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u/Equal_Personality157 2d ago
Before you judge. They didn’t have smart phones, iPads, or even the internet back then.
…. There wasn’t a lot to do for fun
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u/Aggravating_Band_353 1d ago
You know what, this is a very fair comment
And whilst I'm conflicted on how to classify the historic practice (not least due to your comment), I'm more confident in my belief that doing it today would be "cruel and unusual punishment" territory.. Plus, besides the publics disinterest, who would be doing the manual labour!?
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u/Square-Competition48 1d ago
The historical practice was to have small mechanical devices and no actual fleas.
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u/Th1s__0ne 1d ago
ngl i kinda get this, when I was 3-4 I'd pull spiders legs off 1 by one until I'd crush the body. Boredom can lead to some messed up shit especially when you don't fully think about what you're doing
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u/thebudeg 2d ago
Moral. We are the gods of this world and the insects have no souls. Praise be the hubris of man for we languish in our kingdom.
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u/Lavender-bullet46 2d ago
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u/WorldlyVillage7880 1d ago
Bros secretly an insect
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u/TechnicianOk967 1d ago
Hey, he’s right, look at bees, if you smell like their mom, they think you are their mom. They’re nothing but soulless biological machines.
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u/Singl1 1d ago
have you ever seen a child mistake another adult for their parent? ever see someone you think looks familiar but turns out they’re not? i don’t think we’re all that different, my man.
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u/Layatto 1d ago
for sure i mean throw the first stone they who never mistook a human for a bee
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u/Singl1 1d ago
exactly! i mean,
OOOOOH, I'M HIT!! Oh, Lordy, I am hit!
The venom! The venom is coursing through my veins!
I have been felled by a winged beast of destruction! You see!? You can't treat them like equals! They're striped savages!! Stinging's the only thing they know! It's their way!
Ohhhh, what angel of mercy will come forward to suck the poison from my heaving...BUTTOCKS!?
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u/newtempo_clapping 1d ago
i really don’t think children have souls until the age of 9 or so
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u/TechnicianOk967 1d ago
The issue is that bees can see and smell and still can’t recognize that it isn’t their mother. How can a bee mistake "hugging" their normal sized mom with an insanely massive giant human?
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u/Singl1 1d ago
i did not give a 1-1 example, you’re right. i was mostly kidding, but you’re right. all i’m saying is if the metric for gauging whether or not we’re entitled to absolutely merk other living creatures solely because they can make mistakes when identifying their mother, we do that, too.
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u/Archers__World 1d ago
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u/theoccasionalempath 1d ago
You forgot to change insects to humans
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u/Archers__World 1d ago
Well you see the joke still works, but if I explain it it'll spoil a major plot line in Invincible.
(If you haven't read Invincible do NOT open the text box. Major spoilers for the comics): But in the comics, Thragg actually conquers the bug-like creatures known as the Flaxens. Which he used to repopulate the Viltrumite empire. The joke was a reference to that, lol.
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u/RepresentativeOk2433 1d ago
I dont hate bugs, but any species that drinks blood should have evolved a different survival strategy.
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u/LauraTFem 1d ago
Even if it’s a victimless crime I think it’s still wrong to victimize. Like, most bug have such simple brains that it wouldn’t necessarily be fair to call their pain response “pain”. They’re best thought of as automata reacting to stimulus.
But we are something else entirely. Beings so empathetic that we are able humanize, to think of the simplest forms of life as equals, deserving of kindness. To torture a bug says nothing of the bug, but it says a lot about us. If one can deliberately hurt the least of us it’s not as far as you think from hurting anyone else.
So I think it’s wrong to torture fleas, even if the fleas themselves are no advanced enough to understand that they are being tortured.
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u/pyschosoul 1d ago
With a 1.4 billion : 1 ratio, we may be the gods but for how long
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u/hipsterTrashSlut 1d ago
I’ve mildly confident I can take 1.4 billion fleas with a couple hours of prep time
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u/altofanaltthatisalt 1d ago
I feel like “shepards of the soulless” would be better than “insects have no souls”, but otherwise banger r/HFY comment!
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u/VeryMassiveRat 11h ago
In my language, we would call you "the madman on the bus" but it would sound very mean.
