
Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests - conse_lad
https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2019/07/11/thwack--insects-feel-chronic-pain-after-injury.html
======
YeGoblynQueenne
>> “People don’t really think of insects as feeling any kind of pain,” said
Associate Professor Neely. “But it’s already been shown in lots of different
invertebrate animals that they can sense and avoid dangerous stimuli that we
perceive as painful. In non-humans, we call this sense ‘nociception’, the
sense that detects potentially harmful stimuli like heat, cold, or physical
injury, but for simplicity we can refer to what insects experience as ‘pain’.”

I don't understand the insistence of the article to place quotes around the
word pain when referring to what insects feel. These are animals that can
sense their surroundings and react to stimuli. How else would they be
convinced to avoid dangerous situations, than by an unpleasant sensation?

In any case, the simplest hypothesis is that all animals can feel pain. The
null hypothesis should be the opposite. And it has to be a complex hypothesis
that explains why some animals can feel pain while others don't (which is
tricky).

~~~
Hendrikto
> I don't understand the insistence of the article to place quotes around the
> word pain when referring to what insects feel. These are animals that can
> sense their surroundings and react to stimuli. How else would they be
> convinced to avoid dangerous situations, than by an unpleasant sensation?

If you build a robot which senses dangerous stimuli and avoids them, does it
feel pain?

Equating reaction to stimuli with pain is too sinplistic.

~~~
jbotz
You feel pain, right? Well, an insect is a lot more like you than a robot...
the mechanism by which it it decides what to seek and what to avoid is based
on an infrastructure that's very similar to your own, even if much simpler.
And the experience of pain appears to be something very fundamental in the
wiring of living things, its avoidance being very directly connected to
evolutionary success. So it is absolutely logical to assume this mechanism is
fundamentally equivalent in humans and insects. The behavior is the same, the
wiring is the same, why not use the same word?

For now, most robots's decision-making apparatus isn't anything like yours. So
it really doesn't make much sense to use the same vocabulary. But that could
change if we use neural-network computing in a way that appears to more
directly simulate the functioning of living organisms. Maybe building an ant-
robot that's really a functional copy of a biological ant isn't that far off,
and in that case, sure, it might feel pain.

I don't see anything simplistic about this.

~~~
slfnflctd
This seems like the most rational stance to me now.

I had a pastor once attempt to teach me that all animals are basically robots,
and that this justifies treating them however we want. In his mind, we're the
only ones actually 'awake'. I suspect a whole lot of people think like this on
some level in order to justify all the ongoing barbaric treatment they
willingly endorse or carry out.

Hearing that shook me up for a bit, but in the long run it accelerated the
process of me abandoning religion.

------
nabla9
Infant surgery without anesthesia was common still in the mid 80's
[https://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/17/opinion/l-why-infant-
surg...](https://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/17/opinion/l-why-infant-surgery-
without-anesthesia-went-unchallenged-832387.html)

> surveys of medical professionals indicate that as recently as 1986 infants
> as old as 15 months were receiving no anesthesia during surgery at most
> American hospitals.

It's unknown where the consciousness starts (the hard problem sense) is but
it's not unreasonable to assume that sentience (ability to feel pain and
pleasure and experience subjectively) and ability to suffer that comes with it
happens long before the ability to form long term memories, object permanence,
or other any other cognitive abilities.

~~~
rv-de
Experiences of stress will even impact the neurological development of an
embryo or a fetus. It's totally realistic to assume that a human will have to
suffer psychologically even decades later from a psychological scarring caused
by such surgery without anesthesia.

~~~
toasterlovin
It is reasonable to entertain the hypothesis. It is unreasonable to assume
that it is true.

~~~
deogeo
I (and Occam's razor) would say the exact opposite - one should assume the
effect will be the similar as for an older human, unless proven otherwise.

