Looking at my last two posts, mentioning a friend killed by terrorists and a brother stuck in Afghanistan (who will be relieved by my other younger brother), I have decided to finally address a topic which has been on my mind for the last ten years. In the President's speech on action in Libya (link to Crooks and Liars, because the transcript is up there), the President had this anecdote:
That's the kind of leadership we have shown in Libya. Of course, even when we act as part of a coalition, the risks of any military action will be high. Those risks were realized when one of our planes malfunctioned over Libya. Yet when one of our airmen parachuted to the ground, in a country whose leader has so often demonized the United States - in a region that has such a difficult history with our country - this American did not find enemies. Instead, he was met by people who embraced him. One young Libyan who came to his aid said, "We are your friends. We are so grateful to these men who are protecting the skies."
If there is one aspect of American Exceptionalism which cannot be denied, it is the overwhelming victory of the American pop culture juggernaut. American culture has world-wide appeal... American music forms have worldwide popularity, American taste in clothing is embraced throughout the world, and English is the lingua franca of business and technology, and knowledge of English is a signifier of cultural "savvy" throughout the world. The dominance of American popular culture is so complete that even Saddam Hussein, no lover of the U.S. after the unfortunate events of 1991, used a version of an American pop song (albeit an Arabic version by a Syrian singer) in his "re-election campaign" of 2002.
Despite the various military misadventures of the past five decades, Americans are pretty much granted a "mulligan" throughout the world. I often wonder how things would have turned out if we had engaged the people of the developing world as equals, rather than fodder for the Military/Industrial Complex and sources of plunder. Notably, the greatest sin of the Eisenhower administration was the overthrow of the democratically-elected Mosaddegh government of Iran, and the installation of the Shah much to the benefit of B.P. So, rather than exporting freedom and rock-and/or-roll, we were making deals with medieval-style autocrats. Our continued support of the Shah led to the eventual rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini (Shah of Shahs is a good overview of the revolution). So, instead of Iranians in the late 70's waving posters of this guy:
they were waving pictures of this guy:
The United States has relied on hard power, its military might, its blood and treasure, at the expense of relying on soft power, the seemingly unstoppable hegemony of its cultural institutions. Even while the U.S./U.S.S.R. Cold War was at its height, Western pop culture was clandestinely embraced in Soviet Russia. Given a choice between Lenin and Lennon, how would a typical teenager respond? Instead we pursued proxy wars which have resulted in blowback to this day. Pursuit of our proxy "Battle to the Death" with the U.S.S.R., reached its height in the 80's, with the long conflict in Afghanistan (if the Afghan conflict was Russia's Vietnam, what the hell is our Afghan conflict, our meta-Vietnam?) and pro-jihad right wing fever dreams even infiltrated U.S. pop-culture. It is often said that the Afghan conflict led to the demise of the Soviet Union... the problem is that there was no humanitarian assistance to either the Afghans or the Russians. There was a time when U.S. foreign policy included aid to enemies, in the wake of the Afghan conflict, we wouldn't even help allies.
Pursuing a ten-year proxy war with our Iranian "enemies" (in which, bizarrely, we armed both sides) led to some awkward moments which were largely ignored by the U.S. media, much to our detriment:
Yeah, instead of sending blue jeans and hi-fi LPs to the Fertile Crescent, we sent bombs and poison gas precursor chemicals. Even after an actual U.S.-led invasion and years of crushing sanctions, the Iraqi people were willing to give us a "mulligan", thinking that the second U.S. invasion would usher in a new era of "Democracy, whisky, and sexy." I am trying to locate video of the "Democracy, Whisky, Sexy" guy, but can't find any on the t00bz. I wonder what happened to him, and I sincerely hope that he got out alive, and is now living free, drinking Jameson's with supermodels... but I know that's a pipe dream.
Well, we didn't give them democracy, nor did we give them whiskey, and we sure as hell didn't give them sexy. The worst thing about post-invasion Iraq is that there was a lull before the insurgency began in earnest, a breathless period during which the Iraqi people waited to see what the removal of Saddam Hussein would bring... and we blew it. We didn't bring jobs and infrastructure, much less democracy, whisky, and sexy. The post-invasion Coalition Provisional Authority was staffed with cronies and ideologues, more interested in bringing a stock market and a flat tax to Iraq than in bringing potable water and non-flat buildings.
