• IWantToFuckSpez
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    6 months ago

    Fungi won’t trade if the tree is not giving enough nutrients. So while they don’t trade for profit they sure as hell aren’t engaging in charity.

        • @[email protected]OP
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          426 months ago

          No. Flat out no. There is no competition and they’re literally providing what they are capable of to take care of the others’ need. Mutual aid is not a marketplace and the fact you instinctually thought of it that way tells me you need a book on capitalist realism.

            • @[email protected]
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              6 months ago

              Not all competition is mediated via markets. Mushrooms will compete by injecting themselves into their adversaries using their own internal pressure.

              • @[email protected]
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                6 months ago

                Yeha, but they are showing an instance of nature in which things work one way and ask "why can’t humans XYZ if even a mushroom can? ", but there are also plenty of instances in which nature is savage.

                There is a constant war in the roots of trees, does that mean humans should be in constant war?

                Plus, there IS a profit incentive. Those mushrooms are trading. What they get in return is the profit incentive.

                • @[email protected]
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                  6 months ago

                  Trading for food to eat is now “profit incentive”? How is there profit if you consume what you take?

                  Edit: and don’t get me started on the violence used in our own market systems. Thankfully Mushrooms learned long ago to eat the rich, because “surplus profit” are just resources that aren’t being used.

          • @[email protected]
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            156 months ago

            Where in that response did you see the word capitalism. Economics exist outside of your agenda/baggage.

            • @[email protected]
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              146 months ago

              “market place” is a concept of competition in contrast to Kropotkin’s concept of mutual aid

      • Cicraft
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        66 months ago

        So in dum dum terms the trees are keeping the fungus as a pet?

    • insomniac_lemon
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      6 months ago

      There likely could be other benefits to them sharing such as:

      1. when there is more than they can use, particularly that the mushroom does not like in their environment
      2. producing more leaves is likely highly beneficial for the mushroom, for shade both living and fallen, nutrients and cover with fallen leaves.

      Similar for the tree, but also mushrooms are recycling minerals from dead material.

      I don’t know if there’d be “stingy” trees (aside from vastly different nutrient needs), I could see it more of miscommunication or having too much difference with language/biologic pathways. EDIT: Also I gotta imagine that giant trees don’t even bother counting it for mushrooms so long as they aren’t stressed. Sugar water is in the grid, take as much as you want.

        • @[email protected]
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          46 months ago

          At first, I read that as you accusing them of being a stingy asshole chestnut tree and I was about to inform you that you were in fact talking to a lemon, not a tree 😄

      • @[email protected]
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        36 months ago

        Trees that rely on myco networks usually only get giant because of previous myco networking bonds, which funnel excess nutrients between not just the fungi but also other trees within the system. And depending on the involved species, this sometimes includes multiple plant species exchanging nutrients.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      66 months ago

      change your name. Assuming you aren’t underage so that psychotic pedo fuck would’t be interested.

    • @emergencyfood
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      66 months ago

      Yeah, bacteria secreting digestive enzymes would have been a better example.

  • @[email protected]
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    786 months ago

    Friendly reminder that cooperation is mutually beneficial and the mathematical solution to the prisoner’s dilemma is to cooperate but not be a pushover.

      • @[email protected]
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        256 months ago

        Don’t ascribe motivations to biological processes.

        That fungus wouldn’t eat the tree because it doesn’t eat the tree. There are tree eating fungi but that is not one of them.

        That fungus is proof of cooperation being mutually beneficial and evidence of how “altruism” works out in favor of the cooperators.

        • @[email protected]
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          6 months ago

          There are tree eating fungi but that is not one of them.

          Based on what?

          According to my quick research, symbiotic fungus doesn’t fruit unless the tree is in trouble. That tree seems fine, so then the fungus probably isn’t good for the tree

          • @[email protected]
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            126 months ago

            Where on earth are you researching to come to that conclusion? Mushrooms overwhelmingly fruit based on climatic conditions. If the weather is right, they fruit. And it is well established that mycorrhizal fungi are good for the trees and other plants they have symbiotic relationships with, which is why fungal inoculation is becoming increasingly popular. It’s also why they are called symbiotic, and not parasitic.

              • @[email protected]
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                56 months ago

                I’d be wary of using a foraging blog as a source of information, there is a lot of misinformation that gets around in foraging communities.

                In this case the information is mostly okay, with some caveats. Morels certainly don’t fruit exclusively when a tree is dying (this blog doesn’t quite assert that, but it does highly emphasise the dying trees part so I can see how you would take that away) and it’s important to note that the trees death was caused by a separate parasitic fungi and not the morels. They’re fruiting in an attempt to spread their spores before they go down with the ship, so to speak.

                Personally I’m a little skeptical about the old timer stories and the conclusion drawn from them, but I live on a different continent with completely different species of fungi so I couldn’t say for sure. Over here our most prolific morel seasons are always when the temperature is mild, there have been good rains and the forest is happy and healthy. From an evolutionary perspective, this makes perfect sense. The fungal spores have a much better chance of establishing new colonies when resources are plentiful. A symbiotic mushroom that only fruits when all its symbionts are dying around it is going to be naturally selected out of existence.

      • @[email protected]
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        186 months ago

        Don’t kid yourself Jimmy. If a cow ever got the chance, he’d eat you and everyone you care about.

      • @[email protected]
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        6 months ago

        Your dog would kill you in a heartbeat if he thought he could

        Which is unfortunate, since you would also slaughter your dog if you ever realize you can

        Oh gods, no… What have I done?

      • @[email protected]
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        6 months ago

        What? The first picture in the article is a mycorrhizal mushroom (the fly agaric). If you mean edible fungi, then all of the members of the boletus family (which includes porcini) are mycorrhizal.

    • @[email protected]
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      16 months ago

      From your first article

      “Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is entirely focused on an explanation of life’s biological diversity. It is a scientific theory meant to explain observations about species. Yet some have used the theory to justify a particular view of human social, political, or economic conditions. All such ideas have one fundamental flaw: They use a purely scientific theory for a completely unscientific purpose. In doing so they misrepresent and misappropriate Darwin’s original ideas”

      So what is this post trying to do?

      • @emergencyfood
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        36 months ago

        I think the post is pointing out that nature doesn’t work the way social darwinists think it does. Although symbiosis between different species, as shown here, isn’t the strongest argument they could have chosen. Personally I would have gone with (non-kin) altruism.

  • @[email protected]
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    6 months ago

    I don’t see why social darwinists wouldn’t like it. I mean, that fungus is thriving. Thus, it must be a really strong individual who made good decisions (associating with trees when it was advantageous).

  • dtc
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    136 months ago

    Isn’t survival the single biggest trade incentive though? Like, I go to work everyday so I can buy food, but not because it’s so yummy in my tummy, I do it because I’ll die if I don’t.

  • 1024_Kibibytes
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    106 months ago

    The continued life & growth of both plants would be the profit incentive, wouldn’t it?

    • @[email protected]OP
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      166 months ago

      The continued life & growth of people in a community helping each other is the exact motivation that usually makes the profit incentive useless

  • AItoothbrush
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    106 months ago

    I dont understand. They share recources right? Thats what i learnt in school.

  • @[email protected]
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    16 months ago

    It’s called symbiosis. They both profit from it.

    How do I know? Because it evolved. Why did it evolve? Because it gives them an advantage.