earlier in the year, again before realizing they were there, I had my head within a foot of a nest that bald-faced yellowjackets had built under the eave of my side porch.

The last time a wasp stung me was around 2010. My fault; she'd been blown in the car window and landed in my lap, and I put my hand on her without having realized she was there. Since then, despite taking so close an interest in their lives as I've just been at pains to describe, no wasp has yet stung me for it. No wasp has yet even tried.

I'm not really trying to change your mind here, because I am familiar enough with rationalizations such as yours to know how well that never works. But if nothing else, I suppose at least you'll never again be able to say you haven't been told.

[93po]

Is it possible to have compassion and also act against that compassion. I don't like killing wasps. It gives me no pleasure. It is great that you've had the experience of not being frequently stung by them. I also have compassion for mosquitos but I'm still going to wear inspect repellent that sometimes kills them and drive my car that causes them to splatter against my windshield.

[throwanem]

The comparison doesn't hold. Mosquitos do actually seek out and parasitize humans, and often transmit infectious diseases of serious import. Neither is true of wasps - they don't even pose the same risk of incidental contamination that many flies do, nor do they offer humans violence without significant provocation. That humans rarely bother to take the trivial effort required to understand wasps well enough to avoid offering provocation, I grant, of course. But such disregard is no less culpable for being ordinary.

[93po]

Just wanted to say thanks for engaging. I will give this more thought.

[buggyipadmettoo]

I appreciated it.