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Started by Captain Utopia, January 13, 2010, 08:45:06 PM

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Captain Utopia

As a kid, I paid more attention to small things like bugs walking along the ground.  Sometimes I'd give one a little poke, and he'd roll onto his back, retract his funny little legs, and pretend to be dead.  Knowing that was the extent of the fun, and that there were plenty more bugs, I'd ignore it and move on to something else.  Pretending to be dead is an excellent survival strategy, but it goes no farther.  Then one day when I was three, I tried playing with a wasp which was resting on a step.  To this day I'm still wary of wasps.

Which brings me to my question - what is The City afraid of?  Not the same thing as I - it buzzes to life every morning with tightly-packed wasps brought in on the 07:43 Eastbound to Union.  Is there anything to be gained in knowing its fear or becoming something that The City will fear?  We bugs are fun to play with, but easily exterminated, after all.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: FP on January 13, 2010, 08:45:06 PM
As a kid, I paid more attention to small things like bugs walking along the ground.  Sometimes I'd give one a little poke, and he'd roll onto his back, retract his funny little legs, and pretend to be dead.  Knowing that was the extent of the fun, and that there were plenty more bugs, I'd ignore it and move on to something else.  Pretending to be dead is an excellent survival strategy, but it goes no farther.  Then one day when I was three, I tried playing with a wasp which was resting on a step.  To this day I'm still wary of wasps.

Which brings me to my question - what is The City afraid of?  Not the same thing as I - it buzzes to life every morning with tightly-packed wasps brought in on the 07:43 Eastbound to Union.  Is there anything to be gained in knowing its fear or becoming something that The City will fear?  We bugs are fun to play with, but easily exterminated, after all.

The City is only afraid that you won't be a good little consumer and feed it regularly let it gorge itself on your soul.
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

BabylonHoruv

I played with wasps as a child.  I would kill them, which would attract more, and then I would kill those as they attempted to take their deceased sister home to be cannibalized.

The city is scared of a lot of things, that's why it has laws.  But I would much rather it not be afraid of me.
You're a special case, Babylon.  You are offensive even when you don't post.

Merely by being alive, you make everyone just a little more miserable

-Dok Howl

Captain Utopia

Quote from: BabylonHoruv on January 13, 2010, 08:55:07 PM
The city is scared of a lot of things, that's why it has laws.  But I would much rather it not be afraid of me.
The only way I can think to do that is to KYFMS.. but how is that different from rolling over and pretending to be dead?

Jasper

I like where this thread is going.

The City is afraid of poverty.  Mostly its own, but poverty of others as well.  It hides the reminders of poverty under bridges and in ghettos, and trembles in fear at state budget reports.  Men are made of blood, and cities are made of money.  If you can lawfully exert poverty over a city, it is yours for the taking.

The Good Reverend Roger

The City is afraid because it's a big stupid beast that only knows fight/flight.

It's like one of those dinosaurs that supposedly needed a brain at each end, only the second one got lost in shipping, and the first one was all dented, but we used it anyway...Because it's all we had and there was no warranty because we were too cheap to pay for insurance on the shipment.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Kai

When I was a child, I played with insects. Which I guess means that childhood has lasted 24 years, since I still play with insects every day. I kill a great many, but not out of spite, oddly enough, out of care. But I digress.

Insects have a great many adaptations for staying alive in dangerous and bizarre situations. They have camoflauge, startling eyespots, and thanatosis (what we often call playing dead). Some are internal or external parasites, some live in water as larvae and fly as adults. Their food sources are as diverse as their habitats. And the defenses of some are not pleasant. If paper wasp's sting hurts bad for you, try a saddleback caterpillar, or a bullet ant, or a velvet ant. On second thought, don't try that last one, there's a reason they're called "Cow Killers".

The point is, we bugs aren't so easily exterminated. There are many of us, and we seem to be everywhere. Also, we all have defenses, not the stings and bites of insects, but the tools and minds of hominids.

Have you noticed how many stinging insects mimic each other in coloring? I'm talking about the black and white pattern, the warning coloration that says back the FUCK off or I'm gonna sting your ass. Now, I don't think it would do anything if we all started dressing up in black and white stripes...but there's something to openly having some indication of ones dangerousness, even if you don't go around stabbing people in the eye. Something that says, back the fuck off, something that says, don't mess with me.

Just a thought.
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

BabylonHoruv

Quote from: Kai on January 14, 2010, 01:19:58 AM
When I was a child, I played with insects. Which I guess means that childhood has lasted 24 years, since I still play with insects every day. I kill a great many, but not out of spite, oddly enough, out of care. But I digress.

Insects have a great many adaptations for staying alive in dangerous and bizarre situations. They have camoflauge, startling eyespots, and thanatosis (what we often call playing dead). Some are internal or external parasites, some live in water as larvae and fly as adults. Their food sources are as diverse as their habitats. And the defenses of some are not pleasant. If paper wasp's sting hurts bad for you, try a saddleback caterpillar, or a bullet ant, or a velvet ant. On second thought, don't try that last one, there's a reason they're called "Cow Killers".

The point is, we bugs aren't so easily exterminated. There are many of us, and we seem to be everywhere. Also, we all have defenses, not the stings and bites of insects, but the tools and minds of hominids.

Have you noticed how many stinging insects mimic each other in coloring? I'm talking about the black and white pattern, the warning coloration that says back the FUCK off or I'm gonna sting your ass. Now, I don't think it would do anything if we all started dressing up in black and white stripes...but there's something to openly having some indication of ones dangerousness, even if you don't go around stabbing people in the eye. Something that says, back the fuck off, something that says, don't mess with me.

Just a thought.

Human's dress up in bright colors to do this too.  But instead of black and white stripes it is blue or red bandannas.

Some of us go around with prominently displayed stingers, although most of us prefer to keep them where nobody can see.
You're a special case, Babylon.  You are offensive even when you don't post.

Merely by being alive, you make everyone just a little more miserable

-Dok Howl

Jasper

Now I want to get a hold of some velvet ants for malicious purposes.

....Hey, what if terrorists started using velvet ants to hijack planes?

Cainad (dec.)

Quote from: Felix on January 14, 2010, 02:30:40 AM
Now I want to get a hold of some velvet ants for malicious purposes.

....Hey, what if terrorists started using velvet ants to hijack planes?

YOU = ON TEH LIST NOW, BUDDY BOY

Also, it would certainly be a creative way of doing it. It would open up a whole new category of things for people to be irrationally afraid of.

"The IFYOUDON'TVOTEFORTHISYOULOVETERRORISTS Bill passed into law today, banning the possession of insects..."

Jasper

Oh well, soon enough we'll be routinely sedated for the duration of every flight, for our safety.  Maybe a few planefuls of people will die when being awake could have saved their lives, but at least you won't be bored on flights!