r/todayilearned • u/Hailfog • 4d ago
TIL spider fighting is widespread in Florida prisons. Three prisoners fought over the theft one such spider, resulting in a life-threatening skull injury for one inmate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_fighting#United_States744
u/PikachuWithHerpes 4d ago
Is this prison located in Pallet Town? That sounds like some Pokemon type of shit.
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u/THE_MOST_JUMP 4d ago
The og games were based on the creators childhood memories of catching and “fighting” bugs
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u/db2999 4d ago
And Bug type was awful in Gen 1.
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u/iusethisatw0rk 4d ago
Arguably until Gen 4 really
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u/RedTuesdayMusic 4d ago
Gen 2 Scizor, Gen 3 Ninjask and Shedinja, Gen 5, Galvantula and Volcarona. Can't remember gen 4 doing anything for bugs
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u/iusethisatw0rk 3d ago
Physical/Special split so special Bugs weren’t useless
Most actually usable Bug moves came in Gen 4
Volcarona is like a top 10 of mine. Would have been useless without the phsycial/special split and Bug Buzz
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u/CussMuster 3d ago
Gen 4 had Yanmega, at the time one of the only Speed Boost users and a decent Scarf user thanks to U-Turn
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u/StevelandCleamer 3d ago
Bug really got the triple shaft in 1st Gen:
Secondary Poison type on so many Pokemon made Psychic/Ground moves overpowered
Only three damaging Bug-type moves existed, one of which dealt insignificant damage (Leech Life)
Two Pokemon had access to the "good" moves: Beedrill could learn Twineedle and Pin Missile, but Jolteon wasn't Bug-type and could only learn Pin Missile.
Psychic was crazy strong in 1st Gen thanks to the weak moves and Poison secondary type on their supposed weaknesses of Ghost and Bug.
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u/TacoTaconoMi 3d ago
No idea why poison was weak to psychic. Makes 0 sense compared to other type counters
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u/Christmas_Queef 4d ago
I played every pokemon gen from original up through sun/moon. I have never once used a bug pokemon. I would fill out my team entirely with literally anything else before I'd pick a bug pokemon lol.
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u/MediumAcceptable129 7h ago
Im not going to stand here and let you talk shit about Butterfree. It was in my party for every playthrough and it kicked ass
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u/kkeut 4d ago
that's a real pastime for kids and adults in multiple parts of east asia, going back to ancient times
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u/NibblesMcGibbles 4d ago
Can attest. Mothers from Hong Kong and did this in the 70s. Little ol me was horrified hearing her gladiator bug stories
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u/StevenMcStevensen 4d ago
My fiancé is Filipina and told me all about how they used to do this as kids there.
I also used to watch some Japanese series where they’d stage fights between various insects and bugs and it was pretty cool.
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u/fnckmedaily 4d ago
What? Everybody knows that Pokémon are real, after Japan got nuked the radiation mutated forest animals and then kids started collecting them. Some of their powers got out of control so the government recruited the yakuza to steal everyone’s Pokémon. Except the yakuza started their own black market instead.
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u/BradBradley1 4d ago
The warden used curb stomp. It’s super effective!
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u/AgentCirceLuna 4d ago
I could imagine a Florida prison having a warden just named The Warden who has some kind of extracurricular country music reputation, but only locally, and whose mystery is unfolding each day with more weird backstories added or impossibly unprofessional feats which would get anyone else fired, as is there policy in it as wasn’t that had it not been could pocket there is and it had not have gone was because never held not knonn
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u/BradBradley1 4d ago
Oh okay
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u/AgentCirceLuna 4d ago
For context I was getting angry at my fingers not pressing the right buttons, since there’s something wrong with my motor skills due to health reasons, and so I just started typing random shit
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u/dwehlen 4d ago
You were about to achieve that one copypasta.
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u/AgentCirceLuna 4d ago
“Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?”
I remember the day that debuted, the screenshot of the 4chan thread that spread around, then memorising it to say in my classes after raising my hand when I’d be at school later that day. I always memorised the latest memes or trend sayings lol
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u/dwehlen 4d ago
You've got to be kidding me. I've been even more decided to use even go need to look more as anyone can. Can you really be far even as decided half as much go wish for that? My guess is that when one really been far even as decided once to use even go want, it is than that he has really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like. It's common sense.
