Ants

I generally leave other creatures alone, unless they encroach.

Long ago, i learned that if you control your “fear pheromone,” then flying-stinging things will usually leave you alone. The trick is to just not fear it. This is understandably more difficult for those allergic.

As for ants… i’ve never been one to take the glass to them. I surely did so a couple times as a child, but it always caused me to feel something like: “wow, that’s horrible, i shouldn’t do this.” But if i find them in the house, in my food or on my person, they’re toast. Those are problems i have the capacity to solve, and “it’s just an ant.” There are a quadrillion of them, anyway. If there was a non-fatal way of solving the problem of them encroaching on me and my stuff, that did not cause or risk multiple ants biting me in unison, i’d probably try to use that when possible.

It’s not about which thing has a more valuable or “better” life. It’s about we’re all creatures, and sometimes we have to kill other creatures, in order to stop them from hurting us, or causing us problems.

I would treat a human exactly the same as the ants: intrude my residence and try to harm me, i’ll probably kill you. And if you bring friends, i’ll take as many of you with me as i can, whether ant, or man. The difference, i suppose, is that ants don’t understand reason, and so you can’t explain to them that they should not come in your house or infiltrate your food, or make fortress-mounds in your yard, and that they don’t have to bite you, or what will happen if they do.

Maybe if those ants would “grow up” and make an effort to not be so stupid, we wouldn’t have to kill them so often? 😉

But when it comes right down to it, he who can dominate others, wins, and is therefore “better” than them… whether he is honorable or respectable… he has won. When it comes to survival, winning is all that matters… honor and respect are just constructs. Honor and respect are only relevant once long-term survival has been established. In that scenario, i find them worthy and valuable… but when survival is in question, one must prepare to forgo such luxuries, for the sake of winning.

As i am, i don’t think i should ‘fear’ being reincarnated as an ant. Everything that lives, dies.

With my current understanding of existence, “if i was an ant,” i would expect life to be short and difficult, but hey, those things can lift like 50x their weight, so that’s pretty cool, i guess.

As far as the human spectrum of malice toward ants goes: i’m certainly on the “has not been excessively unkind to ants” side.

I think it’s kinda silly to think that humans are “rather low on the scale.” We are clearly one of the most dominant creatures on the planet. We might not technically be the pinnacle, but we’re certainly “near the top,” all things considered.

That’s not to say that humans have more of a right to live than anything else… but the reality is that not all earthly life forms are “compatible,” not all of them can peacefully coexist. And so there are clashes and conflicts, and the “better” animal usually wins, even if he has to use ‘dishonorable’ tactics or tools or weapons only he can wield, to win. That’s just life. If you have an advantage, it would be absurd for a lesser-advantaged or disadvantaged creature, to expect or demand you not use it, while said other creature is in the midst of attempting to impose his own will upon you, and make you dead.

If i have a gun and a much “better” man aggressively approaches, intending to dominate me, you’re damn right i’m going to pull the trigger. I don’t care if he’s “better.” I care about winning, even if observers might think it’s “unfair” to shoot someone who only has a knife. I’m just protecting myself from harm that will be imposed upon me, if i don’t act to prevent it. Same with ants. And because i’m so much larger and more powerful than they are, it’s so easy to destroy them, that most of us don’t even think twice about it.

But yeah. I don’t agree with killing just for sport… though i certainly agree with venison steak/jerky/sausage being delicious.

Sidenote: if we didn’t kill them (eating or not), there would quite a lot more accidents on the roadways in certain areas, as they tend to just leap out in front of vehicles at highway speeds.

Humans shape the world to their whim. That’s the key to making the case that we are, indeed, the “top.” We don’t just go along with the way things are, we make things the ways we want them to be, or die trying. That’s the big difference. Although, i suppose you could say ants do this too, as they build mounds where they please, and attempt to overwhelm their obstacles. It’s just that we can kill them, far more easily and rapidly than they can kill us, and so, when there is a conflict, we almost always prevail.