Otherwise you're making the unproven assumption that an infant's mind responds
to pain differently - why would you think that? And which other subgroups of
humans could you make evidence-free assumptions that they are different from
the default (however chosen) human?

~~~
toasterlovin
> It's totally realistic to assume that a human will have to suffer
> psychologically _even decades later_ from a psychological scarring caused by
> such surgery without anesthesia.

That’s what OP said, emphasis mine. I agree with you: that infants experience
pain in the same way as adults should be the default hypothesis. That they
remain psychologically scarred by it for decades, however, should not be.

~~~
rv-de
Why not? The obvious difference is that an adults nervous system is developed
while an infant's is still developing.

"Early life stress may have a lasting impact on the developmental programming
of the dopamine (DA) system implicated in psychosis." [1]

I highly recommend Gabor Maté's book "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts" for a
deeper discussion of how various types of pre- and postnatal stress impact a
person's proclivity towards addictive behavior and ADHD.

But even for adults extreme and overwhelming stressful experiences can cause
long-lasting and even multigenerational psychological consequences through
epigenetic mechanisms.

1:
[https://lirias.kuleuven.be/648892?limo=0](https://lirias.kuleuven.be/648892?limo=0)

~~~
toasterlovin
The link you provide A) has a very low N (24, half of which are controls) and
B) does not account for genetic confounding. Am I missing something?

Also, there is essentially zero evidence for hereditary epigenetic mechanisms.
Epigenetic changes are common in the somatic cell lineages (which make up the
entire organism except for the sperm and eggs), but there are very few
plausible mechanisms by which epigenetic changes in somatic cells can somehow
make their way back to the germ line cells (eggs and sperm) and, thus, exert
an influence on subsequent generations. On top of the theoretical
underpinnings being essentially implausible, there is no good evidence that
hereditary epigenetic mechanisms exist. The only evidence I am aware of in
humans are the children of Dutch women who went through a famine in 1944.
However, that evidence has since evaporated. Here's a quote from the
Wikipedia[0]:

"Moreover, the children of the women who were pregnant during the famine were
smaller, as expected. However, surprisingly, when these children grew up and
had children those children were thought to also be smaller than average.[11]
This data suggested that the famine experienced by the mothers caused some
kind of epigenetic changes that were passed down to the next generation.
Despite this, a subsequent study by the same author failed to find a
correlation between maternal exposure to famine and birth weight of the next
generation."

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944–45](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944–45)

------
linnaeus
Rethink Priorities (which focuses on foundational research on neglected
causes) has carried out a massive amount of research recently on invertebrate
welfare and sentience.

Their findings are well worth a read:

> Rethink Priorities reviewed the scientific literature relevant to
> invertebrate sentience. We selected 53 features potentially indicative of
> the capacity for valenced experience and examined the degree to which these
> features are found throughout 18 representative biological taxa. These data
> have been compiled into an easily sortable database that will enable animal
> welfare organizations to better gauge the probability that (various species
> of) invertebrates have the capacity for valenced experience. This essay
> details what we’ve done, why, and the strengths and weaknesses of our
> approach.

[https://www.rethinkpriorities.org/blog/2019/6/7/invertebrate...](https://www.rethinkpriorities.org/blog/2019/6/7/invertebrate-
sentience-a-useful-empirical-resource)

------
gupe
I wonder if one could make a case for having to be more humane in insect
farming? Current practices include steaming and crushing insects to death.

(The Economist | Grub’s up [https://www.economist.com/science-and-
technology/2019/07/06/...](https://www.economist.com/science-and-
technology/2019/07/06/beetles-and-flies-are-becoming-part-of-the-agricultural-
food-chain?frsc=dg%7Ce))

~~~
linnaeus
Brian Tomasik argues that we should avoid insect farming entirely since it's
likely worse (ethically speaking) than farming larger nonhuman animals:

> Entomophagy (eating insects for food) is sometimes proposed as an
> alternative to factory farming because it has lower environmental impact.
> But entomophagy is not necessarily more humane than factory farming of
> livestock all things considered, and along some dimensions it's actually
> worse, because it involves killing vastly more animals per unit of protein.
> Rather than promoting insect consumption, let's focus on plant-based meat
> substitutes.

