100 replies to this topic

[ponerinecat]

Happiness for an ant colony means plenty of sugar, protein, moisture, and warmth. It’s easy for a knowledgable ant-keeper to meet these needs. There is nothing uncaring about properly cared for ant colonies.
What I do condemn, though, is the practice of capturing whole, established colonies from the wild. This is uncaring, destructive, and unnecessary. I wish more people would speak out against this practice.

A lot of people do. A lot of people only listen to what they want to hear though.

Sorry for assuming you meant all of us, your comment seemed to be applied to everyone.

[ANTdrew]

What comment? If you meant my condemnation of collecting established colonies from the wild, then, yes, I’m sending that message out to everyone. This is especially true for rare or hard to find species.
I’m not saying everyone does this, but anyone who does should stop.

[ponerinecat]

What comment? If you meant my condemnation of collecting established colonies from the wild, then, yes, I’m sending that message out to everyone. This is especially true for rare or hard to find species.
I’m not saying everyone does this, but anyone who does should stop.

Nah, I meant Zantezaint.

[ANTdrew]

What comment? If you meant my condemnation of collecting established colonies from the wild, then, yes, I’m sending that message out to everyone. This is especially true for rare or hard to find species.
I’m not saying everyone does this, but anyone who does should stop.

Nah, I meant Zantezaint.

I gotchu

[TennesseeAnts]

What comment? If you meant my condemnation of collecting established colonies from the wild, then, yes, I’m sending that message out to everyone. This is especially true for rare or hard to find species.
I’m not saying everyone does this, but anyone who does should stop.

I really don't see the problem with collecting SMALL colonies (meaning under 100 workers). I do, however, see a huge problem with collecting a mature, thriving colony of a native species that releases alates, and produces more colonies.

[Canadian anter]

Last time on Dragon Ball Z....

I'm labeling the points based on who I saw come up with it first

Claim (zantezaint) : Caring about insects is contradictory to the notion of antkeeping

Claim (antdude) : Ants are more likely to survive in captivity, thus care would demonstrate we care for ants

Claim (zantezaint) : Keeping ants doesn't raise the world population, and antkeepers have removed the chances of at least one queen from starting a colony

Claim (ANTdrew): Ants have a natural redundancy, therefore the effects are marginal

Main things I'm seeing so far ^^^

Since the first point does not provide us any premise, but rather an assertion, I'll leave it alone for now

Next two points are literally just semantics about what constitutes caring

You guys are arguing on different wavelengths completely so it's no wonder the argument isn't going anywhere. Zantezaint is talking about ants as a whole, while antdude is talking about a given individual ant. The statements are as follows

"Taking queens outside of the environment will decrease the population of ants and has led to some colony not existing"

"Ants have longer, better lives in captivity"

Okay? Both of these claims can be true at the same time. Both of them ARE generally true. I agree antkeepers are in some sense hypocritical, but to the extent where not eating a perfectly balanced meal while wanting to stay healthy is hypocritical. The claim made my ANTdrew actually does address the argument, though it is mitigatory at best. However, it does make a good point that any harm to the environment will be so marginal that if we weighed all the benefits of antkeeping and the loss of 0.0001% of a potential colony in the wild, and we STILL cared about ants, we would still keep ants. Hence this forum being of existence. After that it just devolves into ad hominems but I have a personal favorite I want to stick it in here on behalf of all of us hypocrites

Read my earlier posts and you will see I didn't call everyone a hypocrite. Don't put words into my mouth. It might sound like I was referring to everyone in this forum as a hypocrite but I was talking directly to the one who posted this thread. them to last 5+ years. So I think it's pretty ignorant to say we don't care about ants.

No. Read the thread, and my posts. It is just hypocritical to see so many folks in this forum act like they give a crap about these insects, when all we do is capture them for our "hobby," or "amusement."

Also I'm pretty sure we can agree that the "scale doesn't matter" paradigm is one of the dumbest things in existence

But anyway, the last flaw of this whole damn thing

Even if antkeeping were infinitely harmful to the ants, we could still keep ants and be concerned about then at the same time....

Edited by Canadian anter, January 12 2020 - 7:18 PM.

[ponerinecat]

Last time on Dragon Ball Z....

I'm labeling the points based on who I saw come up with it first

Claim (zantezaint) : Caring about insects is contradictory to the notion of antkeeping

Claim (antdude) : Ants are more likely to survive in captivity, thus care would demonstrate we care for ants

Claim (zantezaint) : Keeping ants doesn't raise the world population, and antkeepers have removed the chances of at least one queen from starting a colony

Claim (ANTdrew): Ants have a natural redundancy, therefore the effects are marginal

Main things I'm seeing so far ^^^

Since the first point does not provide us any premise, but rather an assertion, I'll leave it alone for now

Next two points are literally just semantics about what constitutes caring

You guys are arguing on different wavelengths completely so it's no wonder the argument isn't going anywhere. Zantezaint is talking about ants as a whole, while antdude is talking about a given individual ant. The statements are as follows

"Taking queens outside of the environment will decrease the population of ants and has led to some colony not existing"

"Ants have longer, better lives in captivity"

Okay? Both of these claims can be true at the same time. Both of them ARE generally true. I agree antkeepers are in some sense hypocritical, but to the extent where not eating a perfectly balanced meal while wanting to stay healthy is hypocritical. The claim made my ANTdrew actually does address the argument, though it is mitigatory at best. However, it does make a good point that any harm to the environment will be so marginal that if we weighed all the benefits of antkeeping and the loss of 0.0001% of a potential colony in the wild, and we STILL cared about ants, we would still keep ants. Hence this forum being of existence. After that it just devolves into ad hominems but I have a personal favorite I want to stick it in here on behalf of all of us hypocrites
 

Read my earlier posts and you will see I didn't call everyone a hypocrite. Don't put words into my mouth. It might sound like I was referring to everyone in this forum as a hypocrite but I was talking directly to the one who posted this thread. them to last 5+ years. So I think it's pretty ignorant to say we don't care about ants.

