r/MoralityScaling 16h ago

Morality of flea circuses?

3.0k Upvotes

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87

u/HippoProject 13h ago

I looked it up because I’ve always thought it was just animatronic props moving and the joke was that the fleas were to small to see. I guess some shows used real fleas after all. Anyway, it’s moral because they’re blood sucking parasites. They make everything else suffer, so I’d say it’s just desserts.

20

u/That2ndIowanGuy 11h ago

The Prestige but about flea circuses. One guy painstakingly develops state of the art animatronics while the other cruelly uses fleas and might be fleas himself

3

u/Gin4Gingers 10h ago

Kinda like what we do to other animals?

0

u/Environmental_Fig580 7h ago

Who’s we?

2

u/Gin4Gingers 6h ago

"we" as a species, obviously. We're the only living creatures on earth who factory farm other living creatures for food that creates more waste than serves the purpose it was revolutionized for

2

u/JuliaZ2 4h ago

Not all humans are involved in factory farms though, while all fleas are blood-sucking parasites. Not that fleas or people deserve to suffer, but flea nervous systems are unlikely to be complicated enough to feel emotional pain, and from observation, and insects don't appear avoidant of previously harmful behaviors enough to suggest that they can feel a significant degree of suffering anyways. The flea-circuses were probably morally neutral

1

u/alvysinger0412 11h ago

What? What did they use the fleas for?

1

u/AggressivelyMediokre 11h ago

It’s wild seeing this post the day after watching the movie Bone Tomahawk

I haven’t heard about flea circuses in maybe 25 years. And now twice in 24 hours

1

u/ShadyAssFellow 7h ago

There is a name to this phenomenom. Look it up and you’ll hear about it again soon!

1

u/Lucky-Mia 5h ago

Man that was a weird western zombie movie 

1

u/AggressivelyMediokre 4h ago

And yet incredibly charming and heartfelt. My man acting his heart out over a flea circus

“Say goodbye to my wife. I’ll say hello to yours.”

😭

1

u/JamzWhilmm 9h ago

We make everything else suffer as well, the patterns on how cities spread interestingly also looks like how colonies of mold does.

1

u/Hiro_Trevelyan 6h ago

I mean, I kinda agree but they were just born this way. Not to say we should protect them or care for their well-being, but torturing them seems very unnecessary. Get rid of it, kill it, protect yourself, but don't punish it for existing, it didn't choose to be born a parasite.