[adriand]

I forget who said this or exactly what they said, but someone has pointed out that the more research humans conduct the more we find that animals and even plants are more complex, more intelligent and more sophisticated than we thought. It is worth keeping this in mind the next time someone tells you a small creature (perhaps a crustacean) cannot feel or think or do something that would mean we ought to be less cruel towards them.

[ChatGTP]

In my opinion, many ancient cultures have known this for a long time. Of course the universe eats itself, everything seems to eat everything, that's natural, but having respect for this process is what I think we've lost.

Driving a car through a bunch of mating insects? Who cares right?

[koolba]

> Driving a car through a bunch of mating insects? Who cares right?

That problem has been solved but not necessarily in a good way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon

[hyperthesis]

You can argue for animal intelligence but they can't argue for yours.

Humans are also found to be more complex/intelligent/sophisticated than was thought, given AI goalpost moving.

[hyperthesis]

Sorry, too harsh, I should have said: "We can argue for animal intelligence but they can't argue for ours.

[jjackson5324]

That's great, but if I ever see a jumping spider in my house then I will not hesitate to murder it in cold blood.

[TaylorAlexander]

I think you are trying to come off as like, cute or funny or ironic or something. But I think this attitude is impoverished. Unless you live in a place that has spiders which are particularly dangerous to humans or pets, most spiders are just another little bug that has no interest in harming you.

Over the last ten years I went from smashing every bug I saw in my house to taking a moment to carefully scoop it up with paper or a cup and then take it outside. Most bugs (at least in my area) are safe to handle. Instead of seeing them as a threat to be destroyed, I recognize that they are innocent creatures that have no desire to mess with me, and I can serve as a steward to move them somewhere more acceptable.

There are some exceptions - pest creatures which nest in your walls or go after your food which must be exterminated to ensure a safe living environment for your home - but most often I just find little bugs trying to do their own thing, and I take a moment to provide them a little care so we don't get in each other's way.

I think this mindset helps me be more respectful of all living creatures, rather than presuming I have the right to kill those which I dislike.

[4ggr0]

I'm with you, except for Pantry Moths. After having to throw away basically my whole food storage, every Pantry Moth is now killed on sight, no exception, no mercy. I think they gave me a mild form of PTSD (half joking).

But yeah, other bugs get carried away. And I also don't touch cobwebs. I'm actually really scared of spiders, but I know that they'll not hurt me and provide kind of a service, so I'm fine if they hang around.

Wasps are another exception. Immediate kill, no patience for these fuckers. Bees are fine, of course, way less aggressive. I know that wasps are useful as well, but I don't feel like handling them when they decide to visit my apartment.

[gingerrr]

That's so sad. I'm pretty militantly anti-spider but jumping spiders, despite seeming like they were sent from hell to terrify us, are just little furry big-eyed arthro-bros

[sergiomattei]

They even kill insects for us

[ikekkdcjkfke]

They eat the other creatures that only come out at night.. Which do you prefer?

[MacsHeadroom]

When I learned that they compete for territory with centipedes I decided to stop killing them. I'd much rather share my home with a tiny 8-legged cat than with a venomous centipede.

[Apocryphon]

Then why do our genetic memories compel us to be terrified of them

[TaylorAlexander]

How do you know it's genetic memory and not simply popular attitudes from childhood? I know when I was a kid people generally viewed spiders as a threat and so I adopted this attitude. It was only as an adult that I learned this is basically folklore and in my area not based on fact. But I don't think that's genetic, I think it is cultural. I would be curious to see what anthropologists have discovered about this.

[elevaet]

I think you're conflating your own phobia up with something more fundamental.

I've certainly never found them even a little bit frightening. I've definitely felt like "someone's home" but it's probably the big eyes bias.

[Apocryphon]

I would not characterize it as phobia, so much as I find them disgusting for some reason, dirty and unclean.

[elevaet]

It's just your conditioning. If you look at it from another angle you can see that they are actually harmless and clean. And even playful amd cute if you goof around with them a bit.

[Fezzik]

Even if we are predisposed to be fearful of spiders, so what? Not all spiders are the same, and jumping spiders are certainly 100% harmless to humans of all sizes. Why not work on promoting that experience and rationality override any (often mistaken) primal urges that we have?

[Apocryphon]

Why did we gain those instincts in the first place. What is nature trying to warn us

[epgui]

Should we also kill all the other human-tribes then?

I can’t believe how frequently I have to say this to people: instinct is far from reason.

[oh_sigh]

If you don't know anything about any wild berries, beyond some are poisonous, it might be a safe bet to never eat any of them.

If you know something about berries, like this species is definitely poisonous, and this species is definitely safe, and this species you don't know anything about, then it is perfectly safe to avoid the first and third and indulge in the second.

[gigglesupstairs]

May be because of their unpredictability owing to their jumpiness? That seems very reasonable since humans do instinctually stay away from unpredictable organisms/animals in nature. That unpredictability doesn’t always have to correlate with the real dangerousness of those creatures.

[marshray]

That they bite, a very few of them are significantly venomous, and no matter how easy their webs are to find, they don't make good snacks.

[uoaei]

Jumping spiders trigger significantly less of that response than other types of spiders. Are you sure you know what a jumping spider looks like?

[andrewflnr]

You say "compel" like you have no choice. Our instincts push us to do all kinds of irrational things. Try not to do them.

[Apocryphon]

I felt a compulsion to respond snarkily to this comment, but I believe I've pretty successfully avoided doing so

[bglazer]

When you show images of a spider to a six month old baby their pupils expand, which is apparently a pretty reliable physiological indicator of fear.

https://www.cbs.mpg.de/Fear-of-spiders-and-snakes-is-deeply-...

