I do think that insects are extremely important. I am, however, very surprised that you believe insects have net negative lives and that you seem to suggest that reducing their numbers is actually good for them. My intuition has always been that they live fairly good lives. Honeybees, for example seem to enjoy some of the things we enjoy like searching for food, eating it, telling their friends about their findings, building things, sitting in the sun, cuddling together, sleeping, dreaming etc. They also experience things we can only imagine like flying and 360° vision. What they don’t seem to experience are certain forms of bodily pain caused by injury due to their exoskeleton and the negative feelings that come with overthinking things. (All of this is very speculative of course)
For the moment we just can’t know which intuition is right and with about 1 million insect species we might expect to find the whole range. Species that live very good lives, those that have very bad ones and those that aren’t sentient at all. On the edge of sentience there might even be animals that can experience only joy or only suffering.
So, what would be the best course of action in light of uncertainty?
I would argue that
research on insect welfare should be our top priority.
and
until more data is in, we should protect rather than decimate insects because of the asymmetrical risk involved. If we drive the happiest species in the world into extinction it would be hard to overestimate the amount of joy, we would have destroyed. If on the other hand your view is right we could still decimate populations once we know that this is a good thing. Furthermore, at this point there just is no way to reduce populations without causing unimaginable harm. (Unless insects aren’t sentient, of course.)
I’m fairly new to the topic of insect welfare, so please point out if I made any logical errors and recommendations for good research projects are always welcome.
I do think that insects are extremely important. I am, however, very surprised that you believe insects have net negative lives and that you seem to suggest that reducing their numbers is actually good for them. My intuition has always been that they live fairly good lives. Honeybees, for example seem to enjoy some of the things we enjoy like searching for food, eating it, telling their friends about their findings, building things, sitting in the sun, cuddling together, sleeping, dreaming etc. They also experience things we can only imagine like flying and 360° vision. What they don’t seem to experience are certain forms of bodily pain caused by injury due to their exoskeleton and the negative feelings that come with overthinking things. (All of this is very speculative of course)
For the moment we just can’t know which intuition is right and with about 1 million insect species we might expect to find the whole range. Species that live very good lives, those that have very bad ones and those that aren’t sentient at all. On the edge of sentience there might even be animals that can experience only joy or only suffering.
So, what would be the best course of action in light of uncertainty?
I would argue that
research on insect welfare should be our top priority.
and
until more data is in, we should protect rather than decimate insects because of the asymmetrical risk involved. If we drive the happiest species in the world into extinction it would be hard to overestimate the amount of joy, we would have destroyed. If on the other hand your view is right we could still decimate populations once we know that this is a good thing. Furthermore, at this point there just is no way to reduce populations without causing unimaginable harm. (Unless insects aren’t sentient, of course.)
I’m fairly new to the topic of insect welfare, so please point out if I made any logical errors and recommendations for good research projects are always welcome.