In human societies, money, the conversion of social capital into financial capital, be it mussel shells, gold coins, paper money, or crypto currencies, can have an infectious effect, taking over mind and actions of money-obsessed people. The effect of money on the mind and parasitic mind control have shocking similarities.
Parasitic mind control is one of the most fascinating and disturbing phenomena in nature. Some parasites have evolved remarkable strategies to manipulate their hosts' behavior for their own reproductive success. These parasites are spectacularly successful in taking over host animals for their own profit, manipulating their hosts’ minds to become a vehicle for the parasite to multiply and spread.
Nature's most successful parasitic mind controller is the zombie ant fungus (
ophiocordyceps unilateralis). The zombie ant fungus infects carpenter ants and completely alters their behavior. It starts when a spore of the fungus lands on a carpenter ant, usually in a tropical forest. The spore penetrates the exoskeleton and begins to grow inside the ant’s body, slowly spreading through its tissues. After a few days, the fungus releases neuroactive chemicals that affect the ant’s central nervous system. These chemicals don't destroy the brain — rather, they manipulate specific behaviors. Once infected, the ant leaves its colony and climbs to an elevated position with specific temperature and humidity. The fungus forces the ant to climb to a raised place — typically vegetation about 25 cm above the forest floor - an ideal environment for fungal growth. There the fungus manipulates the brain of the ant to bite down on a leaf vein with a "death grip". This behavior is timed with solar cycles, often occurring around solar noon, likely to optimize humidity and temperature for fungal development. Once the ant is locked in place, the fungus kills it from the inside, consuming its internal organs but preserving the outer structure for support. A few days later, the fungus erupts from the back of the ant's head or neck, growing a long stalk-like fruiting body. This structure releases new spores into the air, which rain down onto the forest floor to infect more ants.
Money, just like the ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus, can have a similar effect on the human mind. Just like the fungus hijacks the nervous system of the ants, compelling them to climb to ideal spore-dispersing heights, and ultimately killing them —money can have a parallel grip on the human psyche, taking over the mind of money-obsessed people, ultimately converting them into zombies. Like the fungus, money is not inherently evil. It’s a tool — a means of exchange, a unit of value. But in a society built on scarcity, competition, and consumerism, money becomes more than a tool: it becomes a force that can shape identity, drive decisions, and override deeper human instincts like empathy, cooperation, and curiosity. People begin to optimize their lives not around meaning, connection, or joy, but around money accumulation. Work, relationships, even time itself are sacrificed at the altar of financial gain.
The Psychological Parasitism of Money
Money, in its essence, is just a tool — a neutral medium of exchange. But in today’s world, money has evolved into something much more potent: a symbol of worth, a metric of identity, and for many, the central organizing principle of life.
Like the fungal spores that infiltrate the ant’s body, the idea of money seeps into the human mind early. Through advertising, social norms, education systems, and status culture, we’re conditioned to believe that financial success is synonymous with personal success. The result is that millions of people orient their entire lives around chasing this abstract symbol, often at the expense of joy, authenticity, or connection. Those who are consumed by this pursuit often believe they are exercising free will — just as the infected ant appears to be making its own decisions. But in reality, they may be following a path subtly laid out by cultural messaging, economic pressures, and social incentives — a path that ultimately benefits larger systems of power and wealth, not the individual.
Trapped in the Death Grip
The fungus drives ants to their death by hijacking their instincts. Similarly, the pursuit of money can override human instincts for rest, compassion, community, and curiosity. People work jobs they hate, accumulate debt to buy things they don’t need, and burn themselves out chasing digits on a screen.
Just like the fungus that bursts forth from the ant’s head, money-driven ideology spreads — through media, education, and institutions — infecting new minds, guiding new behaviors, sustaining the cycle. The most effective control is the kind that feels like freedom. Money doesn't need to be forced upon us; we pursue it willingly — even passionately. But as historian Yuval Noah Harari put it: "Money is a belief system. It’s only real because we all agree to believe in it." That shared belief gives it tremendous power — power to shape cities, war strategies, human lives. But if the belief remains unexamined, it becomes dogma. And dogma becomes a cage you can’t see.
To break free is difficult. It requires recognizing the infection, questioning deeply held assumptions, and reorienting toward values that cannot be bought or sold. But unlike the zombie ant, we still have a chance to reclaim our autonomy — to act not as puppets, but as stewards of our own purpose. We can question the system. We can ask whether the endless accumulation of wealth truly brings us security or meaning — or if it’s simply the default programming handed down to us. We can imagine an alternative. One where value isn’t defined by digits, where work is aligned with purpose, and where time is measured in moments, not money.
The first step is waking up — recognizing that the parasite isn’t in your bank account, it’s in your mindset.
Fungal Finance: Reimagining Social Capital Through the Mycorrhizal Network
Fungi can not only be mind-controlling parasites, fungi can also be nurturing carriers of social capital. Another type of fungi connects the roots of trees and plants in vast underground networks called mycorrhizae. These networks don’t just passively exist; they actively distribute nutrients, water, and chemical messages across plant species. They’re nature’s original internet — and perhaps, a more hopeful model for what money could be.
Because fungi, like money, can serve two very different roles: they can be parasitic, extracting from their host for self-gain. Or they can be mutualistic, enhancing the health of the entire ecosystem. The distinction is not in the organism itself — but in the relationship it cultivates.
Two Faces of the Network
In a forest, parasitic fungi invade their host, hijack its behavior, drain it of nutrients, and sometimes even control its movements, like the notorious Ophiocordyceps that turns ants into zombies. It’s a chilling tale of control, subjugation, and system exploitation.
In contrast, mycorrhizal fungi work in harmony with plant roots. They gather nutrients from the soil and deliver them to the plant in exchange for sugars. They link individual trees into community. A strong tree can send carbon to a struggling sapling. An elder tree can nurture a forest it may never see mature. This is mutualism — not competition.
So it is with money. In one version of the story — the one we’re most familiar with — money hijacks human behavior. It incentivizes greed, extracts labor, fractures communities, and prioritizes profit over life. It becomes parasitic, and we become its hosts.
But in another version — a living emergent version — money becomes a nutrient, a facilitator of trust and care. Like the mycorrhizal network, it enables resilient, adaptive, and regenerative communities. It flows where it’s needed. It supports both the strong and the vulnerable. It listens, responds, and heals.
The Economy as Ecosystem
We can begin to see the economy not as a machine to be optimized, but as a living ecosystem that needs care, balance, and attention. In this view, money is not the end goal, but simply the medium through which energy flows — like water or sunlight in a forest. Value is no longer confined to what can be bought or sold; it is rooted in trust, in relationships, in the quiet strength of interdependence.
True growth is not about accumulating more, but about fostering wellbeing — about flourishing. A healthy economy, like a healthy ecosystem, depends on movement. Resources must circulate, not stagnate, if communities are to thrive.
This kind of economy isn’t a dream — it already exists, here and there, in scattered pockets: in mutual aid groups, cooperative businesses, time banks, and local currencies. What’s missing isn’t possibility, but perspective — the kind of mycelial thinking that recognizes connection as the foundation of resilience, and sharing as the source of true wealth.
Credits
Edited and illustrated by ChatGPT-4o.
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