[dleeftink]

Exposure therapy can help squashing irrational fears, which is what I would suggest in the case of small creatures triggering a fear response.

[4ggr0]

I'm unbelievably scared of syringes and especially giving blood samples. To the point where I get hot and feel sick when people around me talk about it.

Don't even want to imagine what exposure therapy would be like for this :D

[dleeftink]

Completely understandable. But just know it can be overcome, albeit gradually. You'll start small and decide the pace your comfortable with.

As an aside, at a younger age I shared your aversion to syringes. It wasn't the adminstering per se, but the perceived lack of control. What helped me was realising that 23 hours, 59 minutes and 55 seconds out of the day, I am in control -- those 5 seconds of needling (if that) pale in comparison.

Each time became easier after that. I hope you are able to overcome your aversion.

[4ggr0]

EDIT: I think blood sample is the wrong term, what I mean is blood count/work, where they take quite a bit of blood out of your arm. Not the small tests where they prick a finger.

> I hope you are able to overcome your aversion

Yeah, I hope so too. Thanks for the empathy. I've actually overcome my fear of vaccines. I can't sleep that well the night before and I'm still sweaty and stressed, but I know that it will just hurt a tiny little bit.

Giving blood samples is actually the big issue. I've had two of those as a kid, both times I became unconscious and once I had to throw up. Also had general anesthesia three times as a kid, I guess these five times where a needle had to go into my arm just traumatised me in some way. I hate the pain it gives me and the whole experience just really stresses my out. I'm actually getting sweaty palms right now, just because I'm writing/thinking about it :D

I recently went to the doctor because I started getting migraines. Doctor recommended me going to a Neurologist and mentioned that they would probably have to take blood samples, which was the reason that I refused. I just couldn't handle the thought of having to do it again.

The last blood sample I had to do was as a young teenager, like 10 years ago. I know that you should frequently test your blood to spot deficiencies, but I'm simply too scared...a bit embarassing to be honest. I've actually considered asking them to just give me nitrous oxide so that they can do it while I'm unconscious :D But I think nitrous oxide is an american thing, never heard of someone getting it where I live.

Anyways, no real sense to what I wrote, I just felt like documenting my thoughts about this situation. Actually feel quite queasy now. Time for some fresh air.

[dleeftink]

Again, I completely understand. Something is taken from you, and the whole song and dance leading up to it can amplify the negative associations.

You have agency in this situation and should inform and communicate your anxieties to any attending nurse or physician, possibly in advance. There are guidelines and support protocols in place exactly because of the strangeness some medical procedures invoke.

At the same time, their (slight) discomfort is the 'price to pay' for a mind at ease. My advice: try and rationalise it to a fault. I'd wager millions have blood works taken each day, and are only better for it. You will be among them.

Dare I say, I've even learned to be intrigued by those little vials whenever I have my blood works done -- so much information can be gathered from so little. A life in need can be a beneficiary from less than a minute of your time.

Don't let the imprints of your childhood define you. There is much else to gain.

[I_am_tiberius]

That's horrible. When I see a spider, I let it crawl on a piece of paper and move it outside.

[andrewflnr]

And they don't go rappelling off the side? I always use a plastic container for spider relocation, so I only have to catch them once.

[Fezzik]

I take the opposite approach - any spider I see inside, even Black Widows, I carry outside in a cup. At least they then have a chance. And Widows will do their level best to nest somewhere far out-of-site and never bother you. I also encourage my neighbors to not sterilize around their houses with industrial bug spray because spiders and bugs are 99,999/100,000, nothing but beneficial.

[RespectYourself]

Same. It can get tiresome in CA though! I'll take widows over recluses any day.

On the one occasion where I found an infestation too extensive to relocate (under almost every one of my outdoor chairs), I tried bug spray. Horrible. Thanks to CA's hysterical bans on everything, the spray is ineffective and merely tortures the spiders and often leaves them alive but maimed. I felt terrible. Never again.

[Apocryphon]

Why resort to bug spray when citrus and other scents will repel them naturally?

[RespectYourself]

It was too late to repel them. The chairs were rife with brown-widow nests.

Anyway, now I just blast these areas with a hose from time to time. Individual spiders I will relocate if they're in an area where people are likely to sit.

There's a tiny baby spider roosting in my oven hood right now. The two last evenings he has descended on a web to look around. I considered putting him outside, but it's too cold so I just let him return to his hiding place.

[secretsatan]

I learnt to control my phobia over time, luckily I live somewhere where there's nothing dangerous or large, so I can leave them be.

I used to have a particular fear of jumping spiders, I blame the film "Arachnaphobia", I don't know why I agreed to see it, I was petrified the whole way through. I can handle it now, I made a point of trying more media that had spiders in them, from b movies to documentaries to photos.

But I don't think I could handle any of the bigger ones in the wild still, like tarantulas, or the absolutely massive Orb spider I saw in Africa once, ugh..

[refulgentis]

They're not what you think, they're less than 1 mm lol

[eredengrin]

Not sure what you're on about. The article itself states they're typically 1mm to 2.3cm in length, and most of them that I've ever seen are closer to the 2cm than 1mm. Probably helps that just about anything 1mm in size looks about the same from a normal viewing distance, so there's reason to believe most people would have seen more from the bigger end of the spectrum.

Regardless of the size I quite like them, many are quite pretty and fascinating to watch.

[jjackson5324]

I know exactly what they are and I stand by my statement.

[timeon]

Why?