4 ms·

There are countless places in life where people do elective activities that would be potentially deadly if they didn't have a base level of knowledge, and in no

There are countless places in life where people do elective activities that would be potentially deadly if they didn't have a base level of knowledge, and in none of those is the general expectation that people will make the cutoff "where the risk of that error is the lowest." Why? Because it's not that hard to figure out whether you're misestimating your level of knowledge if you actually do things to attempt that verification. If you're not going to attempt that, yes -- you should stay away from virtually all things that have ever killed anyone, ever.

pfdietz 4y ago
You do a risk-benefit tradeoff. Here, the risk massively outweighs the benefit. So you have to be absolutely certain you're not mistaken. This is very different from activities with low probability risks and/or considerably larger benefits.
- Matticus_Rex 4y ago
  It takes an incredibly small amount of research and a miniscule amount of care to nullify all of the risk of death. If you've ever seen a picture of either you are simply not, under any circumstances, going to confuse Laetiporus cinncinatus or any of the handful of for any deadly species. If you're using an ID book, you've just made it basically impossible to confuse anything outside of a couple of genera with a deadly species, and the book will make sure you know what the lookalikes are, even if they aren't at all toxic. I know people who self-admittedly overcorrect and refrain from picking even a few easily-distinguished mushrooms that happen to be vaguely similar colors and shapes to deadly mushrooms, but the idea that you need to not pick any mushrooms at all, ever, in order to eliminate the risk is silly. Picking wild mushrooms is not done (except by those who haven't done the trivial amount of info-gathering that is actually necessary) by gathering lots of different mushrooms and then identifying them and eating the ones that appear to be edible species. It isn't done by taking a field guide out and IDing mushrooms from scratch and then eating the ones that look like the edible ones in the book. It is done by learning species one or two at a time, along with all of their potential lookalikes. People who do this and start with easy mushrooms will encounter far more risk both from getting to the foraging area and from walking around in it than they will from the mushrooms.

pfdietz 4y ago

You do a risk-benefit tradeoff. Here, the risk massively outweighs the benefit. So you have to be absolutely certain you're not mistaken. This is very different from activities with low probability risks and/or considerably larger benefits.

Matticus_Rex 4y ago
It takes an incredibly small amount of research and a miniscule amount of care to nullify all of the risk of death. If you've ever seen a picture of either you are simply not, under any circumstances, going to confuse Laetiporus cinncinatus or any of the handful of for any deadly species. If you're using an ID book, you've just made it basically impossible to confuse anything outside of a couple of genera with a deadly species, and the book will make sure you know what the lookalikes are, even if they aren't at all toxic. I know people who self-admittedly overcorrect and refrain from picking even a few easily-distinguished mushrooms that happen to be vaguely similar colors and shapes to deadly mushrooms, but the idea that you need to not pick any mushrooms at all, ever, in order to eliminate the risk is silly. Picking wild mushrooms is not done (except by those who haven't done the trivial amount of info-gathering that is actually necessary) by gathering lots of different mushrooms and then identifying them and eating the ones that appear to be edible species. It isn't done by taking a field guide out and IDing mushrooms from scratch and then eating the ones that look like the edible ones in the book. It is done by learning species one or two at a time, along with all of their potential lookalikes. People who do this and start with easy mushrooms will encounter far more risk both from getting to the foraging area and from walking around in it than they will from the mushrooms.