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There’s almost definitely a lot of unexplored science in fungus that would have massive benefits for us. They are responsible for so much direct benefit, from
by after_care 5y ago
There’s almost definitely a lot of unexplored science in fungus that would have massive benefits for us. They are responsible for so much direct benefit, from beer to penicillin. They are a very critical part of our ecosystem.
I am a vegan, and have probably thought more about human interaction with other earth species than the average techie. While there is memory and stimulus-response there’s simply nothing we’ve found in nature that implies as much intelligence as a central nervous system.
Fungus seems to occupy an interesting niche where they can travel spores to various organisms that they can form fantastic symbiotic relationships with. It’s fascinating, but I’m not convinced it’s near mammal level intelligence.
- oxymoran 5y agoIntelligent enough that a vegan should probably feel bad about eating it though. You are cutting off the sexual organ of a somewhat intelligent living thing and that probably causes pain or at least distress signals. Same for plants though. Let’s all just starve to death.
- i_haz_rabies 5y agoGood take. Vegans are so silly. So hilarious and worthy of criticism when people take the time to consider the ethical ramifications of their actions and move their moral bar without descending into absurd reductionism. /s It's so weird how uptight some people get at the concept of... not eating meat.
- t-3 5y agoI think it's something like "if your ethics != my ethics, I must preemptively discredit and attack you to prevent you from criticizing me". A very natural xenophobic reaction when you look at it like that.
- cheese_goddess 5y ago"Meat is murder".
- _nub3 5y agoNot eating meat is a simple decision. But feeling morally superior to those eating meat is a problem. Especially when the meatless lifestyle is defended by saying to save other creatures' life, yet the same lifestyle is heavily supported by products which were grown in large monocultures, destroying the natural habitat of countless critters in an otherwise rich flora and fauna all over the globe.
- i_haz_rabies 5y agoBoth lifestyles require monocultures. One more than the other actually, and that same one also requires more water and land, and creates more pollution. I'm not a vegan, or even a vegetarian, but I think it's objectively true that those diets are morally superior even with animal rights aside.
- pvarangot 5y agoI guess you also mock meat eaters by saying let's all eat humans too? Or do you only waste your great talent at hyperbole on vegans?
- CameronNemo 5y agoI would never eat a human. Too worried about prion diseases. I feed humans to my dogs. /sarcasm
- throwanem 5y agoI wonder if "mammal-level intelligence" isn't a bugaboo. Crows are smarter than some humans I've known.
- desmosxxx 5y agono they're really not
- phaemon 5y agoWell...
- DabbyDabberson 5y agoyou didn't grow up in one of the 'fly over' states did you
- dylan604 5y agoI wonder if they can detect a joke, because you clearly can't therefore, smarter than you if they can.
- throwanem 5y agoWhat joke would that be?
- bittercynic 5y agoMight be more accurate to come at it from the other side: Humans are capable of higher levels of stupidity than cows.
- LegitShady 5y agomaybe you just need to get to know cows better
- 6510 5y agoThis seems a good approach. We should examine the fungi for stupidity. If it doesn't have that I think it is safe to say it's smarter than we are.
- blacksmith_tb 5y agoFungi are really interesting, though at least in terms of eating them many folks in the US are strangely reluctant. But this article does seem to be at pains to tease apart 'intelligence' from 'consciousness' - so I think it's not unreasonable for them to claim fungi can be intelligent without being very similar to us (in the same way we could say that of an ant colony, for example).
- at_a_remove 5y agoI am not sure "strangely" is a good adjective for the reluctance. Many people do not like the taste of various mushrooms. Additionally, for collecting in the wild, there's a lot of These Will Kill You. Meanwhile, a carrot is easy to identify and tasty.
- phaemon 5y agoCarrots were naturally white. They were bred to be orange for reasons you can Google.
- at_a_remove 5y agoStill easy to identify and safe to nibble on, like strawberries.
- rgacote 5y agoAnd wild carrots (Queen Anne's lace) look remarkably like poison-hemlock. Some people also have a dermal reaction to wild carrot as well.
