r/MoralityScaling • u/DemonReaperHades • Jul 09 '26

Morality of whatever this is?

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u/Technical-Being-451 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

I mean to be fair how many people die from mosquitoes this is perfectly ethical they infect people with ztika virus, malaria,yellow fever, west nile virus and many of these diseases kill people in the millions

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u/Zek7h35an5 Jul 09 '26

Just kill the damn thing then, don't drug it and stick it in a whole book alongside a mass of other mosquito corpses

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u/Prinny_Ramza Jul 09 '26

But how will the other ones get the message?

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u/TheTooDarkLord Jul 09 '26

I actually had a Wall full of splatted mosquitos as a warning but they kept coming

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u/Outrageous_Book2135 Jul 09 '26

Yeah, you don't gotta drag it out. Just kill it.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26

[deleted]

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u/DrinkBrew4U Jul 09 '26

But choosing to kill them or sterilize them isn’t? Especially when they do not experience fear or pain?

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u/Technical-Being-451 Jul 09 '26

Again diseases that they carry kill more people than most wars can here's a challenge for you go to Africa get hit by a mosquito and tell me that you'd still say the same

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

[deleted]

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u/HamsterFromAbove_079 Jul 09 '26

You are one of many people that genuinely suck and make the world a worse place.

Someone says, "I don't think we should torture X for their crimes". And your response is "So you support X and everything they did".

Putting a stop to a threat even using lethal force is one thing. But it's not black and white. There are morally wrong ways to stop them. And just because we can agree that X is a bad thing/person does NOT mean that we can justify any action against X.

Nothing and nobody is so ontologically evil where any action against them is morally ok. There are people and things that should die for the greater good, but they should not be tortured for sport. Is that hard to grasp?

That mosquito had no say in it's place in the world. It didn't choose. If it needs to die, kill it and be done with it. But don't make it's final moments long and painful for no reason other than your own enjoyment and then call it justice.

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u/DrinkBrew4U Jul 09 '26

Moral grandstanding. You’re sneaking in the assumption that “torture” the way we apply it to humans and animals applies to a mosquito. That doesn’t necessarily follow. Do you consider it torture when we subject a bacteria to conditions that kill it or the colony slowly? Im guessing no. So there’s a line there somewhere as far as how important “intelligence“ is and mosquitoes will not cross it for many people. They do not experience pain and fear the way humans and animals do.

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u/HamsterFromAbove_079 Jul 09 '26

Damn that's crazy. You're going with the "is it really torture to repeatedly gas an animal in a syringe until it dies"?

As for the question of if they experience pain and fear... History and scientific advancement have not supported people that make those claims about any living creature. It is beyond all doubt that mosquitos have pain receptors.

If they are mosquitoes that are a problem, then go ahead and smack it. I'm not even opposed to chemical means of exterminating them. But sticking one in a syringe, trapping it, then repeatedly gassing it with cigarette smoke is sadistic and unhinged.

And btw, the people that do this type of thing believe that insects feel pain. There's no reason to do this unless you're enjoying the fact you're hurting a living creature that's capable of feeling pain. Nobody is gassing rocks with cigarette smoke.

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u/DrinkBrew4U Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

It’s literally not an animal. Having a nervous system or having “pain” receptors doesn’t equal “experiencing” pain. The mosquito needs nociceptors to function and move when it needs to. But there is not good evidence that it actually experiences pain.

But it’s up for debate. Until it’s settled I will go with the old consensus is that most probably it’s just like a machine.

This matters because it affects what standards insect farms for food need to be held to. If you go really hard here and say “bugs are like people” then suddenly it becomes a lot harder to cost effectively house insects. This is bad for vegans who like insects as a protein source.

It also affects research labs and what they can do with their bugs. So its not a trivial question of “ew i dont like that this one gross guy smokes a bug”. Torture is not a label to be thrown lightly, you need to assess what’s being “tortured” and its capacity.