By failing to utilize our unstoppable soft-power, and by using the "every problem a nail" approach, we have brought untold misery to people in the developing world. Our post-WW2 moral failures (starting with the coddling of Franco), and our fear-based foreign policy, combined with our insatiable greed for natural resources (who'd have thought that possessing abundant natural wealth would be a curse for a nation, rather than a boon?) and the insatiable greed of military contractors, have led to an untenable situation in which the U.S. is on the brink of financial ruin, Americans are entangled in three theaters of war, and hapless peasants are crushed under the heels of home-grown tyrants and foreign occupiers.
If only we had sent poodle skirts and 45s to Iran, instead of spooks and assassins...
Recently, I read a comment on the internet about how the individuals who display the American flag the most tend to be the least democratic of us. It's really a shame, because, from a graphic design standpoint, Old Glory is magnificent, standing out from a sea of tricolors in striking fashion. As far as flags go, only the Union Jack, also a symbol fraught with negative connotations, is comparable. I have a small collection of American flags, salvaged from roadsides during the post-9/11 visible patriotism boom while I was riding my bicycle to and from work. One of these flags is permanently displayed in my apartment, and another one graces my office at work.
How do we non-authoritarians and non-jingoists reclaim this symbol, especially since it has stood for imperialism since practically Day One? Sadly, America has not lived up to its lofty ideals very well. It's about time we decided to embody the values we claim to espouse in our founding documents, to cease letting oligarchs use the power of our government to benefit a tiny minority of individuals.
There's a quote falsely attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville: "America is great because America is good. If America ever stops being good, it will stop being great." This quote is as ersatz as the idea of American goodness, but I'm willing to try to put it to the test, the only problem is that people who claim to want to make America great usually make America badder. I'm hoping that there will be an effort to make America good, perhaps by exporting soft power once more- the effort to export vaccines to needful countries might be a good start.
ADDENDUM: Buzz Aldrin has a thing to say about this banner, which graced the surface of the Moon:
Saluting the American Flag on the Moon will always be one of my proudest moments. Old Glory has stood as a beacon of freedom, hope, and opportunity for over 240 years. Today and every day, let us celebrate our flag and honor our nation's heroes who've fought bravely to defend it. pic.twitter.com/U5DsIaK64A
I never anticipated writing about the death of Osama Bin Laden. I had meant to post on another topic, but this news supersedes other subjects. Nine and a half years after the 9/11 attacks, the mastermind and poster boy of international Wahabist terrorism has been killed. Wow, while Congressman Cliff Stearns (R-FL) was insisting that 9/11 first responders be checked against a terrorist watch list, and some badly-toupeed arsehole was asking to see the president's birth certificate, the president was meeting with the Department of Defense and various three-letter agencies to plan the eradication of the perennial public enemy number one. Kudos to all persons involved in the mission.
I'm not the type of person to dance in the streets in elation at the death of anyone, even a world-class scumbag like OBL. This is a time for gratitude, rememberance, reflection, and consideration of our long-term national security strategy.
This morning, while listening to WWRL's Mark Riley, a caller said that he was displeased because Bin Laden's body was not paraded through the streets of American cities... Whoa, what the hell happened? We're the good guys, I've never seen a movie in which the good guys were the guys who put people's heads on pikes. Yeah, we treated OBL's body in dignified fashion, not because he was dignified, but because we are.
In Greek legend, the dismembering of the body, often in a ritualistic context, was known as sparagmos. The fear of sparagmos is reflected in the Greek epics- the tearing of the body by wolves and vultures was considered abhorrent, and mistreatment of the corpse a horrific prospect. Yeah, I'd like to think that we are beyond the desire for public sparagmos.
Pondering sparagmos got me to thinking about Greek mythology. The Olympian Ares was identified as the god of war- his portfolio was physical prowess and courage, the destruction of one's enemy. On the other hand, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, was also portrayed as a warrior goddess- her bailiwick was strategy and skill, as opposed to slaughter. For the past ten years, the United States military has proved that it is remarkably effective when it comes to killing people, while having no long-term strategy for ending the wars into which it had entered. We have been devoted adherents of Ares, well-suited to the destruction of our enemies- we have lacked the wisdom to consider who our enemies really were, we completely rejected the Athenian ideals of wisdom, discretion, and strategic thinking. Perpetual bloodshed is not a sustainable foreign policy. High enemy casualties do not a victory make.