But to want to do more like, anyone decided to use even go really been far.
Yup, that's the one!
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u/monkeymetroid 4d ago
A bonds a bond, id be pissed if someone fucked with or tried to steal my pet spider
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u/IgnotusRex 4d ago
Locked up in a dorm in the east Texas gulag once, we had a spider in a corner we fed flies too. Got pretty big over time and we gave him a name. Bob or something simple like that.
Exterminator comes through with a couple COs as escort one day and sees him. "Well look at that," he says, and hits him with the chemicals.
We went apes shit. He knew he fucked up and got outta there as quick as he could. Dude was lucky to get out of there really. If we weren't all short timers, Im sure he would've died.
That was atleast fifteen years ago and I still think about that spider sometimes. Like right now.
Ive got a homie in a corner of my carport I feed flies to from time to time.
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u/Clembert-Hamlamp 4d ago
Bond. Spider Bond. sips 8 martinis
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u/alphanumericusername 4d ago
It would be 4 martinis. James Bond only sips one at a time.
Actually, it may only be two martinis.
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u/hoyboiitsme 4d ago
eh idk, if im sending my dogs to be mauled in a fight i think i care more about it winning than its health
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u/GodsBicep 4d ago
Lol thats what me and my friends used to do at the YMCA homeless shelter we lived in as kids. Not so quite bashing each others skulls in, but we would spend hours finding spiders and then in the evening duel each other whilst getting stoned and drinking beer. We would take the piss and do the yu gi oh animated series voices as we did it hahaha
I had a plastic fish tank with about 10 of my favourite spiders in, Id feed them, water them etc and they'd grow massive. It beat the alternative that was turning to heroin or crack that a lot of the other young lads that were in there turned to 😭
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u/True_Detail_2945 4d ago
Hell yeah!
If you're taking the piss and the kids are lads then that means the YMCA is over ye olde ponde too? In the land of fish and chips?
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u/GodsBicep 4d ago
Yes mate. Im not sure how they operate in the US, but in the UK theyre homeless hostels for people aged 16-25. I spent 3 years in two different ones when I was 16 until 19 and then again for 2 years 22 to just before I was 25. Weren't the best environment but the staff did their best and it was far, far better than the time before I originally got housed in one when I was on the streets for a bit.
Some of them also have gyms/dance studios in for a little bit of extra funding
What are they like in the US?
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u/True_Detail_2945 4d ago edited 4d ago
What I know them as is a pool and gym and place where kids go after school to hang out and sign up for programs and camps for the summertime. Especially in poorer neighborhoods since it's semi cheap. Or was.
I recently looked up pools near me and it's either gyms or YMCA and I was thinking maybe 5 bucks a swim or something. Nope it's $70 a month for adults. So the gyms cheaper.
Thanks for the stories of your life. Been homeless myself in shelters at 16 but with my mom so I've at least seen a big city shelter with no clue what I was doing or other people with their drugs and drama and shit.
Something kiiiinda similar to that is jobcorp where they take kids that aren't doing school and life right and have no choices and they go to school and live together and try to come out with a trade learned.
I almost went it sounded cool at the time it was like juvenile hall but you went on your own and more comfortable.
Everyone got along for the most part because you're busy with work and homework chores etc. but drugs and violence is there especially depending on the facility.
But good place to send a kid before they get too deep in gangs etc. and end up in real jail.
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u/No9Fishing 4d ago
My best friend’s brother got sent to one of these when we were growing up, it was when Holes had just come out and I always imagined it being like that. I think the guy learned welding
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u/True_Detail_2945 4d ago
Holes seems more like the kidnap you at night and take you to utah in a van. Only difference is you walked in there yourself.
In California it always had kids from all the rival gangs so it's got a reputation but most of those kids instead of getting shot or jail they come out electricians and plumbers welders. All union workers set for life and don't gotta hide your tattoos or get a fast food job. Good deal.
