You evidently don't. Hitting a person or an animal is a type of positive reinforcement. It is a positive punishment.

Spanking..a kind of Punishment. Which is a strong form of Negative Reinforcement

An article on the internet doesn't prove someones opinion is wrong ^

Devoidless, did you just take a bite off Tegan190's head?
What about gingerbread cruelty? xD

Except it wasn't put forth as an opinion. It was put forth as a fact disputing what what previously mentioned. Nothing about that post even implied it was an opinion.

It's funny how pang's link supports my statement, not his. It's not even something that's worth discussing. It's just a minor technical correction. People don't know what negative reinforcement means. That's fine.

And Devoidless, opinions can be both wrong and disproved. For instance, someone could hold that macroevolution is false. That is their opinion. It is also wrong. People can and do hold opinions about factual or empirical matters, and in those cases, sometimes their opinions are wrong.

Not all opinions are created equally. Some are better than others. They have varying degrees of value based on the arguments and facts supporting them.

On topic: yes, it is wrong to harm sponges. It is wrong to harm insects. It is wrong to harm plants and fungi as well.

On topic: yes, it is wrong to harm sponges. It is wrong to harm insects. It is wrong to harm plants and fungi as well.

At least you're consistant, so I can respect that. But what could we eat without harming anything? How strong of measures should we take to not harm other things (ex: sweeping in front of where you step)? Does mowing the lawn count as plant abuse?

@ Devoidless and Xzeno
Opinions can only be wrong if they can be proven so. So unless it can be proven. An opinion such as: "Red is stupid" Is entirely based upon the person's own thoughts and/or preference.
Opinions that can be proven are ones such as: "Red is not a gay color." Because it can be seen or proven that gay and red do not have anything to do with each other.
An opinion such as "Red doesn't compliment green well." Is one that can be argued both ways. More or less this could just be wording. But A preference may be that red and green are not appealing together. The proving part is that red and green ARE in fact compliments on the color wheel.

In my opinion, opinions are not always right or wrong. But not always not right or wrong.

It's funny how pang's link supports my statement, not his. It's not even something that's worth discussing. It's just a minor technical correction. People don't know what negative reinforcement means. That's fine.

Just read into it a crap-ton more...I had my terminology mixed up. I could blame my textbooks for having them mixed up as well..but then again I should have backed it up by reading into it more. Thank you

yes, it is wrong to harm sponges. It is wrong to harm insects. It is wrong to harm plants and fungi as well.

...So, I shouldn't walk in grass anymore?

I'll just jump in here randomly to say this.  Nobody has a right to their opinions per se.  They have a right to their informed opinions.  Your beliefs aren't yours; they're about the world.  They should be representative of the closest model of reality you can manage to define.

But belief and opinion are a tad bit different.  While belief can be mostly touted as objective fact if you don't suck at thinking, opinion is strictly subjective.

In regard to this, it's all about terminal and instrumental values.  Say I want to eat some pie.  There are no specialist bakeries nearby and I don't have the patience to bake one myself right now, so I must deign to visit the supermarket to buy one of theirs.  In a simplified decision map, I'll just say this as:

Step 1: Get to store.
Step 2: Buy pie.
Step 3: Eat pie.
Bob's your uncle.

But again, this is incredibly simplistic.  For example, how did I get to the store?  Did I take my car, did I take my bike, did I inflate the tires on my old bicycle and pedal that over?  To any of those, I'll need to accomplish still more steps, the first of which is getting off my lazy bum.  But say I took my car.  What if, instead of opening the car door like a normal person, I took the thing off with a jackhammer?  Well, the utility of that bloody well negative!  Negative enough to make the trip to the store for my pie worthwhile?  I may **** well want a pie, but I'm going to say probably not.  Almost surely not.

Well, how about eating?  The steps in that?  Getting food and eating it, with the getting portion detailing the methods in which it's procured, prepared, and delivered, because I'm lazy and don't feel like enumerating more steps.  Anyway...  Yeah.  Method of procurement.  You're obviously going to hurt some animals, no matter what you do.  Even if you have a little garden in your yard, whatever would have eaten those tomatoes is being screwed over because you're eating them instead.  The question is whether you value your satisfaction above theirs.  The answer is likely going to be an unequivocal yes, the exception of which would be PETA-sponsored animal terrorists, or something.

But that doesn't mean that it's not wrong to deny others existence and sustenance so that you can fulfill both of those yourself.  It's bad to hurt things.  Always bad.  It's really a simple concept.  It's one you could be told about by a five-year-old.  All that matters is whether you value whatever your terminal value is more than the sum of the instrumental ones.  Do I want to live?  Well, yes.  I want to live more than I want the things feeding me to live, and if you're reading this, you probably do, too.  I do wish they wouldn't have to die, though.  But meh.

I only blabbed about food because that's the only gray area within the sphere of discourse I can imagine at the moment.  Everyone knows that if you abuse a creature for no reason other than your own sadistic whims, you're so ****ed in the head your frontal lobe must resemble a knob-end, and you probably shouldn't play any Pokémon games.  That and how draft animals are only being abused if they're explicitly being abused.