Anyone else think it was maybe a bad idea to hook up an 11,000 year old mycellium colony directly to a G6-supported device? I wonder if it’s still connected after all these years.
I mean I know it’s all supposed to be secure, and I’m not trying to say “the mushrooms are going to hack into our brains” or anything, but you’d think it would at least skew some important data somewhere.
(Though now that I think about it, maybe Marfa Poingdestre should be using that defense instead. “The mushrooms made me do it!” )
I agree mostly with the above post, however the provided quote here, I cannot tolerate:
Insinuating Mx. Poingdestre is at fault at all for the unfortunate passing of the victim, is showing only your willingness to gobble up the AYFR?'s propaganda. However, outside of this slip-up, it is very worrying seeing the G6 being so bold with so little data. We must all keep an eye on this situation, as the Omnipedia editors will surely cover it up if the G6 “donates” enough.
Do we know for sure that the colloid in the colony can connect to G6? It seems like it was added to the colony in 2037, 3 years before G6 was developed, and Zhupao’s support was pulled in 2039 anyway.
I don’t know the full capabilities of colloids though, so maybe it was connected at some future point. I kind of assume that Zhupao retain some way to interact with the colloid after they stopped supporting the research. Maybe they just wanted an excuse to get a colloid in there for their own ends.
I dunno, but I’m glad the EHE crashed and burned. Clement shoulda tried the deep learning stuff first, just imo.
Like, think about it this way: if a group of alien scientists set up shop in your garden, would you rather they slap a colloid on you and try to learn about you-as-synecdoche-for-humanity by reading your mind or would you rather they figure out how to interview you in English? Going back to your original question, if some alien f*ckos messed with my brain and I found out it was a two-way street, yea I’d wanna probe the alien internet.
Personally I still believe the whole thing was a pr stunt. Imagine the press they’d get if they had actually figured out interspecies communication - instead they got a lukewarm shrug. They didn’t get anything flashy from the project so they pulled the plug because they don’t actually care about environmental science
The deep learning analysis was made possible because of the Colloid:
In March 2043, Clement released a statement claiming to have started communicating with Specimen 6b/35-N8 through deep learning techniques applied to the data generated by the colloid used in the EHE.
“Started communicating” makes me think it was new data, not the old data from when the EHE was active. And we know Clement is still getting in fights about it, so I can’t help but think he’s spent more time with the mushrooms than we know.
I just REALLY need to know what communication Clement is getting from Specimen 6b/35-N8. What is the mushroom saying?
It could totally end badly but I’m hoping if we just let it be it might be alright? It’s been living symbiotically all these years, after all. As long as no one tries to hurt it again there’s no reason that shouldn’t continue.
‘let it be’ is right; those fungi didn’t consent to being experimented on and humans don’t have some god-given right to use other forms of life to satisfy their curiosity (what is this, the 2020s?).
not to mention that between those experiments and the chemical attack they probably see the way we’ve treated them as an act of war (imagine if someone stuck mind-reading colloids in the brains of an entire human nation without asking!!!)
Oooof, you’re right. I don’t remember reading about anyone considering the ethics of the whole thing which is concerning. Maybe that was part of Xu’s critique?
Interesting that the approach they were purporting to be using was “environment first not human first” but then I’m not sure we actually saw evidence of that.
Look I’m not trying to be a conspiracy theorist but….could someone brainjack the colony through that colloid??? Shroomjacking? Or have I totally gone off the deep end
To me it almost feels like at first, Xu/Zhupao got involved in the EHE project because the SAMR had classified colloids as “high-risk” and a bunch of Zhupao’s contracts and partnerships got cancelled. “May as well pop one into this mushroom ‘for science’ and see what happens.”
Then Zhupao pulls its support for the EHE project in December 2039, which is when they partnered with the WHO on colloids for CMD. Did they just pull out to focus on the WHO project? If not, it’s a great smokescreen. I’m curious what kind of data Zhupao was able to get from the fungal colloid and what they did with it.
Also, I doubt the colloid was removed from the fungal body, in which case…does Zhupao still have access to it? I’m not sure I’m comfortable with them having ongoing backdoor access to the oldest living organism on Earth.
It feels a bit like the 1970s experiments with ape communication (with similarly mixed results).
@hexnuts Good spot on the WHO timing - I don’t know about “focus” in the sense of resources (I can’t believe that listening to a mushroom takes that much funding unless it’s really talkative) but maybe they wanted to polish the company image, keep it above board, and this was too ‘fringe’…
That is indeed an interesting question! I really wish someone who understood such data would delve on it and see if there is any info related to the colony.
Aside from the points already raised in this topic, I’m personally worried about how little info Omnipedia provided about the chemical attack made against 6b/35-N8. When did it happen exactly? Does anyone know anything about who was behind it and what was their motive? How badly was the colony harmed by the chemicals, if at all? And what was the chemical used in the attack? Even if the answer to all of those is “we don’t know”, I find it weird that not even that is mentioned anywhere.
Def. Using an algorithm trained on human communication to interpret random mushroom noise will output human languange even if there’s no communication happening at all! Very sceptical about any “results” coming from this, assuming they’ll ever even hit the public hehe
Has no one here read “The Girl with All the Gifts”? It’s a zombie story where the zombies were created thanks to a fungus. IDK about you, but I don’t want shrooms in my brain at all, thanks
)