XKCD Bot#3167 - Car Size
Æ Sea F."The baggage claim carousel is too crowded. If I don't stand right at the conveyor belt I'm gonna miss my bag."
If a tree doesn't grow tall enough in the forest it's gonna starve of sunlight.
Analog AI@hcf @xkcd Actually, if a tree isn't tall enough in the forest, or lacks deep enough roots to get consistent water, older "mother" trees pass it water and nutrients. https://www.nationalforests.org/blog/underground-mycorrhizal-network
Doesn't always help enough, but it keeps saplings growing that otherwise couldn't.
Drivers, however, are not always so helpful.
Underground Networking: The Amazing Connections Beneath Your Feet
Next time you’re exploring a forest, consider what lies below the soil, leaves, and moss that carpet the ground. Underneath the forest floor, intertwined with the roots of the trees, is a fascinating microscopic network of fungus.
So you are saying that if I get hit by a huge SUV my mother will pass me water and nutrients? That's reassuring, of course she will, but... that wasn't my point.
thermonuclear small claimsThis exactly! Our understanding of nature is modelled on our own society, so we see it as a soulless competition for resources. But nature is far more communal and cooperative than it is competitive. The whole forest works together to survive.
MWT@fullfathomfive @Retreival9096 @hcf @xkcd well except that they mainly only help their own species and are pretty cutthroat competitive otherwise.
Z̈oé@mwt @fullfathomfive @Retreival9096 @hcf @xkcd there are numerous examples of interspecies symbiosis, from single cell organisms to orcas and whales
You're thinking of mutualism, which is a type of symbiosis. Yes, there are lots of examples.
Going back, of course, to that first example of the mother tree. Trees communicate and pass nutrients to one another through a symbiotic network of mycorrhizal fungi in the soil. The trees and the fungi cannot survive without each other.
iwein@fullfathomfive @mwt @uint8_t watch out for the natural fallacy 😉
There's cool collaboration, just like on the road sometimes, but there's also brutal violent competition, within species even.
Spikes and shields and teeth and claws and chemical warfare are not human inventions.
All of which is totally off topic of course, but that's fine with me 😁