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this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
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How do you know they aren't consuming more than what they need to barely survive?
Because consuming more than what you can use or need is not a competitive advantage. The mushroom that trades that surplus instead of wastefully consuming it will have a more resilient support structure. It's a different perspective where you view the fitness of an individual in regards to how well it embeds itself in the system by making itself useful to others, not by how well it can "extract profit" from its surroundings (like a cancer or obesity).
You're assuming it only consumes exactly what it needs to survive and not even a small amount more than that. You'll have to prove that. Pretty sure they probably keep some buffer or give priority to their own species or certain species, making the network their own buffer. Would that be mushroom racism? I don't want to learn anything from racist mushrooms man.
There's a big difference between storing energy for the winter and being obese.
Mushrooms aren't simply favoring their own species, they are favoring species that are cooperative. If they perceive a species as obese or cancerous, they will fight to control those surplus resources.
Yes, but there are likely factors produced by both parties in the symbiotic relationship that keep each other in check. Otherwise one of the parties could become parasitic instead.
This whole conversation comparing evolutionary mechanisms that are complex enough to include self sacrifice just to have more "you", is a poor analogy anyways. While humans evolved their social dynamics, i'd like to think we can operate beyond what's best for our species.