I have written that I believe that U.S. foreign policy depends too much on "hard" power and not enough on "soft" power. That being said, I believe that human intelligence is also of tantamount importance. It was the steady accumulation of intelligence that allowed the U.S. special forces to bring retribution to Osama Bin Laden. Without "Athena's" guidance, the Erinnýes would never have been able to play their role.
Athena was pretty much out in the cold for the last ten years, 9/11 itself might not have happened if the intelligence had been heeded. With the death of Bin Laden, we prove that we can play the role of the Erinnýes as well as the role of Ares, but with the possibility of retributive strikes, and the certainty of continued terrorist plots of various type, we had better get better at channeling Athena.
Egads, the Trump Budget Plan is a true horrorshow, not хорошо at all. This particular bit struck me as especially troublesome:
Trump’s first budget proposal, which he named “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again,” would increase defense spending by $54 billion and then offset that by stripping money from more than 18 other agencies. Some would be hit particularly hard, with reductions of more than 20 percent at the Agriculture, Labor and State departments and of more than 30 percent at the Environmental Protection Agency.
This means a whole lot of deregulation, a wholesale degradation of environmental and labor standards... this is particularly a victory for extractive industries which are particularly dangerous to workers and the environment. The simultaneous increase in defense spending and decrease in State Department spending seems to put the lie to the whole 'Hillary Clinton is a warmonger so vote for Trump' trope pushed during the election last year. I have long been a proponent of the use of soft power in America's dealings with the rest of the world, but it looks like the only tool in the Trump Maladministration toolkit is a hammer, by which I mean high-explosive ordnance. At least we didn't elect a warmonger... not one in a pantsuit, at any rate.
Trump also wants to wage the culture war by using the power of the purse:
It would also propose eliminating future federal support for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Within EPA alone, 50 programs and 3,200 positions would be eliminated.
Besides the fact that eliminating these positions works counter to Trump's stated goal of creating jobs (maybe those EPA inspectors can be sent down into the coal mines to dig, rather than regulate), these cuts will further impoverish the culture- I work for a not-for-profit, and we receive NEH grants for some of our programs... this time, it's personal.
Not surprisingly, the budget also cuts programs that help the poor: home heating fuel subsidies and community block grants which are often used to combat homelessness. One real puzzler is the proposal to privatize the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic control- wealthy people fly more often than poor people, and I can't imagine a privatized FAA, concerned with cost-containment, making air travel safer.
Perhaps the worst feature of the budget is the gutting of funds earmarked for research into clean, renewable energy and climate change mitigation:
The proposed budget extensively targets Obama programs and investments focused on climate change, seeking to eliminate payments to the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund — one key component of the U.S. commitment to the Paris climate agreement — and to slash research funding for climate, ocean and earth science programs at agencies such as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. At the same time, clean-energy research, heavily privileged by the Obama administration, would suffer greatly under the budget with the elimination of the ARPA-E program (Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy) at the Energy Department and an unspecified cut to the agency’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Yep, at the worst possible time, we have a government which is putting the pedal to the medal in the race along the road to, well, The Road. It's here where I reiterate my line that we aren't destroying the world, we are destroying our world... best of luck to our hardy Coleopterous planetary heirs.
Meanwhile, the budget funnels money to charter schools and private schools... gotta pay for school-wide bear defense.
Then, of course, there's the Wall:
And he requested $1.7 billion in new funding this year and an additional $2.6 billion in new funding in 2018 to begin construction of a wall along the border with Mexico. Trump proposed creating this wall during his campaign and had said Mexico would pay for it. A number of congressional Republicans appear to be cooling on the idea.
By the time Trump guts everything which makes this country liveable, there won't need to be a wall on the southern border... maybe the Canadians will start building one of their own, they'll need it.
I just want to note (I made a similar comment regarding this at J. Scott G.'s place) that the unstoppable pop culture juggernaut that started in the U.S. and steamrolled the world is African-American culture. The great home-grown American music forms jazz, blues, rock-and/or-roll, and rap/hip-hop are rooted in the black American experience, and reflect an African-American aesthetic. Black artists such as Josephine Baker were able to forge careers in Europe that they never could have in the segregated U.S.