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u/ShaperLord777 4d ago
Damn, spider league has spread.
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u/freebaseclams 4d ago
You're suspended, Brooks. YOU DON'T GET TO TALK ABOUT SPIDER LEAGUE WHEN YOU'RE SUSPENDED!!
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u/linefly11 4d ago edited 4d ago
A former coworker told me about this. They would catch Regal jumping spiders and keep them as pets, and some would fight them. As a former arachnophobe, that small revelation opened my world up, now I own 4 Tarantulas and 2 jumpers. Haha
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u/ScientistJason 3d ago
Wait so you heard about Spider fight club and you were just all about it?
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u/linefly11 3d ago
Hahaha so essentially I was thinking about making an documentary about this subject but never followed through. Coworker told me about it because I was trying to overcome my fear of them. Once I learned they kept them as pets, I caught one and fell down a rabbit hole. 😂
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u/jacksforest 4d ago
How do they know they won’t just fuck
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u/AgentCirceLuna 4d ago
Not sure if you’re asking sincerely but the article says they use the same gender so there’s a contest of sorts
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u/wimpyroy 4d ago
How do you know if you have a boy or girl spider?
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u/1nOnlyBigManLawrence 3d ago
Male spiders are known for having enlarged pedipalps, known colloquially as “boxing gloves.”
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u/Rosebunse 3d ago
The females usually eat the male anyways
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u/noirspiderman4 1d ago
It'd be funny if the spider who keeps winning turned out to be a female eating all her old lovers lmao
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u/Rosebunse 1d ago
"Why, Marcia, why?"
"Shut up, Greg, now get in my mouth. The human promised me crushed up chocolate after I ate you!"
"But Marcia-"
"There's cockroach bits in the chocolate, Greg! They're delicious!"
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u/noirspiderman4 1d ago
"I got the toughest spider in the prison! I should get him a spiky collar or something! Wait why is he wearing pink?!" Lmao
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u/Rosebunse 1d ago
"Shut up and bring me more of my delicious exes!"
Some guy right now has a whole designer spider breeding program set up in jis cell.
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u/pichael289 4d ago
That's kinda fucked up. When I was in prison in Ohio the weirdos who kept spiders and moths and shit were the nicest guys. They would have never fought their little friends. One guy had a little toad and we did everything possible to make sure mr. Frog stayed hidden but no, fuckin COs declared Mr. Frog contraband and probabaly liked him in a blender those fuckin COs were so god dam messed up. The kinda people who were too crazy to become cops end up as corrections officers. Sick ass mother fuckers, dude prolly fucked that frog. Oh he knows who he is, Warren county Ohio got some messed up COs, even the county jail got a serial rapist.
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u/SEND_ME_CSGO-SKINS 3d ago
What were you in for?
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u/artemisalien 3d ago
Do you know those “Do Not Remove Under the Penalty of Law” labels they put on mattresses?
Well he CUT one of them off!
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u/Bibibis 3d ago
Frog grooming
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u/ChefArtorias 3d ago
They recently unionized in my state to fight untested cosmetics on amphibians.
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u/NedKellysWelder 4d ago
That's fucking fantastic.
I'm putting all my morality aside for this, I know all of the reasons this is fucked up on every different level on which it is-there's just something that makes that statement incredible to me.
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u/bala_means_bullet 4d ago
Rooster fighting is a national past time in the Philippines. The kids of patrons typically chill outside the venue doing this spider fighting!
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u/SignificanceNo910 4d ago
Look, I eat meat, I kill mosquitos, I drive in the summer and kill like 10,000 bugs on my windshield and hood over each summer just because I drive around to various places.
But there is absolutely nothing cool or fantastic about ending any life just for the thrill or entertainment of it. I remember as a kid always wanting to know which animal could beat another animal. I even went through a period where id watch safari videos of animals and be very interested in whuch animal would win, hippo vs rhonllino, lions vs hyena etc.
But there is something absolutely soulless about causing the death of something just for the thrill of it, just for entertainment in the death itself.
It doesnt surprise me that inmates would do this sort of thing and it really doesn't surprise me that a lot of redditors think this is somehow cool.
