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I find spiders quite freaky, yet I find crabs quite endearing. This strikes me as very odd.

ps. Ive been actively trying to overcome my aversion to spiders by handling them when I put them out. Starting with very tiny ones and working my way up.

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Aversion to spiders more likely to save your life and allow you to pass on genes, makes sense.

Not necessarily. If you live in an area with spiders, you probably also have mosquitoes and all kinds of other insect disease vectors. Having a nice spider would go a long ways to keeping those vectors down.

Interesting point - avoiding spiders is better for me individually, but reducing mosquitoes is better globally. So I guess it depends if our aversions are optimized for the individual or the species.

Tiny jumping spiders were the worst for me growing up. Nowadays don't mind them, don't live in an area with anything venomous so no rational fear

These days when I look at a jumping spider, I can't help but see this little guy: https://youtu.be/VrS6akzR3sk

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