Even punk rock, which was unfairly criticized by ill-informed critics as an attempt to purge the "black" elements from rock-and-roll, is rooted in the aesthetics of the African diaspora, whether 60's girl-group bubblegum pop or Jamaican reggae/dub. Okay, that being said, how about a classic that portended great changes in the American popular music canon?
Now, how about sitting back and listening keenly to another musical biscuit? Rock the Casbah by the Clash is about the power of popular music to subvert authoritarian regimes... it is precisely about soft power, and conservatives have appallingly tried to co-opt it as a war anthem. Uh, John Miller et al., it ain't about rocking the casbah with bombs, ya trolls:
Finally, here's the first part of a Josephine Baker biography (embedding disabled)- documenting the "first shot fired over the world's bow" by a remarkable American artist of African descent.
Today marks the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the infamous event which catapulted trebucheted (fixed for Dr. B.) the U.S. into World War 2. Of course, the attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy also inspired to United States' government to do something shameful. Well, there's also this, which is nothing to inspire pride:
The internment of the Japanese-Americans was an unfortunate example of bigotry, and Japanese-Americans rose above such bigotry to serve the U.S. with distinction. The book Yankee Samurai details the heroic service of Japanese-Americans in the Pacific theater, serving largely as translators. The book has a harrowing account of a young GI being lowered naked into an Okinawan cave to convince the people inside to surrender. Sadlynaught commenter pedestrian (in an epic, epic thread) suggested that Ito Hideaki play said GI).
Of course, parallels can be drawn to the conflict in which the U.S. is currently embroiled, to the extent that right wing pundits (notably the odious Michelle MalkinneeManananggal (heh, Wak Wak)) defended internment, making a case for similar treatment of Muslim Americans. The "sneak attack" aspects of both Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were remarked upon, and the unfortunate characterization of American citizens and resident aliens as a "Fifth Column" soon followed.
Yeah, remember Pearl Harbor, but learn from it. The people of Japan are now steadfast allies of the people of the United States. This is mostly due to the fact that our occupation of Japan post World War 2 was relatively restrained, and efforts were made to rebuild the Japanese economy (I imagine this was largely as a bulwark against Soviet expansion in the Pacific Rim). Yeah, soft power works. Unfortunately, we have recently tended to treat our allies worse than we used to treat our enemies.
To get your minds of Malkin and wingnuts, here's FDR's famous "Pearl Harbor" speech:
In yesterday's post about the "obsolete-before-it's-built" plans for the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement, I concluded with the observation:
The very idea of nickel-and-diming infrastructure projects until they are "built broken" is asinine. The whole disposable culture has got to end. Remember when things were built to last, and one paid a fairly high price for durable goods? Now, we buy cheap crap that we have to continually replace, which is wasteful and stupid. It's wasteful and stupid when such items as shoes, clothing, and small appliances are concerned, it's tragic and suicidal when major infrastructure is concerned.
Speaking of tragic and suicidal, we can't even build killing machines (something we used to excel at) that work any more... weapons manufacturers have purchased over 59,000 cheap Chinese microchips for installation into weapons systems. Some of the chips may have been hacked so that they will fail at critical moment. Personally, I am appalled at the hypermilitarization of our culture and believe that we should have relied on "soft power" in foreign relations rather than a bloodthirsty policy of "kill them and take their stuff". That being said, even the bloodiest of hawks would be appalled that we are now buying cheap foreign components for our vaunted weapons. At the end of the Cold War, pundits were speaking of aUnipolar Moment (I believe that Charles Kraphammer coined the phrase, but I won't send any hits that ghoul's way), when the U.S. was a single "hyperpower" after the fall of the Soviet Union. Now, after eight years of Dubya dumbassitude and ten years of continuous war, we have now reached "banana republic with nukes" status. By cutting corners even in the construction of our war machine, with the resultant increase of profits for the war profiteers (reminiscent of Arthur Miller's All My Sons), we are even losing that dubious distinction. With the renewed drumbeat for drumbeat for strikes against Iran, the possibility that our weapons incorporate faulty chips could make a really, really bad decision into a positively disastrous decision. Hell, we're even losing the ability to be a belligerent rogue actor on the world state.