[https://reducing-suffering.org/why-i-dont-support-eating-
ins...](https://reducing-suffering.org/why-i-dont-support-eating-insects/)

~~~
swebs
That makes the silly assumption that all organisms are equal. I'm sure we can
all agree that a human's life is more valuable than a bacterium's. Or else
you'd have to admit to genocide every time you use hand sanitizer.

~~~
GordonS
It's an interesting point though - if we remove human life from the equation,
how do you define the "value" of an animal or insect life?

It will even vary from culture to culture; for example, cows are revered in
much of India, and in much of the west we seem to place more value on values
we perceive as "cute", such as dolphins, or "magnificent", such as whales.

------
monort
Somewhat related essay from a negative utilitarian about consequences of
insects feeling pain: [https://reducing-suffering.org/the-importance-of-
insect-suff...](https://reducing-suffering.org/the-importance-of-insect-
suffering/)

~~~
Der_Einzige
It's nice to see folks becoming aware of negative utilitarianism.

------
mrhappyunhappy
As a kid I would rip limbs off insects one by one and watch them suffer. As an
adult I carefully capture them inside and release outside. With all the insect
die offs and all, little critters who stroll into my place get a 2nd chance.
Unless they are mosquitoes. Those suckers get a quick death.

------
derangedHorse
I once read something on Reddit that imagined how the world would be like if
ants could make audible noise in response to being touched or killed. I feel
like that definitely add a new perspective to how we see insects

------
gexla
Seems like there could be a mythical story or similar here.

Hero asks the gods for gift of healing. Gods grant the gift along with pain so
that we know when we are injured (and of course, in need of the gift.) No gift
from the gods comes free.

I'll be sure to be more careful with my insect friends. And I'll be more
vigilant in compassionate killing.

~~~
jobigoud
This would be a sick joke from the God, because as the article imply, they
still feel the pain after healing. It's worse than we have it.

~~~
DanBC
Lots of people with long term pain have healed but still feel pain.

------
xenonite
TLDR: They damaged a nerve in one leg of the drosophila fly. The injury was
then allowed to fully heal. After the injury healed, they found the fly’s
other legs had become hypersensitive through loss of the pain inhibitors
(GABA).

~~~
zaroth
I believe they cut off a leg. I don't really get the part where they say they
"allowed it to fully heal". [1] Maybe that was a different experiment in the
same paper?

[1] -
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D_JUvnmUwAAj7Sa.jpg:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D_JUvnmUwAAj7Sa.jpg:large)

~~~
xenonite
Well the text I posted was from the journalistic article. The scientific paper
indeed says they let the animal recover from the amputated leg. However, as
you say, I now agree that it is not clear what they mean with “recovery”.

> We amputated the right middle leg of wild-type Canton S flies, allowed the
> animals to recover, and then evaluated escape responses at different
> temperatures. While intact animals displayed minimal escape attempts when
> exposed to a 38°C surface, after amputation, flies showed significantly more
> escape behaviors.

------
blodovnik
Why wouldn't they feel pain?

It's such a superior attitude to even consider that only humans could feel
pain.

It's also obvious that any complex organism feels pain... It the most basic
evolutionary protection mechanism. Anything that didn't feel pain would soon
be evolved out.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
Even the featured article puts pain in quotes and is like, “for simplicity,
we’ll call it ‘pain’”

So actually it’s not obvious that animals perceive the world as we do. Maybe
you can only generalise our experience to warm blooded vertebrates.