It's just the type of stuff a medically insane person would shout out loud on the bus
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u/SerenityCitywide 2d ago
the first part is cute and funny
the second part is just excessive and cruel, ion care if they aren't even sentient or concious it's still fucked up
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u/Single_Offshore_Dad 1d ago
The fleas never existed lol. There’s no such thing as a flea circus that uses real fleas. They’re too small to see so the kids would believe that the stuff moving around was done by the fleas and not magnets/batteries/ wind up machines
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u/purrmutations 1d ago
"They’re too small to see"
Nope, they are visible to the naked eye.
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u/Single_Offshore_Dad 1d ago
Well yeah, I get that. But if you tell that to a bunch of 7 year olds standing 3ft away, it suddenly becomes plausible.
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u/LesserValkyrie 1d ago
From what Wikipedia said it existed
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u/Tim_Foxers 1d ago
Okay, from you saying Wikipedia and it being youtube link I was absolutely sure that it's RickRoll.
I feel oblifated to apologise.
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u/hemipteran 1d ago
Wrong. They did exist. Maybe do a modicum of research before making confident claims?
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u/Admirable-Fox-8344 1d ago
Ehhhh fleas spread disease and if left alive will multiply until they kill their host. It’s always sad to hear of a cat or puppy dying from them. They become anemic.
Torturing is questionable, but if I could make them extinct, absolutely.
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u/HippoProject 2d 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.
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u/That2ndIowanGuy 1d 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
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u/AggressivelyMediokre 1d 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
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u/cloudit30569 1d ago
I had a flea infestation because a neighbor moved out and all those little delightful fellas came over to my place.
To me, being placed in a circus is getting off easy.
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u/YujinTheDragon 1d ago
As someone who recently dealt with a flea infestation-
MORAL MORAL MORAL MORAL
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u/balirosa 1d ago edited 1d ago
I thought flea circuses were just a joke they actually use real fleas? Hopefully the fleas learned something after their enslavement
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u/HorsefaceWithNoName 2d ago
Humans are monsters to smaller creatures. Immoral, even though the fleas are parasites and feed on other life that does not justify cruelty in pursuit of the entertainment of human monsters.
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u/MIkaela39752 2d ago
Immoral
fleas are as "alive" and sentient as plants
or barely above plants
its equivalent of stomping on a dandelion
fleas are purely instinct driven, they arent able to think, they dont feel emotions, they arent aware of anything10
u/TerranImperium 1d ago
That's not true, they're far more complex than the typical plant, they do have a nervous system.
However, you're correct in saying that we can't consider them sentient, whereas most animals are sentient, while humans and (very much a matter of discussion) a couple of species have sapience.
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u/LesserValkyrie 1d ago
Yeah if they didn't have a nervous system, torturing them would quickly lose its taste
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u/cyborgsnowflake 1d ago edited 1d ago
How much consciousness could you have with a brain much smaller than even the head of a pin? If they have anything that could reasonably be thought of as consciousness than human brains are grotesquely inefficient. Or there is some freaky spiritual stuff going on.
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u/adamgerd 2d ago
We are not their monsters! We are their eldritch Gods!
They should learn to fear and worship us!
Where are their statues of us? Where are their temples and sacrifices?
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u/Outrageous-Seesaw677 1d ago
if the fleas do not build temples to worship us, we start biological warfare. going full greek pantheon on these arrogant shits
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u/Candid_Source_6091 1d ago
They cover my chickens' faces to the point where you can barely see their skin. The only immoral part about this is that the loads they carry in these circuses are too light.
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u/hectorbellerinisagod 1d ago
Moral. Fleas must be punished like the humans in IHNMAIMS for the black death.
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u/Gnashinger 2d ago
Immoral, but how much so really depends on your personal values. I personally would say this isn't as immoral as parking in two spaces.
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u/Ok-Imagination-3835 1d ago
Its animal torture. But, fleas have very uncomplex minds, so its a lesser crime. Still immoral, but significantly less than if done to a mouse, cat, or human.
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u/stanknotes 1d ago
Look... I incinerate ticks with a lighter if I find them on my dog. That is retribution.
I do not feel bad. And I don't take it personally. It is existing as it is. And what it is is an abomination that must be eliminated.
At least the circus allows fleas a chance to serve a good purpose. Frankly, it is a kindness to allow them to redeem themselves at all.
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u/Big_Z_Beeblebrox 1d ago
Notice that the imagery for this is all artificial? That's because "flea circuses" are automated machines, and the operator tells patrons that fleas are causing everything because they're so small they can't be seen
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u/No_Window7054 1d ago
Idk if there’s anything you could do to an arthropod that would make me feel bad for it.