The "bad chips" scandal reminds of a key plot point in Jack Vance's novel The Killing Machine in which **WARNING: MAJOR SPOILER** the protagonist incorporates an intentional design flaw into a weapon which is being designed at his enemy's behest, a design flaw which is instrumental in the protagonist's victory over his foe. I don't know if any of the Chinese military brass are Jack Vance fans, but the intentional sale of flawed components to a greedy, stupid U.S. military industrial complex would be a plan worthy of a fictional mastermind.
Of course, the title of this post is a riff on a lyric from Making the Bombs by the Circle Jerks:
Today was All Saints Day, a day in the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church on which the faithful commemorate the communion of saints, those individuals who have died and abide in the presence of God. In the vernacular, a saint is a person who embodies goodness, typically kindness and forbearance, and the other virtues. Using this definition, a saint is generally considered a person who will put their own interests aside to help others... the sort of behavior that seems sorely lacking these days.
Rather than spending untold millions of dollars to engage militarily with people fleeing violence in Central America, the US would be better served by spending that money to undo the damage it caused in the region by engaging in proxy wars in the 1980s. The Reagan administration armed right-wing militias in Central America to counter the leftist Sandinista regime, culminating in the arrival of three thousand American troops in Honduras in 1988. The decade saw brutal murders of American missionaries by members of the right wing National Guard of El Salvador and the assassination of the Archbishop of San Salvador. Washington bullets filled the Central American air, Washington dollars paid to train and arm the paramilitary forces who were fighting to prevent the dirt-poor campesinos of Central America from embracing Marxism. In this violent, chaotic milieu, gangs such as MS-13 developed among displaced, brutalized individuals. In a very real sense, the ongoing problems in Central America are the poisoned fruits of an evil foreign policy decades ago. These problems were caused by American militarism abroad, and American militarism won't solve them.
We need saints, not soldiers, to solve this crisis. We need to succor the afflicted, not sight them down gun barrels. I have long pondered the importance of soft power in American foreign policy, but the current maladministration would rather use violent means to address the refugee crisis- personally, I will be looking to see which members of his administration will be profiting from militarizing the border.
ADDENDUM: In the context of All Saints' Day, it's way past time to de-canonize St Ronald Reagan, who really inaugurated a lot of the bad policy now plaguing the nation.
I didn't see any of the Republican primary debate last night (no T.V., no masochistic tendencies), so I figured I'd put up a pretty generic post on flag day.
It's no secret that I am a proponent of soft power, I believe that American exceptionalism is true, but in a fashion which American right-wingers do not understand, and in a fashion that they constantly denigrate and undermine. American exceptionalism is rooted in democratic and egalitarian traditions that Republicans are trying to destroy. The classic American "rags to riches" story is becoming increasingly less likely. The American flag, once a symbol of freedom and enlightenment, has ceased to be a venerated symbol throughout much of the world.
One problem is that American foreign policy, both governmental and corporate have been pernicious both at home and abroad. Rather than raising the standards of living for people in developing countries, "free trade" policies have negatively impacted both foreign nationals and American citizens. While many of the deleterious effects of American (actually transnational corporate) trade policies are unseen by the average American citizen, certain effects are readily apparent, although the wrong people are the targets of the "man on the street's" hatred and fear. By not imposing our formerly high labor and environmental standards on our trading partners, we allow the poor working stiffs in those countries to be exploited, and we allow our own working stiffs to be pauperized. America has exported indentured servitude, and "Old Glory" has been substituted for a flag more appropriate for this wage-slavery.
Although it's a song about a different flag, sung by angry young provincials in an occupied territory, the song Fly the Flag by Stiff Little Fingers could very well have been sung about the American flag:
Substitute "U.S." for "British" and "Stars and Stripes" for "Union Jack", and you have a song which perfectly encapsulates the Randian/Reaganite policies which have undermined American prosperity at home and American prestige abroad:
Gimme a country that's red white and blue Gimme the British way honest and true Gimme the chance to be one of the few Gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme
Gimme a kingdom where people are free Free to do and free to be Free to screw you before you screw me Gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme
Cos I'm alright I'm alright, Union Jack Fly the flag
Gimme a Britain that's got back the Great A race of winners not cramped by the State And only the helpless get left at the gate Gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme
Of course, these policies could be reversed, if the political class in this country chose to put the needs of human beings over the desires of corporations. Unfortunately, I really don't see too many politicians who truly give a rat's ass about Joe Schmo and Jane Doe. Pity that, because I would rather have "Old Glory" be a symbol of human rights and fair play. As much as I love S.L.F., I'd rather people thought of George M. Cohan when they saw the American flag waving:
I was as angry and upset as anyone about the Brussels terror attacks, and it has got me thinking about the true nature of the conflict which has become known as the 'global war on terror'. In my estimation, the real struggle is the conflict between those who value pluralism and societies which value a monolithic approach to life. Tragically, even the most open, pluralistic societies harbor individuals who seek to bring about a monolithic society which conforms to their own narrow religious, racial, or ideological 'correctness'.