- filoeleven 5y agoThis is not quite a misconception, but there’s some nuance that’s worth writing about. A lot of plants will harm or kill you if you eat them too. The difference is that plants are less ephemeral, so we see more of them more often, and some of the more dangerous ones (e.g. poison ivy) are introduced to most people pretty early. There’s very little education about fungi at all, unless it’s self-directed, so the knowledge on how to ID safe species is just not as present in US culture. I have read (no links, sorry) that the deadly ratio of wild plants is higher than that of wild mushrooms. Most plants like most mushrooms are considered to be “inedible,” meaning they won’t kill you but you won’t want to try and eat them either (flavor, texture). We don’t go around trying to eat maple leaves or grass because they don’t taste good and we just learned early to not try to eat them. This knowledge about mushrooms is lacking. A carrot is easy to identify because it’s generally found on a store shelf, or was grown from a labeled seed packet. Try to find them in the wild, and you’re met with the deadliest common plant in the USA, Water Hemlock. There are a number of safe mushroom species with good ID characteristics and no dangerous lookalikes, and a good number of them are considered to be choice edibles. If you can ID a particular pre-determined leafy green in the wild (which might be harder than you think) then you can do the same for a particular pre-determined mushroom species.
- ElijahLynn 5y agoI'm a techie vegan too, and think about the fungi kingdom too, especially after watching Fantastic Fungi and some other personal experiences! I'd like to video chat with you about this if you are ever up for it (and any others as well). If so, please send me an email at elijah@elijahlynn.net with a subject of "Video chat...". Cheers
- dylan604 5y agoI'm not a vegan, but I think about fungusamongus all the time. I'm not a vegan, and I make concious decisions about my meals too. Why are we adding vegan like it's 'special' in this case?
- carvin 5y agoOP never claimed to be special but simply above average, which I think is fair since most vegans transitioned to that stage by starting to think much more about what they consume than they ever did before.
- inglor_cz 5y agoYour question reminded me of this meme. https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1031973-urinal-etiquette https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1031973-urinal-etiquette
- dylan604 5y agoI've seen that with "I do crossfit"
- samstave 5y agoThe creepiest thing I had ever seen was one time going to the restroom in the Mall in Seattle and there were two guys at the urinals masturbating to eachother. I had to nope the F out of that place real fast.
- after_care 5y ago
- ladyattis 5y agoYeah, I don't think the term intelligence helps define the novel behavior of fungus in this article. The better way to describe their behavior is adaptive. Fungus adapt in a way that's more like a resilient network than as a conscious being or organism. And that's really something we ought to focus on especially when it comes to engineering them for better use cases. I've seen one case of fungus being used for making insulation bricks for houses (non-load bearing) and it looks quite impressive considering it's cheaper and biodegradable.
- gerbilly 5y ago> I don't think the term intelligence helps define the novel behavior of fungus in this article. Maybe you are right, but I think humans are blind to any behavior that happens at a frequency either too low or too high. If an organism responds too far out of our frequency band (on the order of hundreds of milliseconds), especially on the extreme low end, we seem unable to consider it 'intelligent' or even purposeful. We barely even notice it and if any behaviour that unfolds over days seasons or even years. It also doesn't help fungi that mycelial networks are almost all underground where they are literally invisible to us.
- mathewsanders 5y agoReminds me of this sentence in this post about ‘Elvish technology’ https://essays.georgestrakhov.com/elvish/ https://essays.georgestrakhov.com/elvish/ > The Elves do not imitate nature, they let nature do its magic and try to help it as best as they can. Allowing nature to solve a problem is extremely effective and efficient. The only downside is that it usually takes a lot of time - precisely the thing that the immortals have plenty of.
- sokoloff 5y agoIf I think about the qualities I want in insulation, it’s not clear to me that “biodegradable” is highly prized. I’ve got some wood in my garage structure that has biodegraded (aka “rotted”) and it’s now a project I need to deal with.
- fidesomnes 5y ago> I am a vegan, and have probably thought more about human interaction with other earth species than the average techie. Sorry but adopting a provably unhealthy diet plan doesn't prove that at all. Have a nice day!