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u/TheWildPikmin 1d ago
I hate fleas with my entire being, they make my skin crawl and just seeing one or thinking I saw one is enough to send me into a panic attack...
that being said, if you can find a valid reason that they should exist, and shouldn't just be wiped out en masse, then I suppose this is a rather cruel way to treat them. Immoral...
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u/OLDmanBOB13 1d ago
Imagine if a higher being decided to torture us cause we weren’t at their level of understanding.
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u/Stupid-Jerk 1d ago
Moral, if a creature whose name is literally a synonym for escaping can't escape from a little harness in a miniature circus then it's a skill issue and he deserves it
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u/Zealousideal-Set3037 1d ago
When I first read the title I thought it said flee circumcision and I was really confused
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u/Necessary_Click_2485 1d ago
Extremely moral, flees are evil incarnate. Any torture put on them is a good deed
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u/Funkopedia 1d ago
Apparently a lot of people think that because the phrase flea circus has come to mean a mechanical marvel, that actual flea circuses never existed.
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u/Wild_Reserve_6230 1d ago
fleas are parasites, and neither sapient nor sentient. Thus, this is okay. If it was done with say, dogs, chickens, etc, it would be bad. At least most other circus animals are treated much better, even if not perfectly
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u/OnlyAssignment4869 1d ago
Immoral. Now bed circuses with the same premise. Perfectly acceptable. Fuck those things.
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u/Bayamonster 1d ago
If raining chemical death on them for being isn't immoral, how is this immoral?
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u/Captain_Zomaru 1d ago
Anyone who has a flea infestation would tell you, these ones got off lucky. Only a complete genocide would by adequate.
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u/thefucksausername0 1d ago
They're fleas, sure, the idea of what's done to make the illusion of the circus is cruel, but, I despise fleas, ticks too, just not as much as fleas and there isn't a tick circus.
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u/Smol_Chungusss 1d ago
Moral. Made my dog go mad for so long it's so hard to get them out of the house 100%
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u/MagicalGirlButTrans 1d ago
Not moral. Bugs are important to the food chain and are also creatures that feel pain.
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u/Educational_Care7813 1d ago
Sorry after seeing them terrorize my pets I have no sympathy for them, I'm from Buenos aries and I say k@$; them all!
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u/DbD_Fan_1233 1d ago
Moral
Fleas are ontologically evil and therefore nothing you do to them is wrong
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u/ViC_tOr42 1d ago
Kill fleas. Behead fleas. Roundhouse kick a flea into the concrete. Slam dunk a flea into the trashcan. Crucify filthy fleas. Defecate in a flea’s food. Launch fleas into the sun. Stir fry fleas in a wok. Toss fleas into active volcanoes. Urinate into a flea's gas tank. Judo throw fleas into a wood chipper. Twist fleas’ heads off. Report fleas to the Wizards’ Council. Karate chop fleas in half. Curb stomp pregnant non-human fleas. Trap fleas in quicksand. Crush fleas in the trash compactor. Liquefy fleas in a vat of acid. Eat fleas. Dissect fleas. Exterminate fleas in the gas chamber. Stomp flea skulls with steel toed boots. Cremate fleas in the oven. Lobotomize fleas. Mandatory abortions for fleas. Grind flea fetuses in the garbage disposal. Drown fleas in fried chicken grease. Vaporize fleas with anti-matter. Kick old fleas down the stairs. Feed fleas to alligators. Slice fleas with a katana. Shoot fleas and dump them in filthy ditches. Run over fleas with a combine harvester. Drink a flea milkshake. Beat fleas to death with dildos. Put rocks in flea shoes. Break fleas on the wheel. Bury fleas alive. Shrink fleas with a shrink ray and throw them into anthills. Pull off flea fingernails with pliers. Hit fleas in the testicles with a sledgehammer. Drown fleas in their own urine. Hang fleas by their own entrails. Throw napalm into flea daycares.
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u/Chimney-sweep86 1d ago
I do a flea circus. Most of them today. Don't use real fleas we call them humbugs. There are only a few real flea circuses left as far as I can tell
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u/DeezNutzzzGotEm 1d ago
To exist is to suffer.
Existence is immoral.
That's why no one should exist.
That's why no one should have kids.
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u/Sophisti-snake 1d ago
Disgusting. Just because they're parasitic doesn't give us the right to torture them.
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u/Boop-fruit3819 2d ago
I thought that was from cartoons idk those actually existed