The Brussels attacks have been attributed to the Islamic State, a right-wing fundamentalist group which seeks to impose its Wahabist brand of Sunni Islam on the Fertile Crescent and the Levant. The refugee crisis which ISIS has created in Iraq and Syria has fueled the rise of right-wing movements in Europe. Here in the 'States, we have the ascendancy of right-wing politicians who fan the flames of religious conflict.
The real horror of terrorism is its targeting of random civilians- the idea that some poor schmo commuting to work or having a beer in a sidewalk cafe can be blown to smithereens by a fanatic is abhorrent. The world is dangerous enough without the added worry of violent death at the hands of an ideologue. Sadly, I don't know what the answer is... it's extremely difficult to neutralize the inflammable material that's been planted in the heads of the world's fundamentalists, racists, and misogynists. I've long been a proponent of soft power, but it seems as if a half-century of bad policies rooted in violent repression and benefiting a tiny elite have led to an intractable situation. The hunt for individual terrorists goes on, but the root causes of terrorism remain... reaction rather than prevention.
This morning, the Brian Lehrer Show featured two sobering segments, one on Belgian counterterrorism efforts and another on ordinary Russians' experiences after the fall of the Soviet Union. In both cases, I couldn't help but rue the United States' failure to engage in aid and development efforts in the past four decades, specifically the failure to rebuild Afghan society after the repulsion of the Soviet invasion, and the failure to aid the Russians after the fall of the Soviet Union. Add to that our proxy wars in the Middle East and the horn of Africa, and it's impossible not to conclude that our current geopolitical problems are the result of mistakes made and, worse, crimes committed.
I don't know how to promote pluralistic societies rooted in social justice, especially in the light of the 'West's' slide into intolerance, fear, and belligerence. I still believe that the majority of people just want to live their lives peacefully and without fear, but peace and fearlessness aren't profitable, and a lot of resources are expended on keeping people agitated and afraid. I guess I can do my part by not buying in to the fearmongering, and by trying to mollify others' fears, but there are times when that seems like a Sisyphean task.
Dr Mason began his lecture by stating that he was obsessed with sequencing DNA, the molecular "recipe" present from an individual's first cells. He described development as a symphony of DNA, RNA, and proteins, a combination of processes that occur at all times.
The last ten years of microbiology have been revolutionary. To illustrate the growth of processing power in the field of genome tracking, Dr Mason brought up Moore's Law and noted that the reduction in the cost of gene sequencing has vastly outpaced the general pace of technological development. In the period from 2006-2007, the cost to sequence a genome was cut in half every five months. This reduction in cost has led to "participatory genomics", embodied by such websites as "Patients Like Me", a social media site on which individuals can share genetic data. Genome guided medicine has arrived- medicines can be tailored to a patient's genetic profile. Dr Mason noted that more data equals more power, and that organizations such as Genspace are bringing microbiology to a wider audience. One of Genspace's projects is a study of the microbiome of the ultra-polluted Gowanus Canal, mere blocks from the beautiful Bell House. Dr Mason mentioned two genes that have a great effect on the health of an individual possessing them: CCR5-Δ32 provides HIV resistance, mutations decreasing myostatin can result in larger muscle mass, and LRP5 regulates bone mass.
Dr Mason then shifted to the topic of DNA patents. Until recently, DNA, once removed from the body, could be patented. The patenting of a DNA sequence such as the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which are implicated in the development of breast cancer, had the potential to stymie medicine based on these gene sequences. Dr Mason likened gene patenting to "patenting the word because and claiming to own every book". The challenge to gene patenting took place on 4/15/2013 and the Supreme Court invalidated patents on BRCA1 and BRCA2 on 6/13/2013- claims on isolated DNA were rejected. The litigation finally ended in 2015, so you now have a right to look at DNA. Dr Mason quipped, "Your genome is free!"
