I sit at a desk, studying for a class I never wanted to take. I am concentrating on deciphering yet another passage when it happens again. I hear a fly buzz past my ear. This fly has been harrying me all evening. Be it by buzzing startlingly, landing on me, or landing on my food. I swat at the fly, curse it, and continue my work. Soon, it begins to buzz again. This time, it buzzes right up to the desk and lands. It begins to rub its front legs together the way flies do. I raise my book to put it out of my misery. But then I pause.
Should I kill this fly? Its only crime has been to mildly inconvenience me. Who am I to hand out such a punishment for such a crime? It never even tried to annoy me; its very nature is what bugs me. Can I kill a creature because it unintentionally annoys me? Is its relative insignificance justification enough for this act? Should I kill a mouse for the same offense? What about a cat? A dog? A man?
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During my moment of hesitation and contemplation, the fly buzzed off, never to bother me again. Maybe it got the message.
Anyways, wow. Is a fly worth killing even if it borthers you? I kill bugs because I don't like them in my house. I dunno what to think. Is a fly worth letting live? Or a brainless(not literally) insect?
Can I kill a creature because it unintentionally annoys me?
Well, Hannibal Lecter has something to say about this :P
More seriously, I think of insecticide in terms of ecological balances. Bugs that get killed because they are either a) eaten b) poisoned c) crushed can be callously (but specifically) thought of as collateral runoff. I would justify such a viewpoint by saying that this is a feature of their ecological niche.
Whereas the features of other species, including humanity's ecological niche is somewhat different, hence debates on the ethics of vegetarianism or even murder etc. have their own relevance to their own distinct arenas.
I don't think the answers to those questions were the point, Bikasp, but rather the ethics behind them.
No, I don't think being annoyed with a fly is a good enough excuse to kill it. However, flies do more than being just annoying... If there's enough of them, they'll cover your room in little black spots of their poop. And that's just one thing.
I still leave most fly killing to the spiders, though. They gain more from it than I do.
Hm, zophia's premise can be summed up as a defence against those who pose a risk. In the case of flies, it's pathogenic spread.
The problem then lies in the fact that competition and threats are part-and-parcel of our very cohabitation. In the case of humans, however, we establish social contracts that seek to minimise this threat, though given unlimited interest in limited resources, breach is inevitable.
That's slightly over-simplistic but should do at this stage.
I agree with your first post Strop. I mean, people kill flys all the time and they aren't even begining to be endangered. So it must be important to keeping everything in order.
Well, Hannibal Lecter has something to say about this :P
Hahaha, I lol'd
But I must agree with your first post. I mean, thousands and thousands of flys are killed every day by spiders and animals and humans every day so how would it effect anyone. And if we didn't do this well, they might overrun human population, then they would be really annoying. And we have to keep everything in the our ecosystem in balence and killing flies is one of those things.
And we have to keep everything in the our ecosystem in balence and killing flies is one of those things.
This doesn't hold much ground because humans are the biggest danger to our ecosystem.
I have to say that just one fly isn't important enough to worry about. So sure, swatting a fly is okay in my book. A mouse, same to that. I agree with Bikasp on saying that cats and dogs are smarter. With that being said, should idiotic humans be punished? I know there have to be some people more stupid than animals.
I've thought about this before, and the answer is no, you shouldn't kill it.
But is it acceptable to kill it in our society? Yes.
Humanity for thousands of years has considered itself better than everything else, just because we got lucky and became the dominant species. So because of that we're not going to think about the little things like flies.
When you kill a cockroach or a rat is almost self-defense
That is not self defense. More like the cockroach or rat is an inconvenience to you, so you kill it. Now if a rat had a disease of some sort and was going to bite you, then yes, it is okay to kill it. Or if the cockroach was waging nuclear war XP
