Don't forget...
Yeast: oh man I love sugars so much, I just wish they didn't make me shit so bad.
Humans: dude this stuff is fucking awesome!
Is they plant that's made into cocaine in this same category?
The best bit about the mint and chocolate thing is that chocolate is also poison, so we spice up our poison with more poison.
She looks so familiar, who is this? Is this from Veep?
All valid Points. But also, humans: i will care for this plant and create huge fields where you can live prosper and in peace. We kill everything who comes near you and try to harm you. And we will ensure you will live forever. You dont need birds who shit your seeds out.
Those plants domesticared us!
Botany of desire
I evolutionary terms being edible to humans is quite useful.
It worked for chickens...
Chickens are the most numerous bird on the planet, wheat covers more land area than any other plant.
Because humans feel encouraged to further protect that plant against pests.
As well as spreading and planting seeds, clearing competing plants, and providing water and nutrients.
TBF, life's objective is to reproduce and keep its genetic materials continuing on. Even if humans propagate and consume said plant because they find it desirable, that is still a success for the plant. So even if it has toxic caffeine or fiery capsaicin to deter some pests and humans find it enjoyable, the plant wins.
Especially since many of the plants die after 1 year anyway so it's not even like we shorten their lives anyway.
Would aliens actually be weirded out by this quality of humans?
I feel like any sufficiently intelligent species living on a planet will have some degree of biodiversity on said planet. And the chances of something being made to be a poison/deterrent for creatures other than the intelligent species is probably a large one, because it's pretty hard for plants and animals to make a poison/deterrent that kills everything without also killing itself. So if there is a gap for itself, there is a gap for other life to coexist with the toxin. And that's before accounting for the fact that something can be safe at low levels, provide benefits/stimulation/good feels at low levels, and toxic at high levels.
So I'd think it would be pretty natural for intelligent life to consume things that are harmful to huge swaths of other creatures.
Works best with the Earth-is-a-deathworld trope
It is kinda weird that humans are so resilient to so many things though. It's part of being scavenging omnivores, but alients with a more specialized diet might be weirded out.
Dogs can eat rotting meat and lick unwashed balls and ass but die from fucking grapes. 🤷🏼♂️
Humans can fuck grapes with impunity
I.... I don't think I can.
Seems like a skill issue to me.
C'mon David. They want you to. Do it for them, buddy.
I know it's just a typo, but the image "alients" conjured in my head is pretty funny. I have less than zero artistic talent or I'd share it with you all. Hopefully the mental image is enough.
Potentially. But think of it this way, there are somewhere around 400,000 plant species out there.
https://news.mongabay.com/2016/05/many-plants-world-scientists-may-now-answer/
Based on this list, something on the order of like 99.5% of plants are either not safe, or not useful/beneficial. If other species on our planet share a similar rate without complete overlap, then it's practically a guarantee that there will be thousands of plants that are safe and useful for us but not for other species. That doesn't feel particularly strange or unlikely. So even with a specialized diet, I don't think the numbers would be much different.
It also could be the case that being scavenging omnivores is a strong precursor to becoming intelligent. If your species is on the rise in terms of intelligence, you're probably using that to expand your food sources wide and far.
Isn't the flavour of cocoa also originally a pesticidal chemical lol
Funnily enough we try to cultivate everything we like, so in a roundabout way they were successful.
I think the book Sapiens makes the point that wheat has trained us into cultivating it for selfish needs.
(Except that it's wheat, and that we annihilated 99% of its brethren to pick out the one that we liked so we could effectively clone it. But yes, we are the slaves...)
Sapiens and Homo Deus are both such good books. Lots of little anecdotes like that we're just so fascinating.
Sometimes, when a fruit or seed isn't toxic enough for our taste, we make it liquid then make it ferment or age until some of its sugar turns into the deliciously neurotoxic ethanol.
“Hmm tastes good but could taste a bit closer to death.”
Nicotine, THC, and cocaine are also insecticides. And psilocybin might be an insect repellent.
Thanks poison!
Capsaicin is a fungicide, which is extremely useful in the environments where spicy peppers grow.
Drugs - natures mosquito repellant
Mosquitoes are such squares!
They just want to propagate. The best chance a plant has to do that is by being tasty or useful to humans so we cultivate them.
Tbf, this has proven to be extremely effective: Just think of how many tobacco or chili plants are grown today! Domestication really is a two-way-street
Are we farming the plants or are the plants farming us.
What’s the bottom imagine from?
Veep
Thank you! Watching episode 1 now!
Strap yourself in.
Still my favorite "WTF" line delivery in any film or show.
Basically humans will have sex with you, eat you, or make you a pet.
Sometimes more than one.
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