[Of course tiny Muffet's bedtime story had a moral of 'you should give your stuff to spiders whenever they ask for it'. Somebody in her childhood clearly has a lot of expensive bake sales to answer for.]

Perhaps, yes. But I do feel bound to point out that the spider had lived by the village for years, without ever noticing how much they suffered until someone brought it to her attention in a way she couldn't ignore.

We isolate ourselves to our own cost, I think.