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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

The irony of your post is that his death is a vivid demonstration of one reason why humans engage in flock behavior: to develop social memory of what's safe to eat. Those who stayed with the flock lived meaningful lives--they got jobs they had kids, they propagated their genes. He didn't live a meaningful life--he died painfully in his 20's in the woods because he ate a lethal dose of neurotoxins.

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To counter whining about sheep with a literal defense of flocking behavior is going to be hard to top.

Better stay in your manufactured suburban home and eat plastic wrapped pastries like everyone else.

You could still stay at the edge of the flock and follow a zillion people who've "gone back to nature" ... but the nature of post-hunter-gatherer agriculture. Stick to growing plants and raising animals we're on very solid grounds WRT short term toxicity vs. "This wild stuff doesn't seem to be deadly" and then accidentally find out the conditions and dosages in which it turns out to be.

The flock itself has value; you don't have live with someone else, but as jusben1369 points out, if he'd so much as broken his leg falling down the steps of the bus he'd have ended up just as dead. Regular contact with a neighbor would have saved him, but he had no reserves and no margin for error.

I'm just pointing out that some risk is necessary and complete risk aversion can lead to undesirable outcomes. A lot of people here probably moved far from their home base to work at a startup for example. Some were exposed to completely new cultures and lost comforts of home because of it. If they did what their family or friends did they would have stayed home and not took the risk.

People from my home state think California is an awful place. I moved here for work and couldn't imagine living anywhere else--imagine if I'd of took their word.

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