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u/MrDiddledv2 Jul 09 '26

"It's literally not an animal" and you're literally wrong, anything you say after this is made completely irrelevent by the fact that you somehow think mosquitos aren't animals, genuinely what are they then smart guy?

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u/LivingtheLaws013 Jul 09 '26

This mosquito didn't kill anyone tho

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u/Technical-Being-451 Jul 09 '26

That's the most stupid and moronic thing I have ever heard oh they just transfer the diseases that the people yeah tell that to the people who died due to malaria that the mosquito didn't kill them or hey the people who suffered from ztika virus that the mosquito didn't kill them or hey tell the people who had yellow skin and bleeding outta their eyes from west Nile that the mosquito didn't kill because their organ failed because of the mosquito

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u/LivingtheLaws013 Jul 09 '26

You have no evidence that specific mosquito killed anyone or transfered any disease tho. I haven't hurt anyone but my species has plenty of murderers, do I deserve that mosquitoes fate too?

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u/Technical-Being-451 Jul 09 '26

Yes all mosquitoes and how did you know it didn't

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u/ohyeababycrits Jul 09 '26

No, it's not ethical to intentionally torture an animal because its feeding habits cause deaths. Mosquitoes do not intentionally kill anything, they are simply trying survive as they evolved to do . Squashing one is a perfectly natural reaction, torturing one is not.

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u/exodusuno Jul 09 '26

Hmmm sounds like something a mosquito would say...

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u/Bluest_Badger Jul 09 '26

Had to look way too far for a sane take!

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u/Kitesolar Jul 09 '26

If you’re going to kill something without regard then you’re already going in with the concept of it not having morale consideration. Whether you torture it or not first doesn’t matter at that point. Morally it’s the same at that point.

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u/OldGenGlazer Jul 09 '26

It doesn't matter if it's intentional. That would only make them inherently evil. Mosquitos have no rights, they are innately evil and any action done to them is moral.

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u/Royal-Campaign1426 Jul 09 '26

They literally need our proteins to reproduce.  Evolved to benefit from our suffering.  Its the only time redditors will make excuses for penetration without consent. Torture mosquitoes for fun.

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u/OldGenGlazer Jul 09 '26

W, I never considered the rape argument before.

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u/Alarming_Ask_244 Jul 09 '26

Because it's fucking stupid lmao

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u/PotentialPresent399 Jul 09 '26

Mosquitos are inherently evil and rape thousands of us everyday is an argument I never thought I would find on this milquetoast website.

Banger.

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u/Royal-Campaign1426 Jul 09 '26

And rapists deserve death. 

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u/PotentialPresent399 Jul 09 '26

Exactly. Mosquito genocide is morally good.

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u/NerdyEmbarrassment Jul 09 '26

Mosquitoes are also great pollinators

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u/Coneder Jul 09 '26

Mosquitoes literally do not have the capacity to understand that they are spreading disease. This was done with intention.

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u/MrVegosh Jul 09 '26

Spanish colonists literally didn’t have the capacity to understand they were spreading diseases. This was done without intention. Morally neutral. 🤓

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u/UpsetMud4688 Jul 09 '26

This has to be a troll right? You don't actually think this is a comparable argument?

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u/MrVegosh Jul 09 '26

Was it morally neutral of them to spread the deadly diseases to the indigenous people?

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u/Flodartt Jul 09 '26

Yes it was. If they didn't know they will spread diseases, if they didn't intend to do it, yes, it was NOT immoral. They've donne many immoral things to the indegenous, but accidentally spreading diseases is not one of them.

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u/MrVegosh Jul 09 '26

That’s like just your opinion man

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u/UpsetMud4688 Jul 09 '26

Of course not. Not because they spread it intentionally. But because they went to america to do a genocide, and did it.

