[colechristensen]

This isn’t at all the case.

These identification apps are selling incomplete information where the need for full information about toxins is obvious.

Nobody was ever surprised that a knife hurt somebody or had cause to accuse a knife maker that their product could cut things in a way a consumer wouldn’t know about.

The issue isn’t that a tool can be harmful but that a danger to the producer of a product would be obligated to know and share isn’t obvious to the consumer without previous knowledge. If you’re selling information you must know your audience.

Any human teaching you to identify mushrooms will teach you about the risks of poison right away. “I didn’t tell you what you needed to know but you should have known better” only works when it’s reasonable for you to know better. General audience mushroom identifiers shouldn’t be expected to know how easily a misidentification could kill them, plus it’s just not difficult to do.

This doesn’t match the situation with knives unless you can find me someone who really does need to be warned about knives and isn’t, say, 4 years old.