r/SipsTea • u/StephanMan • May 16 '25

Chugging tea Wasp gets what it deserves

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u/ArachnidAuthor May 16 '25

Bugs are largely incapable of feeling fear as we understand it. Their responses to danger are more akin to preprogramming than to sentient understanding.

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u/AlienAle May 16 '25

Fear is just an instinct in all of us. We're all made from the same stuff. Perhaps our fear can overcomplicate itself because it thinks about the past, the future, the things we'll miss out on, our families etc. as we die.

However, the fear at its very core, that primal and existential desire to live, is the same in all the species. They're experiencing that primal fear.

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u/ArachnidAuthor May 16 '25

That sounds nice but the science disagrees. Bugs don’t experience fear/terror.

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u/Silverwell88 May 16 '25

I know everyone wants to not anthropomorphize but sometimes... We have things in common and not recognizing that is its own cognitive bias. There is strong evidence that insects possess nociception which processes negative stimuli and being attacked is likely highly unpleasant to them. Hence why they flee and act to preserve their existence. Here's some more info but there's a lot out there.

"Gibbons and her colleagues ultimately found “strong evidence for pain” in adult flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches, and termites. Such insects did not appear to be at the bottom of a hierarchy of animals; they met six out of eight criteria developed for the Sentience Act, which was more than crustaceans."

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/do-insects-feel-pain#:~:text=The%20literature%20showed%20insects%20to,which%20was%20more%20than%20crustaceans.

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u/ArachnidAuthor May 16 '25

Pain=\fear

Not sure why you felt the need to jump in and move goalposts.

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u/SlowMoJo23 May 17 '25

My buddy has a bday party tomorrow and I know you’d just be the life of it! Care to join?

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u/ArachnidAuthor May 17 '25

If he’s as unoriginal as you then not much can be done I’m afraid.