• Exosus@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        9 months ago

        Well if you leech too many resources one of two things will happen:

        1. The host will remove you and kill you
        2. The host dies and you along with it

        A parasite becoming too greedy will seal its own fate.

        • Deceptichum@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          9 months ago

          You forget the 3rd option, I hire some worms to eat the roots of anyone that tries to stop me and I move onto the next tree.

    • Pohl@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      10 months ago

      What annoys me about this meme is that it is the same relationship that underpins all business relationships. I understand you are not happy with the state of things but showing a drawing of “capitalism” at work in nature isn’t really making the point you think you are making.

      This might as well be a pic of two guys in suits trading on a stock exchange floor with the same caption. Or add this to a caption to a pic of a lion eating a baby gazelle while its mother watches from the tree line. What point are we even trying to make here??

      • Evkob@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        9 months ago

        Business relationships may be mutually beneficial to those who willingly enter them, but unlike symbiotic relationships, they’re usually detrimental to the ecosystem as a whole.

        • Pohl@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          9 months ago

          It’s an interesting argument but I think it is stretching things too far. Also isn’t a little anthrocentric to assume that our relationships are unique and different than all other living things here.

          A pine tree drops needs that are so acidic few other plants can grow near it. Is it damaging the ecosystem?

          Our relationship with bovines is weird right. probably the most successful large mammals on earth. Their success is completely due to being a great machine for turning grass into human food. It’s symbiotic in a lot of ways: we clear pasture and kill predators for them, but also, we eat them. Great for the cows and us, sucks for the trees and wolves.

          Ants and aphids have a similar relationship. Great for the ants, and the aphids, not so much for the plants.

          If you want to conflate human economics with the natural world, you would have to admit that nature is the domain of the most ruthless of capitalists. Christ, the whole point of a lot of leftist thinking is that we must “rise above” our animalistic nature.

        • MxM111@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          9 months ago

          How profitable for both sides business relationships are detrimental to economic ecosystem?

          • EchoCT@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            9 months ago

            In the example regarding the brokers look at whos labor they’re profiteering from it’s not their own.

            • MxM111@kbin.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              9 months ago

              Are you talking about broker taking commission when buying and selling stock? They provide service of buying/selling and the commission is the service fee. Why is it not their labor?

              • EchoCT@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                9 months ago

                Moving fake numbers representative of labor is not in itself labor. It’s extraction of labor value from someone who actually provided something useful to society.

                • MxM111@kbin.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  9 months ago

                  Moving numbers or information representing anything or nothing is a service processed to the one who purchased the service - to the person or institution that wants to buy or sell stock. Why is it not labour? Do you not count sales person actions in a store as labour?

        • knorke3@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          9 months ago

          but that’s not an inherent symptom of buisness relationships but rather of the ones conducting them. symbiotic relationships are not usually harmful to their environment because they are usually specialized for that niche and can’t just move somewhere else. humans (for themost part) can and thus aren’t as immediately affected by the detrimental effects of their buisness relations (or we actively ignore those detrimental effects)