Can't I, I like sushi? Let us start at the beginning, we initially began as hunters and gatherers foraging for food, dwelled upon how better the planet could benefit us, began digging the Earth for fuel sources, industrialized the process of slaughtering innocent animals for nice sushi and steak, waged wars on one another, committed heinous crimes against individuals, etc (In no particular order). If you'd like further historical pieces of evidence, I can cite them.

Firstly, the "we are doing fine" is a statement that doesn't even wholly pertain to the current state of human beings, let alone animals.

That is purely because homo sapiens, ergo, we, are not at the center of the universe. Without descending into poetic chaos, we cannot exert that much control over other life forms. And that does not necessarily mean that we are at a disadvantage. We merely have to realize the fact that we do not get to control anything and everything and work towards accepting it.

"The right to end others lives", isn't that something we bestow upon ourselves and abide by every single day through the conflict amongst humans, the slaughter of animals, abuse, and every other malicious crime we commit?

That sounds like a purely utopian standpoint. Human beings do in fact act out of malicious intent in the majority of circumstances. That is a fact that cannot be denied as it has been proven time and again by humans themselves.

Well, ArmChairPhilospher, why discuss the safety of the continuation of life if currently and in the past, we have put our self-interests above all else betraying the trust of many? From an evolutionary perspective, one might put forth the "survival of the fittest" concept, but as human beings, the species that coined the term "humane", shouldn't we attempt to do justice to it?

The human experiment has indeed failed evidenced by the multiple catastrophes that have been brought about in our wake.

But To begin with, the interference of human beings in the lives of other species has brought about destruction and human beings have in fact brought about nothing but destruction as evidenced by our past and present. Now, this hypothetical did not deny the brutality of nature nor did it deny that other animals are destructive as well, rather, it was a spotlight on the industrialized and mechanical torture of other species. And thirdly, no, I do not feel an obligation to pass on this knowledge to the future. Human beings have accumulated such vast knowledge, but to what end? At the end of the day, on the outskirts of the mechanical way of life, it does not matter to our inner peace.

And why would that be?

Precisely, Hitler's agenda sprouted out of malice, whereas yours appears to sprout out of sadism. If I have to weigh them on the "evil" scale, sadism would far outweigh hatred.
Now, my point regarding ants was to suggest that they do in fact, feel irritation as you squish them for your entertainment.
I am not suggesting that they are as intelligent as to have reflexes that make them sense potential danger, but that certainly doesn't justify squishing them to your heart's desire.

This thread encompasses a vast majority of topics. It should not only be about the literal action of killing bugs but also the implications of the action and my stance regarding the physical pain of those bugs encompassed a variety of points that were addressed.

"Less interesting and interactive than toying with ants"
Adolf Hitler was better than this, @IanBlain. At least he truly believed that the Aryan race was the purest and that jews were a hindrance to human development. He did not kill them and torture them out of "interactive and interesting" pleasure.
Ants form complex social colonies and show spectacular signs of intelligence. They feel pain as well, physical irritation as they are being squished. But we won't consider that, would we? Because we believe we are "superior species" when in fact, from what I can infer, we are inferior toevery other species. We kill, torture,breed, poke and prod other species, all so we can do what? Derive pleasure and enhance our causes.
Is it justifiable to kill and cruelly torture other species to gain momentary pleasure and enhance our "educational standards"? Frankly speaking, I'd go as far as to conclude that Mussolini and Hitler's agendas were purer than yours.

Yes, to answer that, we need to answer the question, what is pain?
Pain is essentially a response your brain generates when the neurons in a particular region of your body get stimulated. Complex species belonging to the kingdom Animalia have neuronal connections throughout their body. Now, in slaughterhouses, pigs are abused,tortured with cattle prods, kicked to the curb, and are made to go through unbearable psychological trauma. As they lay in wait to be killed, they see their peers and children get shot in front of them and that is not only immense physiological trauma but also psychological.
How do we know these (apart from the scream and agony of the animals)? We can see it with fMRI and multiple studies show that cows, pigs, chickens, goats, and sheep are animals that are very intelligent and feel emotional and physical pain as much as we do.
And what do we do about these? We breed them featherless with 6 legs so that we can enjoy a meal from KFC.
Despite awareness of torture in slaughterhouses, no laws are passed to rectify it and everyone who claims to be compassionate still eats the meat with no second thought.
Now, to answer your second question, animals kill for survival and to assert dominance, yes. But they do not industrialize it and keep killing more than 200 Million animals every single day just to hone their cultural roulette. Human beings have alternate methods of survival and food sources, ones that do not require slaughter and still give as much or more nutrition than meat, and yet we continue obliterating the lives of millions of animals every day.