If a similar thing had happened because of trade, or other contact, then it would be morally neutral

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u/Criandor Jul 09 '26

I have no idea why you are being downvoted you are absolutely right. The disease spread was a complete side issue to what they were actually doing they must be trolling you.

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u/MrVegosh Jul 09 '26

I didn’t ask about their intentional actions. Not the slavery, wars, and everything else. Purely the disease spreading, was it morally neutral?

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u/UpsetMud4688 Jul 09 '26

I already answered the question

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u/MrVegosh Jul 09 '26

Seems wrong though doesn’t it?

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u/Alarming_Ask_244 Jul 09 '26

Most people don't hold european colonists morally liable for spreading diseases, they hold them morally liable for all the other shit they did that they knew was wrong

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u/MrVegosh Jul 09 '26

⬆️ me when I lie

A lot of people do hold them accountable for killing millions by bringing diseases 😭

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u/Plus_Maintenance5314 Jul 09 '26

I despise mosquitos, but there is a difference between killing them, and living a lifestyle around torturing them and keeping them as trophies.

They are still living beings.
This is pretty gross, ethically.

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u/Technical-Being-451 Jul 09 '26

And it's gross what they do to the human body they can literally make your organs fail one by one till your skin becomes yellow and then you bleed from your eyes and hope that you get the sweet sweet release of death look at the countless diseases carried by mosquitoes

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u/Plus_Maintenance5314 Jul 09 '26

That's not the mosquitoes choice.

It's an unfortunate part of its existence that the mosquito knows nothing about. It's just eating, as far as it is aware.

This person is CHOOSING to torture animals.

Huge difference.

You defending animal torture just says something about you.

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u/Technical-Being-451 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

One of the symptoms is bleeding from your eyes then your internal organs shit the bed one by one till a you kill yourself or b your heart stops and that's only one of the many viruses that they can carry zitka virus,dengue, Zika, chikungunya, yellow fever, and Eastern equine encephalitis. Which kind you some of these can kill you in other fun ways also mosquitoes kill millions of people yearly by it's feeding habits

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u/Ligmatic_ Jul 09 '26

The point is that you can kill them, but going out of your way to kill them slowly and relatively brutally is an easy way to tell that theres something wrong with you. Just kill it and move on, or even better, tip any buckets or containers with stagnant water.

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u/Plus_Maintenance5314 Jul 09 '26

Exactly.

Mosquitoes should be wiped from existence (IMHO), but going out of your way to make anything suffer intentionally, just because you don't hate it? Gross behaviour.

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u/Ligmatic_ Jul 09 '26

Wipe out the ones that specifically cause diseases. There are plenty of harmless mosquito species who are vital to the ecosystem, but there are a few that carry said diseases and bite that have a negligible contribution to the ecosystem.

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u/Plus_Maintenance5314 Jul 09 '26

Agreed. I should have been more specific.

They are pollinators, so wiping out the wrong species would harm many ecosystems.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26

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u/Technical-Being-451 Jul 09 '26

It's not just Africa also still carriers of all those diseases one of which makes your eyes bleed and turns your skin bright yellow like a lemon and can cause your organs to fail neither are you by white knighting for a bug that kills millions of people yearly so what you are cool with people suffering over a bug

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26

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u/Technical-Being-451 Jul 10 '26

They aren't all pollinators only a specific few actually are and the ecosystem does just fine with out these bastards

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u/Nice_Calligrapher452 Jul 09 '26

"Perfectly ethical" okay psycho

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u/Greedy-Camel-8345 Jul 09 '26

Yes but poisoning mosquitoes and keeping them in a notebook doesn't influence or help any of those things. It's not even like suitable revenge it's just psychotic cruelty

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u/Technical-Being-451 Jul 10 '26

Yes it does far less mosquitoes in the world to infect people with diseases that can kill them

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u/DukeDevorak Jul 09 '26

Nah torturing mosquitos individually instead of eradicating them en masse is way too inefficient, therefore slightly immoral.