Why so many of us are casual spider-murderers

Living in Australia, I'm not going to take the chance. Daddy long legs I'll generally live with until my next house clean, at which point I'll vacuum them up. Hunstmen I won't stop what I'm doing immeditately, but I will remove them from the house the same day.

Anything else is kill on sight.

The author spends the whole article speculating about random topics, at the end mentions that it's most likely a shared notion that people don't consider all species as equal, but spends no time discussing this further.

This is more something you would read in a waiting room than actual content.

> She points out that our disregard for spiders is partly a Western peculiarity, since some cultures and religions – such as Buddhism – have held the view that all living things are precious for millennia.

This is something I’ve thought about a fair bit. I don’t mind spiders and will generally try not to kill them where possible. If they’re small enough I leave them where they are and large ones like daddy long legs I’ll capture and release.

I don’t do the same for flies and moths though. They get swatted. I have a mild phobia of them (not strong enough to call a phobia really). But I do often question myself on the morality of causal (intentional) killing of creatures like this.

As the “man of the household”, my jobs include repairing the mailbox and putting spiders outside.

When the wife tells me there is a spider in the shower I reply: "Oh, you mean Steve?"

Spiders eat the mosquitos so that's plus.

I generally leave them be or take them outside. House centipedes are a different matter. Those are usually eliminated on sight.

I do have as a general rule that anything univited into the house I can do with as I want as a boundary issue. So sometimes things end up getting exterminated. But spiders don't really damage anything so I don't harm them.

Jumping spiders I actually like for some reason and am kinda happy to see them.

I'm fortunate enough to live somewhere with no venomous or large spiders, so I never feel the need to kill them; they are quiet and eat much more annoying bugs, so at worst I'll move them outside if any end up inside my home, but I might also ignore them completely if they're not constructing a net or something.

If they were actually dangerous, I might react differently though.

Spider needs to learn: there is nothing to gain and earn in my domain. Except pain, and entering another turn in the circle of life.

I don’t like killing living things. I also don’t like spiders