~~~
kranner
Given the similarities between us and other animals, it should make more sense
to have to disprove that they don't feel pain, rather than having to prove
that they do, i.e., that they must feel pain should be the default assumption
in the absence of data.

~~~
raverbashing
Which similarities?

Insects have a much, much simpler nervous system. They don't even have a
spinal chord, and they have an exoskeleton.

I think maybe only cnidarians have a simpler (or similarly complex) nervous
system.

Pain on a chordate might be comparable to pain in humans, with some exceptions
like the Octopus (maybe) but that's about it.

~~~
kranner
But we don't know that insects absolutely couldn't experience pain, in the
same way that we're certain a brick couldn't (unless one is a panpsychist). At
least they have a nervous system.

~~~
raverbashing
Pain as in stimulus to nerve endings given damage to a limb yes

But pain in humans (or other more complex animals) is more complicated than
that

~~~
kranner
It may be more complicated, but do we know the minimum complexity required of
a nervous system to support 'suffering'? If not, surely we are obligated to
give even the simplest nervous systems the benefit of the doubt.

------
mc32
It looks like if this is extrapolated into our understanding of pain then
using diatomaceous earth (DE) as non toxic pest control would imply quite some
discomfort by insects as it acts mechanically as well as a desiccant. But on
the other hand insects are unlikely to evolve around a mechanical opponent.

~~~
bhouston
Well, I think evolution has never met something it can not overcome....

I think the point of the non toxic chemical approach is more about human
health, or being organic...

~~~
mc32
True but it would take insects away from being insects and it would take much
longer to evolve than it takes to evolve against chemical agents.

------
new_guy
This makes me feel even more terrible about burning spiders to death with a
magnifying glass when I was a kid.

~~~
dontbenebby
I also am feeling quite guilty reading this.

I think every kid in the midwest pulled a leg off a daddy long legs[1] at some
point. They would keep moving afterwards, and to a kid this was fascinating
(and reinforced the belief they were not like animals and could not feel
pain.)

Regardless, now that I'm older I think most living things have a purpose and
try not to bother anything that doesn't bother me, but yes, reading this I
feel guilty :(

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pholcidae](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pholcidae)

~~~
mikelevins
I never pulled legs off arthropods, nor did I ever use magnifying glasses to
burn them. I did witness other children doing these things, and it always
upset me intensely.

I'm probably an outlier. My mother tells me that from the time I could walk I
captured bugs in the house and carried them outside to prevent them being
killed.

I've continued the habit of rescuing animals from bad situations into
adulthood and rapidly-oncoming old age. Once I caught a hummingbird in an
Apple building in Cupertino and let it go outside. It was a beautiful
iridescent green and so light that I couldn't feel its weight in my hand.

~~~
stallmanite
You’re not alone. I never tortured any insects or animals as a child and it
weirds me the fuck out that that is apparently considered normal behavior. I
haven’t seen signs of this in my own kids but then again I’ve taught them
explicitly that harming sentient beings is wrong.

~~~
mikelevins
I think it's possible that we might be the weird ones. In the environment that
our distant ancestors inhabited, squeamishness about harming animals might
have been a significant disadvantage.

Or maybe not. Joseph Campbell claimed that a common feature of tribal
mythology is ceremonial apologies and restitutions to animal spirits to make
restitution for the need to kill them.

~~~
dontbenebby
I think it all depends on the adults in your life. Maybe if we'd had a leader
who said don't do that instead of "well they can't feel pain and they're
pests" things would have gone differently.

------
Der_Einzige
This just in - Science gives evidence for a Jainist world-view!

------
bookofjoe
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20430622](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20430622)

------
kbos87
Duh. This feels like a topic that the scientific community has a bizarre and
self serving view of. There’s no reason to think insects don’t feel pain,
which is a basic evolutionary mechanism. So why the need to scrutinize the
topic? Because of the need to defend a long line of justifications made
throughout the decades as to why humans should be able to treat other beings
poorly and still consider ourselves “moral”.

------
mrhappyunhappy
There are sushi places that serve live shrimp. Imagine being eaten alive and
feeling that first bite crushing you in half.

------
kja1123
And people say boil the lobsters alive, they don't feel any pain.

