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Kieli · May 27, 2017

I noticed a spider in the periphery of my vision and decided to look at it. Not so coincidentally, when we locked eyes, it scrabbled to a corner of the window just outside my vision.

Another day, I saw a spider slowly crawl along the window sill. When we locked eyes, it scrabbled at mach speeds and fell off the ledge into the baseboard in its desperate attempts to escape my gaze.

Are... are they scared of us?

Linkstrikesback · May 27, 2017

Q) A giant roughly a hundred times your size is standing next to you and could crush you at any moment on a whim. Are you scared?

Nickle · May 27, 2017

They better be

Sparkedglory · May 27, 2017

If you saw a giant creature hundreds of times your size, most of which want to kill you, would you be afraid?

daviyoung · May 27, 2017

They don't have a clue what they're looking at so no they're not scared. They're barely conscious.

StoneFox · May 27, 2017

Considering that it's hard for me to get a jumping spider to jump on my hand because they run away at first sight of me, sadly yes.

I just want to be friends...

exmachina64 · May 27, 2017

daviyoung said:
They don't have a clue what they're looking at so no they're not scared. They're barely conscious.

A more appropriate term might be aware.

WaterAstro · May 27, 2017

Pretty much all insects will run the hell away until they have an advantage.

HaloRose · May 27, 2017

They scared me so i run!

gamerMan · May 27, 2017

That's a great hypothetical question that some scientists are dedicating their whole life studying. I wish we could ask spiders what they were feeling. Hopefully, with modern science we will one day be able to talk to spiders. I do know that some humans are afraid of spiders from my communications with humans.

Anon67 · May 27, 2017

StoneFox said:
Considering that it's hard for me to get a jumping spider to jump on my hand because they run away at first sight of me, sadly yes.

I just want to be friends...

I've had jumping spiders slowly walk on my thick, hairy arms. Very cute creatures.

PeakPointMatrix · May 27, 2017

If only they knew that by simply scrambling towards me, they could send me into a panicked frenzy out of my own house.

Omni · May 27, 2017

PeakPointMatrix said:
If only they knew that by simply charging at me, they could send me into a panicked frenzy out of my own house.

To any spiders reading,

he's joking of course

yanipheonu · May 27, 2017

They're tiny creatures who can climb on threads in a world of humans.

They're basically living out Attack on Titan every day.

pa22word · May 27, 2017

Isn't there some loose evidence that animals/insects that evolved alongside humanity tends to show deep fear of us while animals who didn't do not? Maybe they don't have what we recognize as the emotion "fear", but at some instinctual level they seem to know the scary bald apes with fire mean massive danger. Otherwise they don't exist anymore because we mostly just exterminated them for being in our way.

HeatBoost · May 27, 2017

Not specifically, but I imagine they're a bit anxious around anything several hundred thousand times their size.

Haroon · May 27, 2017

Fuck spiders man. They pay no rent and live in the house for free. Just dodging, man.

IdreamofHIME · May 27, 2017

They wouldn't crawl inside your mouth when you're sleeping if they were scared.

WhereAreMahDragonz · May 27, 2017

Are you alright dude?

marrec · May 27, 2017

They're just making you complacent, don't fall for their dirty tricks.

Screaming Meat · May 27, 2017

No, they are shitting well not. They each come with the cold, implacable calm of a veteran sniper as standard. Bastards.

akira28 · May 27, 2017

daviyoung said:
They don't have a clue what they're looking at so no they're not scared. They're barely conscious.

actually spiders are probably smarter than bugs at least.

daviyoung · May 27, 2017

akira28 said:
actually spiders are probably smarter than bugs at least.

Actually probably. Sweet.

Lagamorph · May 27, 2017

Not scared enough to stay the fuck away from me, creepy little shits.

akira28 · May 27, 2017

daviyoung said:
Actually probably. Sweet.

are you one of them ones that gets all aflutter over grammer rules and what not?

i guess I chould have put a comma after actually.

Loxley · May 27, 2017

stenbumling · May 27, 2017

No. They're playing 5D chess. They are making you feel powerful and confident so that you won't see them coming.

Mendrox · May 27, 2017

Loxley said:

;_; spiders are the real heroes

daviyoung · May 27, 2017

akira28 said:
are you one of them ones that gets all aflutter over grammer rules and what not?

i guess I chould have put a comma after actually.

