The parent was commenting that knowing that insects feel pain has made it harder for him to act in a way that feels ethical. I suggested that we need to just b

The parent was commenting that knowing that insects feel pain has made it harder for him to act in a way that feels ethical. I suggested that we need to just believe that we are more important than those dumb(er) lifeforms, but we should still avoid unnecessary killing whenever possible. Like not killing bugs/spiders unless they are actually annoying you, and not planting so many plants that you'll need to kill the extra ones. I guess the plant example also showed that our sense of morality can be very illogical - the parent has qualms over hurting bugs, I really disliked killing plants needlessly, yet we all go and eat vegetables (and meat) every day, and our society has committed many, many genocides to nonhuman species.