> The researchers removed the electronics from the insects after the experiments and observed no noticeable adverse effects on their behavior.

this is much better than previous things i've seen that implanted electrodes in the brains of cockroaches and used electrical impulses to steer them around.

I can relate, but considering how much we exploit animals, including agricultural animals, breeding, raising and killing animals for food, using rats and monkeys for testing etc., this would not surface in the priority list for fighting animal welfare for me for a very, very long time. Even in thought.

I agree - there's a big difference between the ability of various species to experience suffering or to experience happiness, and I think that has an impact on the ethics of how we treat them. Humans, monkeys, pigs, dogs, etc. are definitely social/emotional intelligences that deserve better treatment than we give them. Rats? Chickens? Insects? Jellyfish? Plants? Bacteria? Somewhere on that spectrum I cease to worry about the suffering of the animal and worry more about those affected by it.

That's so ignorant. How can we possibly know how other animals experience pain or suffering? You just assume that the further you diverge from us in the animal kingdom the less animals are able to suffer. That certainly makes things easier.

I think a lot of it has to do with the means of reproduction of the animal. One might make an argument that [r-type species](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory#r-selec...) have decimating loss factored into their everyday experience and survival strategy. As a different commenter pointed out, driving a car down a highway kills hundreds of insects. As a practical matter, insects are the most successful clade ever, with the largest biodiversity, largest number of individuals, and largest biomass of any land animals (by far). If the end is to reduce human impact on ecosystems, then farming insects seems like a reasonable trade off from a utilitarian perspective.

There has been a ton of research into how different animals experience pain. You are correct that we don't know how they experience it, but based on nervous system structure and other behavior, we can make some conclusions about the nature of the pain and whether it's a basic avoidance mechanism or something more complex that would involve suffering.[1]

That said, I think a good rule is to not cause unnecessary pain/suffering in any living thing (e.g. if trapping rodents, use something that leads to a humane death).

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_invertebrates

I think the assumption that anything with a brain can experience pain, suffering and happiness is a pretty safe one. Synthesising information to decide what is suffering and happiness, and then trying to maximise happiness, seems to be one of the basic functions of any brain.

Rats, mice, dolphins, and parrots are all intelligent enough to be grouped along with dogs, monkeys, etc.

You don't have to drive.

someone has to kill the insects

It's like killing a spider in the house. Killing it instead of taking it outside doesn't bring me any benefit the way eating a chicken does, so why kill it? Just like putting the camera rig on an actual beetle for the demo doesn't bring a benefit, so why do it?

I think this is just a reflection of your personality. Respecting nature, small or big and taking the time to give it space, let’s you value and organise your life in a more balanced fashion.

That’s only true if your time has no value. Killing is faster. Also, as someone who has gotten multiple infections from non-venomous spider bites, I can tell you catch and release is riskier than killing.

Most killing also splatters their insides, with potentially infectious germs, into your house..

That’s usually taken care of with the method of killing. Regardless, in your house is preferable to inside your skin.

Spiders live by the sword so when I see them in my bath, I am become God!

Attaching a camera to an insect is probably not even a blip on the radar of a university ethics board compared to all the mammals that are used and killed annually in various experiments.

Isn't that just whataboutism? Does one wrong thing makes another wrong thing ok?