Still doesn't make it any better.

Mister Wolf · May 27, 2017

The Wandering Spider isn't scared. It has a spider martial arts stance it goes into when threatened.

NoblesseOblige · May 27, 2017

I don't think the arachnid brain is capable of an emotion like fear.

RedRum · May 27, 2017

One might be scared of you, OP...

..but they will eventually rally the troops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7UsS55IwZQ - Warning, the scene from this movie scared the SHIT out of me when I was a kid.

PyroPaperPlanes · May 27, 2017

The fact that they always tend to crawl towards me when I want them to stay as far as way from me as possible, no, no they're not afraid of us.

akira28 · May 27, 2017

daviyoung said:
Still doesn't make it any better.

your avatar looks like a bad shadow puppet.

Beren the Empty-Handed · May 27, 2017

They will be.

Izuna · May 27, 2017

I guarantee you

you did not "lock eyes" with a spider

Luminaire · May 27, 2017

Izuna said:
I guarantee you

you did not "lock eyes" with a spider

but they had a moment

Jigorath · May 27, 2017

Who knows.

It's not like we can ask the spiders how they feel about us.

One Eyed Willy · May 27, 2017

Nickle said:
They better be

The Ummah · May 27, 2017

They get brave when they know you're sleeping.

Don't sleep, OP. Fuck that noise. That spider probably has a grudge to settle with you.

Myriadis · May 27, 2017

Depends. Just yesterday I had a spider crawling all over my face all of a sudden, while in the car. Also had a jumping spider actually attacking me (a bigger one, I actually felt the impact pretty good, these little ones can reach some speeds).
So while most are likely scared its not the case for all of them. I'm pretty chill with them.

Patrick S. · May 27, 2017

akira28 said:
are you one of them ones that gets all aflutter over grammer rules and what not?

i guess I chould have put a comma after actually.

Probably.

J-Tier · May 27, 2017

It's possible. Fear is a pretty primal thing, studies using fruit flies have shown that they can exhibit behavior that seem to show that they feel fear or anger.

Chirotera · May 27, 2017

gamerMan said:
That's a great hypothetical question that some scientists are dedicating their whole life studying. I wish we could ask spiders what they were feeling. Hopefully, with modern science we will one day be able to talk to spiders. I do know that some humans are afraid of spiders from my communications with humans.

So are we all going to just ignore the obvious spider posting in our midst?

Do you fear us, spider? DO YOU?

Kieli · May 27, 2017

HeatBoost said:
Not specifically, but I imagine they're a bit anxious around anything several hundred thousand times their size.

Do spiders even know we are one entity? Like, when a snake looks at your fingers, does it know it's attached to the rest of you?

darkziosj · May 27, 2017

yanipheonu said:
They're tiny creatures who can climb on threads in a world of humans.

They're basically living out Attack on Titan every day.

Tiny? Tiny? Say that to fucking tarantulas, not all spiders are cute little animals, remember black widow? Yeah you better be scared of that crap

Antiwhippy · May 27, 2017

darkziosj said:
Tiny? Tiny? Say that to fucking tarantulas, not all spiders are cute little animals, remember black widow? Yeah you better be scared of that crap

Humans killed more spiders than spiders killed humans.

Don't fall for human propaganda.

Bananajama · May 27, 2017

We need to genetically create a giant spider in order to Better understand the to answer this question

I take it everyone's fine with that?

Porcile · May 27, 2017

akira28 said:
your avatar looks like a bad shadow puppet.

lmao

One of the best GAF exchanges I've seen for a while.

J-Tier · May 27, 2017

Kieli said:
Do spiders even know we are one entity? Like, when a snake looks at your fingers, does it know it's attached to the rest of you?

Tough to say, though I imagine it's all innate programming which all happens in fractions of a second.

For a snake, it probably recognizes a big object as one entity. Big object -> alive/not -> dangerous/safe -> fight/flight

For certain pet snake species, with enough of the same stimuli, it flips to: safe -> food source

While for a spider, it's probably like:

Movement -> fight/flight

It gets tougher with things like jumping spiders though which seem to exhibit curiosity.

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