I gave him some money because I do think the law is silly. He's out picking wild mushrooms. If some turn out to be psychedelics then so be it. It was in nature. Maybe if we were selling them I'd have a confern, but if the man wants to pick mushrooms, let him pick mushrooms.
Washington wildlife and forest protection is dead serious. I mean they invested a ton to enforce the rules and make sure people doing wrong things got punished. I, one time, got a $150 ticket just because I was a bit curious and dug into the sand for some geoduck.
As someone who can't stand the taste of them I'm still enthralled by the prospect of collecting mushrooms for fun and their culinary value. The trouble I run into is how I have no idea what's good to eat, what'll make you sick, what'll get you high, and what'll just simply kill you.
Guidebooks are worse than useless, because you can never be sure that the slight differences between the mushroom you're looking at and your best guess in the guidebook are unimportant or a distinction that means the one you picked is fatal instead of edible.
There's no app for this. [EDIT: Ok, there are apps for this, but there's always room for improvement]
There should be. And this guy could earn a modest income helping some semi-talented ML and mobile engineers in Washington build one with his wealth of knowledge.
Take a picture of a mushroom with your phone, and it'll help you tell what you can expect from it.
Nothing helps with legal or medical problems like not having to worry about relatively tiny amounts of money.
Imagine the liability concerns. Only takes a few false positives...
Probably much smarter is a general ML based app that allows user-defined, crowdsourced datasets. So for example, you download the app, and you pay to train a model using datasets that other people gathered. This could be used for things such as middle school science experiments (what is ML? what are the differences between cloud and rock types?) to things like magic mushroom identification. Since the models and datasets are user-curated, you're less exposed to liability, since you merely provide the platform
You need a better guidebook, and spend time with it.
As with plants or any taxonomy there are rules and things to do that can classify things. It's more than just a photo of the thing that its about.
You need to spend time to learn, as you would learn a programming language, the rules for classification. It takes time and some effort to learn how to know whats good to eat, what makes you sick and what'll get you high. Essentially it's a form of biological inquiry so treat it like a science. Almost every mycologist uses a few books and tools to identify their haul.
edits: rule of thumb for eating: The range of edible but not eatable / awful mushrooms is huge. The range of deadly mushrooms is small. The range of edible and delicious mushrooms is small too. The bad and good ranges don't overlap on the whole. Thus, like with identifying garden plants you only need to learn a few kinds to be able to hunt the lovely edible mushrooms. But you do still need to learn and spend time in the learning.
There are many mimic species which can only be distinguished with a spore print -- cubensis has one that's highly toxic. Presumably this confers an evolutionary advantage (spore spreading by critters going for the fun ones), making ML based on visual identification a very bad idea.
There are apps - e.g., "Mushrooms app" for Android. It is probably targeted mainly on (central/eastern) Europe, it is the region where mushrooms picking is pretty common. There are a few others, too.
Less clickbaity title: "Washington man facing prison for drug possession".
Whether someone should be jailed for picking psilocybin mushrooms is up for discussion (hint: they shouldn't), but he wasn't arrested for picking Portobellos.
Which makes me wonder: do mycologists (mushroom scientists) get a legal license to pick mushrooms wherever the heck they want? Let's say this really is a completely new, unidentified species that only grows in this national park. Then what?
This man has spent his 10,000 hours to know what he's doing. I have full empathy for his plight and view. However, when anyone ignorant of the true physical risk of eating the wrong mushroom, actually eats the wrong mushroom trying to get high, they will be permanently damaged. With the wrong mushroom, vital kidney function is quickly destroyed forever. If we take a hardcore Darwinist view, well OK, they did it to themselves. But I view it as more likely a lack of wisdom. When I was a teenager and young adult, I did stupid and risky things. When you are young, you don't have proper wisdom and it is only developed over time. In my view, one thing that these laws do is to serve as a guidepost. At least as a society, we tried to protect the unwise from eating the wrong mushroom, just by having laws against it.
