I would still suggest fishing may be more callous and even cruel though, Even if it weren't lethal it requires one to have what to me seems like an unhealthy stomach for witnessing and causing suffering. Whatever their intelligence, the fish are clearly pretty distressed or in pain. It's pretty different than when I go to step on ants. For them darkness looms momentarily and becomes total, before dying under a giant's foot. — IanBlain

I get what you mean. The sport causes suffering and I myself don't like it, I used to find it fun or enjoyable but I began to look at the hook and fish relationship differently, especially after times when the hook got lodged deep, and the poor fish looked like it was in pain, wriggling, whilst we wriggled the hook, audibly scraping mouth parts, blood coming out, still failing to get the hook out. I thought this poor beautiful fish traumatised, damaged or could possibly die. I'm sensitive to creatures and thought the fish wouldn't of suffered or possibly died today if it wasn't for me. Sometimes on a really beautiful day too, when the fish are very happy. I'd imagine a gentle spring day they like. Not sure. But it made me think, I would be ruining a fish that was happy before. (It didn't need to be happy it just made it more surreal for me at that time in my life when I was younger.).
So I realised I was hurting/damaging/traumatising a creature. That's not fun for me.

The same goes for barbless hooks. They can end up lodged in a awkward way deep in their throat, which can end in blood also, not as much as barbed hooks but enough for me to care about the fish's well being.

As for the sport fishing and insect comparison; wild fish at least get the chance, though not always, to live another day and never get caught. Artificially stock fisheries in small artificial lakes is pretty horrific where the sentiment does occur to me, surely instant death is better than constant suffering. But that's an awkward scenario for the fish, not the spider on my porch. Which like I've said before, to me, is just a humble little eight legged creature making its way from A to B.
The only time insects became an issue for me is when wasps somehow make a nest in the attic and them flying in my house all the time. I would still just get a professional to move the nest rather than destroy it if possible. Or if my house was a wooden one and termites were underneath the house eating the wood.
For me, insects are mostly none the wiser to our possessions or totally harmless to me. So I wouldn't kill them. I'm not squeamish with them either. Though cave centipedes have freaked me out on holiday (vacation), where it was under my bed area, in dim evening light and I could not find it. I couldn't sleep there that night. I wouldn't of killed it. I would of quickly braced myself to get used to this new creature's appearance and movements and with distance get him out the room, outside, with contraptions.



Even when flies try it on with my ice cream outside I don't see red because usually carnivores or creatures resume eating with flies on the corpse or whatever. Creatures in the wild usually have strong immune systems and can very much handle flies that have traces of faeces on it. This millions of year old relationship is embedded in these flies.
And yes, I don't want flies on my ice cream either. I just look at the angle as to why the fly wishes to be on my ice-cream, even when I'm present to the ice-cream.

But as mindless as they are, bugs still capable of sensing and reacting to danger. That being said, I have to assume that they can perceive the pair of ominous, white, alien objects pictured above as dangerous when they make the mistake of crawling anywhere near my feet. Right? — IanBlain

Look how quickly a fly will move if you go to swat it with your hand. They have ways of escaping and avoiding danger. — IanBlain

Flies can react to incoming bullseye squatting. Ants or a spider on the pavement, are slow, they have little chance.
Spiders can often sit still around danger if they feel they can't out run a threat or feel invisible with their background, they sit still and hope to blend in with the environment to not be spotted and killed. I've dealt with a lot of house spiders some of them locomote very quickly into the nearest crack of my incoming presence.
The dainty daddy long-legs spiders are definitely slow, their thin ghostly appearance they rely on to not be spotted.
Orb-weaving spiders, the ones who make circular webs, when they are off their web they aren't nimble like other spiders. On their web, they react to danger either by running to a crack or curled leaf connected to their web or remain still with the background. They know you're there, sometimes I've gone up to one on a web, and it vibrates the web quickly to my presence. Of course, if you're on the other side of the web, the spider is less likely to spot you. All creatures have some pitfall to abuse or manipulate.

"The speed at which those images are processed by the brain is called the "flicker fusion rate". In general, the smaller the species, the faster its critical flicker fusion rate - and flies, in particular, put us to shame.

Professor Roger Hardie, from the University of Cambridge, investigates how flies' eyes work, and he has an experiment to determine their flicker fusion rate." — Why is it so hard to swat a fly?

According to this quote, ants being small can also see us as slow-motion.

Ants probably detect the incoming danger in slow-motion like the fly can but simply can't speed off as fast as a fly can, into three dimensional space. Even if this research wasn't correct, ants are hell of a lot slower than a fly and flies have three dimensional space to rapidly take advantage of.

That being said, I have to assume that they can perceive the pair of ominous, white, alien objects pictured above as dangerous when they make the mistake of crawling anywhere near my feet. Right? — IanBlain

Yeah, most likely it will seem too foreign for them to see as a danger or not.
Well, any object coming to squish a fly will make it jet off. Most insects will scurry off with slow moving objects coming on to them. Their locomotion can let them down with fast moving objects. I mentioned the slow-motion thing, if it's true, these small creatures see the threat coming and so some won't move, thinking this object will stop and move on (like a bird might), or try to move but are too slow. Whether we know for sure they know this incoming danger with them being still, it's hard to say. If you hovered an object over them for longer when they are still to see if they think; "screw this, I'm going to make a run for it." ,and then they react, would be a sign they knew it was a threat and ran off or with enough time they realised it is weird and run off.