That is a rather cruel logic, don't you think? Animals never hurt a person unless they feel threatened. Humanism, the philosophical idea that homo sapiens are the only species worth living and every other species is prey is an absurd concept.
What makes human beings the sole authority on pain? Animals feel pain just as much as we do and yet we don't value that.
Lobsters are boiled alive, the skin and organs of fishes are bring torn apart, pigs are terribly abused and slaughtered as they watch their friends go through the same in terror, all for what? So that human beings could hone their cuisine roulette, have fun and enjoy a big Mac.
When considered thoroughly, Thanos wasn't particularly wrong.
Animals kill each other only when necessary and to survive, they do it without any further emotions regarding betrayal, happiness, partiality, pride or sadism.
Human beings are the plight of the world, they inflict pain not only on themselves but also on innocent animals that cannot possibly fight back.

I suggest you refer to this article to potentially get the answer to your question.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210323150745.htm

By “algorithm adjacent”, I mean that it is quite possible to code in a way we do with our regular algorithms.
Now, by “mapped”, I mean that the neural connection in our brain is quite like a well organised spider web. Now, to put it in simple terms, imagine an electrical component, but here, it doesn’t need physical contact to “fire” the neurons. They work with the help of a space called a synapse that lies in between two neurons. An action potential or electric current is passed in between neurons and the collective firing of neurons in a localised area is the phenomenon that leads to thought and action.
The brain activity and firing in localised neurons is mapped with the help of fMRI. With the data that is acquired from the fMRI, the cognitive neuroscientists feed it to the AI or a program that correspond to artificial neural networks.
Assuming that you are familiar with how AI works, I can tell you that neural mapping works in a similar way.
There have been many studies where the mapped neural networks have been fed to the computer and the code was able to replicate the activity.
That is, if I were to say, touch an apple with my finger, a set of localised neurons would fire up in my brain and that is recorded with the fMRI machine and the data set is transferred to a computer in hopes of replication.

Consciousness in neuroscience is something that hasn’t been decodable for eons. Is it a phenomenon? Is it a perception of sorts? Is it simply an idea that people have developed to explain few ideas? The answers to these questions might very well lie in quantum mechanics. That article could be one of the leads into consciousness that we believe we have. Although, it is merely theoretical. The merging of neuroscience and quantum mechanics to nurture this embryonic theory might be the stamp Science has been waiting for.

And that is very much accepted. In fact, post-modernism is a concept that is often misunderstood. And here, the politics involved is very much a factor. But upon who might befall the authority to classify this as “unjust”?
We believe it is unjust because it doesn’t fit into our worldview. But who is to say that it might very well be considered unjust by all? In fact, it might not seem bad to the victims in the obstacle course primarily because we are led to want to accept the existence of a higher being who controls the phenomena in the world and guides us and throws obstacles our way. This is primarily why they might believe that it is in fact not “unjust” and they might not be incorrect to think so.

Free will and every other perception is in fact an algorithm adjacent activity. Now, human beings are literally the way they are because of their neural connections and those can be mapped, hence they can be replicated in a computer, even if it takes years now. Now, emotions arise from a set of chemical reactions and the neural pathways and those are essentially codes. They can be replicated as well. Our body is one huge and complex super computer. Theoretically, everything in our body can be replicated, hence AI, that is inorganic intelligence, can very well be possible without arising a paradox.

AI and machine learning works on the basis of learning based on a primary code. It is one that doesn’t need to be given instructions time and again. But the true essence of AI is in fact “Artificial intelligence” and that requires free will.

Programming free will into its core program defies the entire purpose of the concept of free will. Going by the fundamentals of Machine learning, it doesn’t have to be “taught” free will. Since it resembles the Neural net of human beings, it doesn’t have to have it programmed in it per se.

Now, the way to do it would be to keep questioning the machine philosophical questions that cannot be accessed on the internet. Questions such as the train problem which needs free will and thinking in order to form a solution. When the machine can answer paradoxical questions and philosophical ones without human interference, it should have achieved “Artificial intelligence” based on our current research. The original questions however would be “Can there truly be inorganic intelligence? Is free will a concept that can be taught to entities?