Having delusional cult leaders talking about the fractal universe and how we are all the same and how everything would be fixed if we just gave up our ego is bad for society.
>Corbett has been frustrated by what he considers insufficient or even counterproductive advice by his lawyers, who have urged him to plead guilty. They have refused to discuss anything relating to mushrooms or entheogens, and hope Corbett will settle for the plea deal and probation. But Corbett is determined to challenge the law and prove his innocence. He has since fired his attorneys and he hopes to hire one who will best represent him and his unique situation.
Not a very smart move. The lawyers he fired are right.
They are right if the goal is to get the least amount of punishment.
It sounds like he wants to protect his rights. In the US system yhe prosecutors throw the book at you and offer plea deals that are a small fraction of the original charge. They then then use their resources to go heavily after anyone who doesn't take a plea deal.
That means you get to pick defending your rights or avoiding punishment, not both
[+] [-] Overtonwindow|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qhoc|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] StavrosK|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mchannon|8 years ago|reply
Guidebooks are worse than useless, because you can never be sure that the slight differences between the mushroom you're looking at and your best guess in the guidebook are unimportant or a distinction that means the one you picked is fatal instead of edible.
There's no app for this. [EDIT: Ok, there are apps for this, but there's always room for improvement]
There should be. And this guy could earn a modest income helping some semi-talented ML and mobile engineers in Washington build one with his wealth of knowledge.
Take a picture of a mushroom with your phone, and it'll help you tell what you can expect from it.
Nothing helps with legal or medical problems like not having to worry about relatively tiny amounts of money.
[+] [-] opportune|8 years ago|reply
Probably much smarter is a general ML based app that allows user-defined, crowdsourced datasets. So for example, you download the app, and you pay to train a model using datasets that other people gathered. This could be used for things such as middle school science experiments (what is ML? what are the differences between cloud and rock types?) to things like magic mushroom identification. Since the models and datasets are user-curated, you're less exposed to liability, since you merely provide the platform
[+] [-] gus_massa|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chippy|8 years ago|reply
You need a better guidebook, and spend time with it. As with plants or any taxonomy there are rules and things to do that can classify things. It's more than just a photo of the thing that its about.
You need to spend time to learn, as you would learn a programming language, the rules for classification. It takes time and some effort to learn how to know whats good to eat, what makes you sick and what'll get you high. Essentially it's a form of biological inquiry so treat it like a science. Almost every mycologist uses a few books and tools to identify their haul.
edits: rule of thumb for eating: The range of edible but not eatable / awful mushrooms is huge. The range of deadly mushrooms is small. The range of edible and delicious mushrooms is small too. The bad and good ranges don't overlap on the whole. Thus, like with identifying garden plants you only need to learn a few kinds to be able to hunt the lovely edible mushrooms. But you do still need to learn and spend time in the learning.
[+] [-] camillescott|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pvaldes|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corndoge|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michalskop|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] StavrosK|8 years ago|reply
Whether someone should be jailed for picking psilocybin mushrooms is up for discussion (hint: they shouldn't), but he wasn't arrested for picking Portobellos.
[+] [-] gotthemwmds|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ynniv|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sctb|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] k_sze|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pvaldes|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pstuart|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bobjordan|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robertpelloni|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eesmith|8 years ago|reply
Preventing graffiti at a state or national park doesn't make us safe either. We still prosecute those who graffiti.
Poaching rabbits doesn't make us safer. It's also illegal.
[+] [-] a-the-ist|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] corndoge|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wildmusings|8 years ago|reply
Not a very smart move. The lawyers he fired are right.
[+] [-] lovich|8 years ago|reply
It sounds like he wants to protect his rights. In the US system yhe prosecutors throw the book at you and offer plea deals that are a small fraction of the original charge. They then then use their resources to go heavily after anyone who doesn't take a plea deal.
That means you get to pick defending your rights or avoiding punishment, not both
[+] [-] ringaroundthetx|8 years ago|reply
Oops.
[+] [-] a-the-ist|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]