~~~
matz1
Well, even if lobster is proven beyond reasonable of doubt that it feel
horrible pain, I'm still going to boil it alive.

~~~
kja1123
Why? Why not kill it humanely first?

We don't boil cows/pigs/chicken alive.

~~~
matz1
Why bother ? Quicker and more convenient. With cow/pig i think its more
troublesome to boil it alive.

------
roflchoppa
grandma always said if your gonna kill them dont let them suffer.

------
whatshisface
Does my computer feel pain when I decrement %eax?

~~~
z3phyr
The computer is a part of you, and you should feel all the pain for trying to
access out of bound memory

~~~
aasasd
Thanks to cheap copying and the internet, developers can now ship that pain to
any number of users instead of keeping it to themselves.

------
deftnerd
All the comments discussing the moral implications of harming insects are
focusing on the wrong part of how useful this information is.

As the link says, this research indicates that we can use insects to do basic
research on Neuropathic pain. Insects, being easy and fast to breed, and easy
to manage in large quantities, makes this especially useful for research.

Now they can try all sorts of methods of tackling the problem, from drugs to
gene therapy.

It's not, of course, proof that successes will translate to mammal or human
models, but it's an excellent way to do some initial concept filtering.

~~~
kranner
Why are the moral implications 'the wrong part'?

If we found a species of aliens that clearly suffered like us but bred as fast
as insects and were as easy to manage, would the moral implications of
experimenting on them still be irrelevant compared to the utility of
experimenting on them?

~~~
scotty79
Because they didn't prove that insects expeirience pain as people understand
it. They just proven that expeiriencing injury sensitizes an insect.

Article tries to balance between biting the audience with insect pain but then
trying to not be completely false calls it 'pain' and nociception which is the
only scientifically accurate term for what is observed.

~~~
kranner
GP seemed to say it doesn't matter whether they experience pain or not because
the convenience of experimenting on them outweighs any suffering they may
undergo. That's not specific to this experiment.

~~~
scotty79
I was just explaining why focusing on moral aspect is the wrong reaction to
this research. It's wrong because there are no moral insights from this
research. They didn't obtain any new indications that insects feel pain.

------
nefitty
Well, this makes being faithful to my ethical commitments a little more
complicated.

~~~
the_pwner224
This morning I spent 20 minutes trying to hunt down a spider near my desk at
home. I didn't want to clear all the wires and papers and hardware on the
desk, and the spider used those to juke around me and my big napkin.
Eventually I left and surfed the net on my phone; when I came back an hour
later it was nowhere to be seen. But I was absolutely prepared to murder it
the moment I got a chance.

On the other hand, I've been dabbling with hydroponics. Most suggestions say
to plant 2-3 seeds per growing block, so that you are protected against the
risk of seeds not sprouting. If multiple seeds sprout, you just snip the tiny
seedlings and leave the biggest, hardiest one to grow. A few days ago I killed
3 small seedlings and felt incredibly guilty. About a third of the way to
crying over it. Next time I will only plant one seed per spot, even though
that means I will get average plants instead of big ones, and it will take
longer to replant seeds that don't sprout. The feeling of killing those
beautiful young plants was just too much to bear.

On the other hand I have never felt bad for the millions of plants that have
died to feed me.

Nature is a dog-eat-dog world. Ultimately we've got to kill to survive and to
have a livable habitat. I had seen the spider I was hunting this morning
walking around my window a few times over the last few weeks, but I left it
alone until it bothered me. Sure, it's sad to kill another living being, but
spiders are much less conscious than us and we've got to eventually
rationalize the fact that a human is worth thousands of plants and spiders and
bugs (if not, then the only logical action would be to commit suicide, unless
you dedicated your life to saving plants and spiders and bugs). Even if you
don't kill them directly, you do so indirectly by participating in our modern
economy.

Tldr it sucks, too bad :(

