Some of them.  Some of them enlighten you, and others grow new brain cells.

No, a general rule for “don’t eat this” doesn’t imply the rest are safe.  

As a general rule, snakes with triangular shaped heads (i.e. pit vipers) are poisonous.  That doesn’t imply snakes without triangular heads (elapids - coral snakes, sea snakes, cobras) aren’t poisonous.  Nor does it mean all snakes that appear to have triangular heads (hogsheads) are poisonous.  It just means if you see a triangular head, there is a high probability it is poisonous and you shouldn’t fuck with it without a good base of knowledge.

Two of the stupidest things you can post in GD are saying: "I believe in the 2nd Amendment but..." and asking: "Should I eat these random mushrooms I found?".

Both should be grounds for immediate spamming of IM box with dick pics and expulsion from the holy order.

Well, here is an academic at Cornell describing his experience with poisoning in 2006 on the mycology blog at Cornell: https://blog.mycology.cornell.edu/2006/11/22/i-survived-the-destroying-angel/.  There was also a Colorado professor who was a big mycology expert circa 2002-2005 who poisoned himself.  Now, I can’t say that either of these people were “academic mycologists” as you describe.  I’m not an expert in any fashion; but it seems abundantly clear that it can be very difficult to distinguish between edible and poisonous species once you start getting adventurous, particularly with white/cream, gilled mushrooms.

I do see what you mean by a rule for not eating (had a lot of beer last night).

Yeah, the Cornell account is on their site because their mycologist Kathie Hodge identified them for the hospital. I have met her - she would never do something so stupid (that is a really obvious mushroom).

I agree with the sentiment that you shouldn't push your limits with gilled mushrooms as they certainly can kill you. The more you know comfortably however, the more you get to eat. Wanting to eat something should never enter into the equation until after you ID it though if that makes sense. You need to study all of them to really know the differences. I worked for many years with someone who was an absolute giant in the field and can only speculate on how many hundreds of species he ate over his lifetime safely. I'm only at somewhere around 150 probably but haven't been counting. Being classically trained academically and being exposed by professionals are very powerful tools against screwing up.

Russians love to mushroom hunt, so that’s how I got introduced to it.  Unfortunately, their native knowledge doesn’t always transfer well to the states.

Also, you’re a bad person for drunkposting.  Nobody here does that.

No problem, I enjoy helping. Post up some more pics!