No. Read the thread, and my posts. It is just hypocritical to see so many folks in this forum act like they give a crap about these insects, when all we do is capture them for our "hobby," or "amusement."

Also I'm pretty sure we can agree that the "scale doesn't matter" paradigm is one of the dumbest things in existence

But anyway, the last flaw of this whole damn thing

Even if antkeeping were infinitely harmful to the ants, we could still keep ants and be concerned about then at the same time....

 

Yay, simplification. Although I do think Zantezaint is right about us caring for ants on a personal level; probably none of us do that. 

[Serafine]

Where have US bird populations crashed to near extinction? This is news to me. I live outside one of the biggest mega-cities in the country, yet I’ve seen 72 species of birds (bats, too) in my yard. Not to over-simplify, but, again, native plants are the answer.

https://www.business...019-9?r=DE&IR=T

https://www.national...winged-warning/

 

I didn't say all birds will go extinct but there are some insect-eating bird species common to rural areas that have crashed to almost unsustainable numbers.

Cities and suburban areas are a very special ecosystem that has it's very own inhabitants (usually generalists and a few hyperspecialists which by pure chance prooved to have to right traits to surivive in such a biome such as hawks) which are already adapted to human influence and overall less likely to loose their habitat because of it.

Edited by Serafine, January 12 2020 - 10:12 PM.

[P0rcelain]

i do not see anything about my actions in regards to keeping ants as contradictory or hypocritical

if anyone would like to tell me how i am a hypocrite, in private messages, i welcome them to do so

but i will not discuss it much further here

i am getting tired of seeing this worn out debate in my feed

[AntsDakota]

I agree completely. This needs to end. 

[zantezaint]

I just gotta add that "We are caring for ants," is different from "We care about ants." In my opinion, it seems that many of us think we care about ants, but we "truly" don't. Just my opinion. Certainly not every single member in this forum, but certainly the majority of us. Once again, my opinion. If you disagree, and want to just end this debate, feel free to agree to disagree. Also, to say this bluntly, I am in the "Don't give a damn about ants" group, but it is not like I go out of my way to hunt for ants to kill them, but I sure do interfere with nature/ant's ecosystem when I capture one, and thus, it would explain why I am in the group. What I do is selfish, but that is what I do because I am intrigued by them. Do I take care of my ants? Yeah. Do I care about them? I wish I do, but I would just be lying to myself. One of the few exceptions to justified captivity and breeding I can think of that are saving a particular species from extinction would be rhinos. In my opinion, a man who embraces who he is has more balls than someone who hides behind a facade.

Edited by zantezaint, February 2 2020 - 4:39 PM.

[Canadian anter]

I just gotta add that "We are caring for ants," is different from "We care about ants." In my opinion, it seems that many of us think we care about ants, but we "truly" don't. Just my opinion. Certainly not every single member in this forum, but certainly the majority of us. Once again, my opinion. If you disagree, and want to just end this debate, feel free to agree to disagree. Also, to say this bluntly, I am in the "Don't give a damn about ants" group, but it is not like I go out of my way to hunt for ants to kill them, but I sure do interfere with nature/ant's ecosystem when I capture one, and thus, it would explain why I am in the group. What I do is selfish, but that is what I do because I am intrigued by them. Do I take care of my ants? Yeah. Do I care about them? I wish I do, but I would just be lying to myself. One of the few exceptions to justified captivity and breeding I can think of that are saving a particular species from extinction would be rhinos. In my opinion, a man who embraces who he is has more balls than someone who hides behind a facade.

I've almost cried over colonies so I'll disagree myself

[TheMicroPlanet]

Who else is just tired of this whole thing

[justanotheramy]

bloody hell. y'all are going to need a bulldozer to clean up that mess.

[TennesseeAnts]

bloody hell. y'all are going to need a bulldozer to clean up that mess.
19thomas-600.jpg

Ooh. I know a song to go to that pic.

[ANTdrew]

Edit

Edited by ANTdrew, February 3 2020 - 11:49 AM.

[ANTdrew]

I’m incredibly disappointed that you revived this thread. If you’re itching for a fight, it’s waiting for you here in Alexandria, VA

Edited by ANTdrew, February 3 2020 - 3:15 AM.

[TennesseeAnts]

I’m incredibly disappinted that you revided this thread.

Hehehehe..... If I knew it would've started this mess I would've left it alone.... Oops.....

[zantezaint]

I like how it transitions from ants to a native plant garden, but hey, if you wanna do a Khabib vs Connor pre fight, we can do it. You can go for the strike, I'll go for the choke, but I will let you breathe a little to say that I am right about this debate. Haha. FYI: I do respect your contributions to the forum and your passion for ants though. We could probably settle this with some proper 12 Irish whiskey and a man hug.

[ANTdrew]

Ok proper 12 and man hug, and we’re good. Let’s drop this silly argument.