~~~
AQuantized
I don't understand why plants are particularly relevant to this equation. Your
sentimentality for the young plants is irrelevant to whether or not they can
suffer.

~~~
the_pwner224
The parent was commenting that knowing that insects feel pain has made it
harder for him to act in a way that feels ethical.

I suggested that we need to just believe that we are more important than those
dumb(er) lifeforms, but we should still avoid unnecessary killing whenever
possible. Like not killing bugs/spiders unless they are actually annoying you,
and not planting so many plants that you'll need to kill the extra ones.

I guess the plant example also showed that our sense of morality can be very
illogical - the parent has qualms over hurting bugs, I really disliked killing
plants needlessly, yet we all go and eat vegetables (and meat) every day, and
our society has committed many, many genocides to nonhuman species.

~~~
AQuantized
I suppose I don't understand the conflation of the very real mass slaughter of
nonhuman animals, with harvesting plants.

------
jacobush
I didn't realise the impact until I remembered how common circumcision is in
the US.

~~~
xvector
It’s ridiculous. This sort of mutilation should be flat out illegal. It’s
physical child abuse, plain and simple.

~~~
bsanr2
"I understand that this procedure will remove healthy and functioning tissue
from my son's penis, and involves similar risk as other prophylactic or
cosmetic surgeries, including infection, disfigurement, and death. I
understand that the procedure may be performed without anaesthesia at the
doctor's discretion. I understand that the doctor has recommended my son
undergo circumcision because studies have shown a reduction in the risk for
serious diseases in circumcised men; or else, that I have requested a
circumcision be performed in observation of a deep and abiding religious or
cultural belief which I reasonably believe my son will share when he would
have been of age to consent himself."

Parents should have to sign a statement like this before it's performed. It
should no longer be the default, and parents should understand that they don't
have to be railroaded into the decision.

~~~
stkdump
> the doctor has recommended my son undergo circumcision because studies have
> shown a reduction in the risk for serious diseases in circumcised men

Source? Especially that this risk reduction outweighs the risks of the
procedure is not proven as far as I know.

~~~
deogeo
Looks like most medical organizations range from advising against
circumcision, to considering making it illegal, with the notable exception of
the US [1]. As for the protection against disease:

"Male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection among heterosexual men in
sub-Saharan Africa [..] The effectiveness of using circumcision to prevent HIV
in the developed world is unclear;" [2]

Since newborns are unlikely to have sex [3], there should be no harm in
waiting until puberty, and getting the boy's input on what is an irreversible
change.

[1]
[http://www.cirp.org/library/statements/](http://www.cirp.org/library/statements/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision)

[3] C'mon man.

~~~
zaroth
Requiring a family to wait until a boy is past puberty to consider a
circumcision would be harmful, because the procedure is more difficult to
perform, and poses a more difficult (and memorable) recovery period.

Parents have autonomy to make medical decisions for their infant children, and
many are forced to make significantly more difficult decisions than a routine
circumcision.

I was curious about the CIRP site you linked to and the policy statements they
are referencing. I double checked just the first referenced policy statement,
which is from the Australian College of Paediatrics. [1]

Interestingly, they reference a statement from 1996 which is no longer the
current position. Evidence for the medical benefits of circumcision have
gotten stronger, and the procedure has gotten safer and more likely to be
performed with anesthesia. The updated statement [2] while still not
advocating for routine circumcision for _all_ male children, is, in
particular, missing the passage which CIRP specifically highlighted in the
1996 position.

This calls into question whether CIRP is interested in presenting a factual
list of current statements, or if they have a particular agenda they are
attempting to serve in presenting cherry-picked out-dated statements with a
specific viewpoint.

[1] -
[http://www.cirp.org/library/statements/acp1996/](http://www.cirp.org/library/statements/acp1996/)

[2] - [https://www.racp.edu.au/docs/default-source/advocacy-
library...](https://www.racp.edu.au/docs/default-source/advocacy-
library/circumcision-of-infant-males.pdf)

~~~
DanBC
There is no medical benefit to circumcision. There is risk of harm.