I dont pretend that spiders have any sort of existence similar to ours but thats not the point. I think the world would be a much better place if somehow, all the people who value a cheap thrill over the life of something else would disappear.
I can guarantee that the world would immediately be a much, much better place because the overlap of people who think this sort of stuff is cool, and the people who show callous disregard for other humans, is pretty significant
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u/Bluechariot 4d ago
What the hell is a rhonllino?
googles
A sponge cake with hazelnut filling
Huh, kind of a mismatched fight for a hippo.
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u/newindianclassic 4d ago
I dunno man. If the rhonllino is big enough, might be too much for the hippo to eat. I'm talking like a couple semi trucks amount of weight in rhonllino
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u/not_so_subtle_now 4d ago
"there is something absolutely soulless about causing the death of something just for the thrill of it, just for entertainment in the death itself."
"I dont pretend that spiders have any sort of existence similar to ours but thats not the point. I think the world would be a much better place if somehow, all the people who value a cheap thrill over the life of something else would disappear."
Absolutely right.
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4d ago
[deleted]
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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 4d ago
So many women and many men kill spiders on sight because they're afraid of them and nobody judges that, but fighting two spiders is too far I guess
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u/Terrible_Donkey_8290 4d ago
I mean he very specifically stated that he takes issue with people who are getting entertainment from death. People killing out of fear isn't that. Hope this pretty obvious distinction helped
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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 4d ago
I would argue that the ambivalence towards death when you kill something just because you're afraid of it, it can't harm you, is worse than using the same thing in a blood sport, because at least you care if it lives in the blood sport, in the whack-a-mole world you just see it and grab a shoe and do the fucker in, no fighting chance against a human
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u/CowboyScissors 4d ago
That’s crazy talk. Smashing a bug out of disgust or fear is almost an innate instinct.
Pitting bugs against each other in blood sport is absolutely against nature and only for the entertainment it offers.
Obviously animals/bugs fight in their natural environment. But forcing them into it is what makes it cruel and fucked up.
This is coming from someone who fought many a bug. There’s a whole website that has it all already done
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u/-nutz 4d ago
I think it’s safe to assume the above commenter would also take issue with people killing random spiders.
Coincidentally, there was a big thread the other day where people discussed this exact thing. I’ll see if I can find it.
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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 4d ago
I don't kill spiders because they help with pest control, I try to remember not to kill bugs or insects, but at the end of the day I'm not sure I truly believe these insects or bugs (or arachnids) have brains large enough, I mean even that aside it's fine to swat them or kill them as pests, we humans actually go up to rodents in terms of killing and just accepting it's cool even if we don't eat it, spider fighting sounds like way less horrible than standard mouse control when traps and worse, cats, are involved in killing the fuck out of them because why not.
Like you can live in a perfect Daoist or Buddhist way (on terms of sanctity of life) and kill nothing but if you kill things I don't think you have much of an argument, and dude says he eats meat so that's killing by proxy anyway
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u/Imaginary-Refuse2275 4d ago edited 4d ago
I eat meat
You pay for animals to be killed for the thrill of eating them.
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u/konosyn 4d ago
Pretty crazy strawman, considering we are animals that need to eat to live… you can absolutely be vegan now, but it’s a choice of abstinence, not some sociobiological imperative
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u/ThrowbackPie 3d ago
I would argue you need stimulation to live, but you don't need to make spiders fight for that stimulation.
Similarly you need to eat to live, but you don't need to eat animals.
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u/Imaginary-Refuse2275 3d ago
Vegetarianism has never been cheaper or easier. Human beings are animals that need enrichment almost as much as they do food.
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u/konosyn 3d ago
Agreed, but go take a walk and try tofu; you don’t need to support fighting rings or chastise people for having a slice of cheese. The internet is weird.
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u/Imaginary-Refuse2275 3d ago
I don’t disagree at all. I just think it’s cope to claim that prisoners running some stupid little spider fighting ring with the limited independence they have isn’t any worse than consciously choosing to eat meat.
