• buss@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Or they produce it exactly because animals are entertained by it to spread its spores. Or it’s random. Or who the hell knows. 🤷‍♂️

            • Donkter@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Yes, in that way. Scientists can’t say something is true for sure. You can argue (correctly) that gravity has more evidence backing it up. It’s the accepted theory that gravity works the way it does because it lines up with every observation made involving it.

              In the same exact way, psylocybin being produced by mushrooms to deter predators (certain insects in particular) comports with every observation made about it and explained with the same theories of evolution that lead to similar results with organisms producing chemicals all over the animal kingdom. Like gravity, it’s bad science to say it like an absolute fact, but it’s likely based on all available data.

              • rah@feddit.uk
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                7 months ago

                it’s likely

                So then not something scientists know is true.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      7 months ago

      These things usually aren’t random. It takes energy for the organism to make it, so there’s usually some evolutionary advantage.

  • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Every time I see this meme or versions of it I die a thousand times. Mushrooms are the penises of fungus who jizz peacefully in the wind. They WANT to be eaten. Spores travel far.

    Psilocybin, if anything, is probably adapted to be attractive to other animals.

    • xantoxis@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Moreover, eating the mushroom isn’t even hurting the original organism. It’s pretty vestigial once the spores have found a way to get out.

  • shalafi@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Just like peppers, a sort of odd evolution when humans come into play.

    Peppers devolved capsaicin to keep mammalian herbivores from eating them and grinding the seeds up. Birds have no capsaicin receptors, happily poop whole seeds everywhere.

    Along come humans. “Let’s grown and refine that shit!”

    • Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.uk
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      7 months ago

      I’ve been using one of the hottest sauces I’ve had in a long time. It’s called Satan Revenge made with ghost peppers. I’m in so much pain when and after eating it. It’s good stuff.

    • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.org
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      7 months ago

      “Challenge accepted”
      -Unknown person

      When ingested, the fruit is reportedly “pleasantly sweet” at first, with a subsequent “strange peppery feeling … gradually progress[ing] to a burning, tearing sensation and tightness of the throat.” Symptoms continue to worsen until the patient can “barely swallow solid food because of the excruciating pain and the feeling of a huge obstructing pharyngeal lump.”

  • GrymEdm@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Given the medical/psychological benefits being explored, it could even be “Your resistance only makes me stronger”.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      7 months ago

      Peppers want to be eaten by birds. Birds love that shit, and the pepper seeds love the bird shit they’ll be in after passing through the digestive tract.

  • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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    7 months ago

    Or those fungi are farming us so we keep spreading and growing them for psychoactive abilities