Parents do make _medical_ choices -- these would be situations where there is
a benefit to treatment and where there is medical consensus that the treatment
is worthwhile.

That's not the case for circumcision where most doctors agree it shouldn't be
performed other than for actual medical reasons like phimosis.

~~~
zaroth
> There is no medical benefit to circumcision.

The WHO states, “There is compelling evidence that male circumcision reduces
the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men by approximately
60%.”

~~~
deogeo
"...among heterosexual men in sub-Saharan Africa [..] The effectiveness of
using circumcision to prevent HIV in the developed world is unclear;"

~~~
zaroth
That’s a quote from Wikipedia where the footnote references an abstract which
does not include that statement.

Here’s what the abstract does say;

> _Following the three randomized trials in Africa demonstrating the
> protective effects of male circumcision on HIV infection, studies have
> reported other benefits of circumcision including protection from certain
> STIs, including human papillomavirus and herpes simplex virus 2. With data
> accumulating on the public health benefits of circumcision and the
> endorsement of circumcision from WHO, investigators have begun to evaluate
> the feasibility, safety and cost of implementation of large-scale
> circumcision programs. Limitations of circumcision have also been explored._

~~~
DanBC
Circumcision does nothing to protect against herpes, hepatitis, chancroid,
HPV, Chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis etc.

So the child is being exposed to risk of death or disfigurement for a
hypothetical benefit for one STI where there are existing better protections
for that, and other STIs.

~~~
zaroth
I’ll take the moving goalposts as a positive sign.

Here’s another one that appears after a quick Google search;

Male Circumcision Reduces Risk of Genital Herpes and HPV Infection, but Not
Syphilis

[https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/male-
circumcis...](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/male-circumcision-
reduces-risk-genital-herpes-hpv-infection-not-syphilis)

When you google for circumcision risk of death, on the one hand is CIRP
claiming over 100 infant boys die each year from complications arising from
circumcision, and in the other hand the CDC saying they looked at every single
infant death in 2010 and could not find a single one related to circumcision.

So I’ll be done with this topic for the day!

------
jmpman
Set your bug-a-salt to kill, not stun.

------
crankylinuxuser
Is this a surprise? Dogs and cats, being injured, show that they feel it and
are sensitive to others touching where they hurt. Is it really that 'weird' to
think that beings other than mammals would have this?

~~~
viraptor
Yes. Complex behaviour and memory, ability to execute complicated tasks, and
many other features are usually more common in complex/large organisms. It may
not be surprising, but it's certainly non-obvious why insects would have
persistent pain after injury - especially if it prevents them from effectively
getting on with other tasks after the initial injury source / danger passes.

~~~
Mirioron
On the other hand, you could say the same thing about feeling pain in humans.
Once the danger/injury source passes then being in pain is not good,
particularly chronic pain that actually inhibits the person. We still have
that though.

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viraptor
I could speculate at least 2 reasons for persistent pain. Before medicine, if
you broke a limb, it was likely not as functional / strong as before. Long
term pain is probably a good reminder to be careful about it. Also since we
can form complex relations in memory, it's potentially useful as "remember how
you thought you could do this thing? well, you couldn't, so don't try it
again."

I think for people the equation is a bit different. We care about individuals
in general and have limited number of kids. That's not the case for ants for
example which seem quite replaceable / not able to recognise individuals (or
even if they're alive).

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Noumenon72
The article says the pain causes the fly to protect its other five legs, as
though it has learned from losing one leg that losing legs is a thing that
might happen again. It's feeling the pain in those legs, not the place where
the one was removed.

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Bob995
Can dead insects feel pain?

Also, who the f is flagging my every post and downwoting me to the point of
shadow ban?

~~~
iambateman
You’re not shadow banned on my end. HN rewards substantive comments.