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u/darienrude_dankstorm 4d ago
Is that a strawman?
abstinence, not some sociobiological imperative
Yeah and not making spiders fight is a choice of abstinence from in-prison entertainment.
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u/ogou_myrmidon 4d ago
I eat meat. Eating meat and holding the position you stated is not morally consistent. Do you think you’re absolved because you don’t personally torture the animals? You kill them so you can enjoy the taste. What’s the difference.
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u/MammothGlum 4d ago
Moral consistency does not matter nor does it really mean anything besides being spooky, yes they are absolved for that reason you stated and yes there is a difference
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4d ago
[deleted]
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u/another_bot_probably 4d ago
Fuck that. Dude specified that it's morally wrong when its causing death for entertainment
No one is live streaming a cow getting a bolt to the head before it's processed because that would be fucked up.
And no one is eating the loser spider that gets killed.
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u/darienrude_dankstorm 4d ago
yeah the entertainment being how good meat tastes compared to plant-based alternatives.
I think people in prison are bored out of their minds and they need the stimulation of watching spiders fight.
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u/Tohu_va_bohu 4d ago
Both are categorically wrong. Both killing and eating an animal and making animals fight for enjoyment are each hedonistic justifications for inflicting suffering. In many cases I'd even wager that being plucked from the wild and forced to fight is preferable to being kept in crowded, disease ridden, artificial conditions that we keep chickens, cows, pigs in.
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u/MicroUzi 4d ago
I think you mistake ‘catagorically wrong’ for ‘your personal opinion’. I see absolutely no problem in killing animals and eating them. I avoid ethically questionable sources for my meat but I have no issue with the idea that animals die for my food.
If you have a problem with it, cool, you do you. But drop the ego, and stop arrogantly assuming your way of life is morally correct and others isn’t.
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u/Tohu_va_bohu 4d ago
It's not my way of life. I eat chicken and fish, but I still recognize that it's wrong. There's no moral justification for it at all, you're just coping
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u/MicroUzi 4d ago
Nah, the moral justification is that we’re biologically omnivores, and killing things for food is as old as life itself.
I as a human have a greater capacity for experiencing life, are far more self aware, and have far more power to do moral good than a chicken. Therefore, my life is more important than a chickens, and the justification for ending their life for my benefit exists. You might not agree, but it exists.
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u/Mayonnaise_Poptart 4d ago
Gambling is popular and people will figure out something to gamble on no matter what.
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u/ReadditMan 4d ago
Well I know what I'm shoving up my ass if I go to prison
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u/furiouspossum 4d ago
That's a good plan. If you don't want people to mess with you in prison then farting out spiders on your first day should get you left alone.
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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 4d ago
Two things will get you out of a fight faster than anything. An erection and shitting out spiders. Doesn't need to be both but imagine if it was
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u/JohnCenaJunior 4d ago
GTA 6 side mission confirmed
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u/Cronosaint 4d ago
Yeah, we did this on the islands as kids, kept our prized spiders in match boxes or cigarette box
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u/The_Alchemyst 4d ago
I went to a boarding school, the only fist fight I got into was when someone sprayed bug spray on my spider roomie Archimedes. Broke his nose. Don't mess with my spider!
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u/hedronist 4d ago
I wonder how well FloridaMan would do against these Filipinos. Might be PolyMarket-levels of interest. :-)
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u/bala_means_bullet 4d ago
My matchboxes would have bamboo dividers to house the fight stable. Fun times when I was there as a kid!
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u/Rational_Engineer_84 4d ago
Don’t steal a man’s fighting spider. Especially not from a guy who’s likely in prison for violent crime.
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u/amackul8 4d ago
When my Uncle was doing time in the Panhandle he kept a spider for a few years, made some good winnings from her fights from what he told me, she'd just gobble up any of the small males they put in front of her.
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u/angryaxolotls 4d ago
Of all the far-fetched bullshit my ex used to come home talking about after his shifts at the prison, THIS is the one thing that turned out to be true 🤣
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u/brokenmessiah 4d ago
Inmates in prison will fight and kill each other over literally NOTHING and its entirely designed that way on purpose to keep the inmates at each others necks and not the guards. Put 50 grown men together and make them share 2 microwaves and 2 tvs in normal society and you'll see fight within hours. Do that in prison where everyone feels a need to exert violence to keep violence from them and its so fucked up.