Humans aren't perfect. Like the video in this thread with adults walking into windows. I've seen horror videos, people not keeping an eye on traffic and getting hit, underestimating dangers etc. It's got to happen in the insect world, surely.
Like humans, fish and insects can have different tendencies. I would expect that with brains or the simple fact that every creature has a different start in life with many variables at play. Brain plasticity is in insects, though from what I gather, because the literature is a bit too complex for me, in a different way to us. So experience can shape insects. It's something I would expect.

There are some bugs I don't kill however: butterflies, pray mantises, etc. — IanBlain

Ok, I see your sentiment.

The other thing is, if you don't get them, find them weird, or find it odd the things they do. Then they could think the same for us, with us being wildly different to them.

I admit, it's hard to get used to. The thought of a cave centipede crawling over me at night to my awareness. Is a very hard one to accept with me not freaking out. But I also think it would be a bit weird to be super calm with it.
Well it would also be freaky if your friend stood at your bed whilst you slept. So I think the odds are, I don't think the cave centipede wants to be near us or on us either. But my god if it happened to be on me at night, I would just have to jump out bed and run or flap, freak out, I would still try not to kill it though.



I agree, I prefer them in the cave than on me at night! Hehe.

Furthermore, smashing bugs seems immature and childishly destructive, as opposed to fishing, which is seen as an actual, constructive hobby. — Kasperanza

I agree.

Fish which are caught then released die all the time, bleeding to death, intended or not. Releasing doesn't mean "not lethal." And everyone who does catch and release fishing is aware of that outcome. That means its done for entertainment, doesn't it? — IanBlain

I used to go fishing and the fish rarely looked like it was knocking on death's doors (An overall average, throughout my time of using barbed and barbless hooks).
Even in fishing competitions you keep them in keep nets, the ones you catch, in the water for possibly hours, they rarely died. It was on artificial lakes, and is artificially stocked, the owners would not want a big 10-20 year old carp easily dying from being caught. Most fisheries enforced barbless hook rules though as well. But even barbed hooks didn't always kill the fish, blood yes. I used barbless in the end to prevent bleeding and suffering or even possible death for the fish.
The artificially stocked fisheries for people to fish on, would be out of business rapid if that was the case of fish dying all the time when caught.
I can only think with the big barbed hooks used in sea sport fishing where they wrestle with the fish for ages, would amount to severe blood loss and death most of the time. You don't see death commonly in non-sea fishing, unless it was a horrific tug of war with a barbed hook, with the barbed hook stuck deep in the fishes throat, and then getting it out becoming a sad bloody mess, in which I recount most fish caught with barbed hooks succumbing to death in those scenarios. These scenarios with barbed hooks were hit and miss, so even with barbed hooks, 'die all the time' does not fit.

That's the thing with fishing, it doesn't aim to kill the fish. The human judicial system ranks death penalty as the highest punishment. With life sentences behind it (imposed limited living). That should say something with the comparing of sport fishing and squashing insects (after me explaining that fish don't die all the time). At least the fish can live again, more than likely. With wild fish, they even have a chance to live and never be caught again.

I thought it was wrong to even use barbless hooks in the end and stopped fishing altogether. Piercing a fish's mouth even with bloodless results and letting it go, for sport, is not respectful of the fish.

Sometimes I horse around and start stamping them even faster — IanBlain

Sport fishing doesn't go out to horse around, to kill fish even quicker. Those elements are far apart.

When I raise my sneaker above an army of hungry ants, or step on a spider, or smash a pesky bee, the goal is often to repel or destroy unwanted invaders either because they are annoying, may sting or bite, or in the case of spiders, are just creepy. — IanBlain

The spider doesn't know it is entering a building that doesn't want it. It just sees a gap it can fit under, under the door and goes through it. The bees that get stuck in a house actually wants to leave the house as in all cases of bees in my house. Of course they do, there's nothing in the house for them. They get stuck confused by the windows. Even common wasps in spring and summer want to make a quick exit but get confused by the windows. Only in late summer/autumn do common wasps increasingly hone in on artificial human sweet food/drinks as they face natural food scarcity at that time of the year. Indeed they'll go crazy to get that then rare fix.

You're basically dishing out the highest human judicial punishment to insects that more than likely are going about its harmless activities. If a spider had to die for looking creepy then that's very sad and wrong.
Given the time spiders aren't creepy and can even be cute.
Due to their rapid and inconspicuous nature, humans rarely get to make a good acquaintance with their features and behaviour. There's no hope of any acquittance if it meets a shoe every time though.
Have a look at tarantulas, start with them. I know a friend who is scared of spiders but can handle tarantulas.

So in short, we have sport fishermen who don't go out to kill fish. Fish that definitely don't die every time they're caught. Compared with insects being instantly killed upon mere presence and proximity to the person, all the time? With zero hope of the targeted insects living to see another day, unlike the targeted fish which has a higher chance to see another day.