Well, that would be a fair point considering the fact that initially they did not have to nor want to enter this game of obstacles and unnecessary challenges. But would it particularly matter later? Now, the paternalistic political assumption that people need to overcome obstacles for no other reason than to see it happen is quite an interesting perspective. And I must say that those assumptions are albeit futile but they have been built into the core of our society.
But that begs a question that needs to be addressed before further discussion, what are the arbitrary rules of the society and who gets to decide just and unjust?
I might consider Socrates to be a wise man with much to contribute but the people of Athens disagreed and considered his intellectual tidbits to be unjust and venomous. What precisely is justified in the world? The world is a purely subjective with multiple contradictory perspectives and that is something that needs to be taken into account in this discussion.

And that would be a fair point for the first generation of victims. But the ones that follow later, say the 5th or 7th generation would not have the slightest idea that this is an inescapable game and that they are in fact victims of false play. Eventually, the truth of their reality would be forgotten or be credited as fiction or a legend. No one would actually believe that their lives were in fact coerced.
Going with evidence, it’d be safe to assume that anyone who believes otherwise would be considered either a conspiracy theorist or a rather mentally unstable person. Hence your justification holds good only for the early generations. We could go as far to say that there is a possibility that our reality is a simulated one and that either it has gotten lost in history or that it is considered a legend.

Science is not a snake's skin. Once it has served its purpose, it cannot be shed. Primarily speaking, it will never complete serving its purpose. Once we discovered that the Earth was a planet, we went on to discover an entire solar system, from there, the galaxies, the universe, what constitutes the universe, dark matter, subatomic particles, etc.
The point being, it'll never cease to exist as it is an inbuilt human nature. It isn't an institution or a religion, it is a thought process, it facilitates the use of neuronal synapses and it can never cease to exist. It could cease to exist as an institution (which would be chaotic and catastrophic), but it could never lose its essence.

But isn't that the case with our reality? We are born as embryonic flesh bags on this planet and eventually, we become flesh bags and end up decomposing into the ground. That in itself is a game of sorts.
You are born, you do monotonous chores, earn money to survive and overcome the "obstacles", possibly procreate and eventually fall into the arms of the grim reaper.
The only way out of the game that is our reality is suicide. Transcending the superficial concepts of our making and accelerating the motion of our lives. The villain's idea was built in much the same way, you either prolong your life in the game or die, there is no in between much like life.
One could argue that being "forced" to do this by another entity or creature is injustice, but there is no justification as to why it truly is.

What is life if not an illusion concocted by our brain? Neuroscientifically speaking, we could be cycloptic deranged purple monkeys under the thrall of our "brain" having an elaborate dream which is purely fictional. Philosophically speaking, nothing exists outside of our heads. We could talk about the concept of freedom, free will, pineapple milkshakes, or interior decor, but all of these are mere concepts that exist in our heads. WIth that being said, the villain is none other than an exemplary evidence of this concept of life. He creates an obstacle course that has evolved to accommodate the rudimentary institutions of our creation. Hence, in spite of being "placed" in the obstacle course, they either could be mere "happy slaves" blissfully ignoring or being unaware of life beyond the scope of the game, or they could be us, people who monotonously go through life to simply procreate and eventually decay into the ground. The only reason we believe they are "victims" of the villain or we even call that man a "villain" is because it surpasses our understanding of free will and freedom. But what is our understanding if not an illusion with arbitrary rules?

Yes, now as I have mentioned previously, the decline of Science is the decline of a means to express one's intrigue and curiosity which are the very fundamentals of thought and attributes of homo sapiens. Philosophically or metaphysically, Science as a concept and institution has the possibility for decline as any other institution. But the very essence and fundamentals of Science could never be extinguished or decay without the obliteration of the human race.

The pantheon of Science isn't just a "school of thought", it is a primitive human instinct. From Proconsul Heseloni to Homo sapiens, we are inherently curious creatures.
Furthermore, it is in fact this primary instinct that has been the foundation of our survival. Science is the way of expressing that primitive instinct.
We ate the first apple because of our curiosity. We gave birth to offspring because of curiosity. We built the first fire and survived the winter because of our curiosity. The reasons why curiosity is the backbone of our society is infinitesimal in number. A decay in curiosity will be a decay in the existence of humanity as a whole.
If Science somehow "decays" as you propose, human beings might as well cease to exist.