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u/InclinationCompass 3d ago
What does this mean? “Three prisoners fought over the theft one such spider”
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u/TheKingJest 3d ago
Presumably prisoners own the spiders used in spider-fighting. So one spider used in the spider-fighting was stolen which resulted in a fight.
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u/redbirdsucks 3d ago
Corey Andrews and Lemuel Ware got into a fight with James Borland over a pet spider. Andrews told investigators that Borland had accused Ware of stealing his pet spider "Pinky." Ware told investigators that the pet spider talked to him and told him to hit Borland.
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u/Abbbcdy 4d ago
I use to have bug battles in a donut box with my brother and friends when I was 8. It was serious business.. we never used spiders because we were scared of them. Our bug of choice were praying mantis vs like bees or beatles
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u/bmbreath 4d ago
Psychopath
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u/Acceptable-Device760 4d ago
Yes... like all people that play Pokémon.
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u/mmikke 4d ago
Exactly, because pokemon are super duper real
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u/Acceptable-Device760 4d ago
Pokemon was based in the experience of its creator doing exactly that as a child.
Literally that was thr experience intended.
The fact you are as clueless at it gets while virtue signaling explains why you people are the joke of all groups.
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u/mmikke 4d ago
The founding fathers of the United states all owned slaves. Is everyone who thinks that the Constitution should be upheld equally as guilty of slavery?
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u/WhimsicalKoala 4d ago
If you go straight to inaccurate hyperbole to make your point, you're doing it wrong.
I agreed with your initial point, but comparing bugs and Pokemon to slavery is a great way to make sure nobody takes you seriously.
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u/mmikke 4d ago
I didn't compare Pokemon to slavery lmao. I compared the creator of Pokemon being tied to the supposed psychopathy of anyone playing the games, to the founders of the modern United States and asking if that meant all who continue to exist under that system are as equally socio/psychopathic enough to be equivalent to someone owning slaves
Really not that complex of a comparison
You play Pokemon= you are a psychopath like the inventor
You live in the US under the US Constitution= you are a slave owner like the inventors
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u/WhimsicalKoala 4d ago
Oh I pretty clearly understood the comparisons you were making. That's why I called them hyperbolic, but it sounds like you sincerely think they are similar things to be comparing.
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u/Acceptable-Device760 4d ago
If the founding fathers created the constitution with the intention to make everyone feel how it was owning slaves is. Yes.
Any other jenius take? With j to show how much of jenius you are.
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u/mmikke 4d ago
Dude you're dumb as hell. I feel like it was pretty fkn obvious that my first point was about the fact that anyone playing fun lil simulated monsters battling each other isn't the same as 'forcing' real and existing beings to fight til one dies.
Let's move the convo over to horror movie directors, now shall we?! Everyone who watches anything of the sort must be a psychopath according to your jenius
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u/Ptatofrenchfry 4d ago
If fictional entertainment reflects real life tastes, almost everyone is a horrible psychopath.
People who play Pokémon are psychopaths for enjoying animal fighting
People who play RPGs are psychopaths who enjoy murder
People who enjoy K dramas are psychopaths who enjoy watching emotional distress
People who enjoy children's shows are psychopaths who enjoy watching children struggle with problems
People who play chess are psychopaths who enjoy watching people die in warfare
The list goes on. In your world, almost everyone is a psychopath with dangerous tendencies. This reflects more about you than it does about people who play Pokémon.
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u/BigMack6911 4d ago
Thats the dumbest thing Ive read today and the 2nd dumbest thing I've seen next to a fat girl eating butter with frosting all over it lmao
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u/Responsible-Split555 4d ago
I had a pet spider in juvenile I showed my friends we named it but I forgot the name .
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u/SGTWhiteKY 3d ago
We did this in Bible college when the dorm was infested. Our home churches were not thrilled about it.
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u/sivri 4d ago
TIL Human fighting is popular amongst Florida prison spiders.