Dr Mason moved on to the topic of the microbiome. Every individual has more than one genome- there is the human genome and there is the genome of an individual's microbiome. Dr Mason illustrated this concept with a political analogy: "In a genetic democracy, you are the minority party." Every human being plays host to three to five pounds of bacteria, and most of the genes in your body are not "yours". Dr Mason cited the work of the Human Microbiome Project, joking "You are your bacteria." One's bacterial symbionts provide about 90% of the body's serotonin and about 50% of the body's dopamine. As Dr Mason put it, "The nearest pharmacy is your gut." The human microbiome produces about 700 "drugs". Lab studies have shown that (WARNING: NYT LINK, SAVE YOUR CLICKS) gut bacteria transplanted to fat mice can slim them.
An individual "inherits" its bacteria buddies from its mother in a Maternal Microbiome Transfer- during birth, a newborn picks up some of its mother's vaginal microbiome. Later on, this major transference is supplemented during nursing. Babies delivered through a Caesarian section tend to have a higher incidence of disease later in life. Dr Mason likened the microbiome to an anti-disease "force field", then he flashed a news report of Boeing's new "force field" patent (gotta love interdisciplinary nerdery!). He also noted that exposure to cockroaches is good for infants with asthma, and that Fecal Microbiota Transplants can harness "the power of poop" to help individuals with certain gastrointestinal problems (Dr Martin Blaser's two Secret Science Club lectures also dealt with this subject). He then cited OpenBiome as the go-to place for potential stool donors, with their "give a shit" campaign.
Dr Mason had a brief digression about bacteriophobia, quoting Bertrand Russell: "To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom." He showed the audience a couple of photos of his adorable daughter and mentioned her habit of putting toys in her mouth. When he took her to daycare, he observed the kids all putting the same toys in their mouths and passing their microbiota around. He likened it to the whole group "making out". This was the inspiration for the big "swabbing campaign" which led to the Pathomap.
The Pathomap is a "molecular view of the city", the goal of the project, which began on 7/15/2013, was to "seek out new life, new civilizations". The project has taken place over six different seasons, with 4,342 different data points in a subway system that transports 5.5 million riders daily. Samples were swabbed, annotated, and sequenced. 50% of the DNA belonged to no known organism (though the genomes of cockroaches have not been sequenced yet). Dr Mason described the subway system as a "rainforest to explore" in an interview with the NY Times. DNA from bacteria, eukaryotes, viruses, and "ambiguous" sources) was collected. A headline in The Atlantic proclaimed: "New York City Subways Are Covered in Microscopic Pizza". Despite the discovery of minute traces of anthrax, bubonic plague causing Yersinia pestis, and dysentery-causing bacteria, 88% of the bacteria on the subway were "friendlies". Out of the deleterious 12%, the most common were Enterococcus and Shigella. Despite headlines about everything "from beetles to bubonic plague" being found, Dr Mason noted that there is zero evidence that anyone is at risk from the subway bacteria. He noted that anthrax is caused by a soil bacteria and that the "anthrax DNA" that was found could belong to an unknown relative, and there is evidence that low levels of the "bad" bacteria in the subway are okay.
The greatest genetic diversity in the subway system was found in the Bronx, with Brooklyn ranking second. Dr Mason wryly noted, "Nothing soft comes from the Bronx." High diversity is a good thing, there is a lesser risk of any one organism accumulating in a dangerous concentration. Comparing the subway system's microbiome to the human microbiome, Dr Mason stated that the subway "looks like skin" with regards to the diversity of its biome. He noted the various incidence of bacteria associated with kimchi, sauerkraut, and noted that species diversity varies by area of the city. Areas of the subway affected by superstorm Sandy were characterized by bacteria not present elsewhere, including bacteria normally associated with the Antarctic. The hourly dynamics in the subway system vary in the course of a day- the periodic cleaning of the system is like a "forest fire", followed by a repopulation of the cleaned area.
On the topic of the genetic diversity of the system, Dr Mason indicated that the presence of DNA doesn't necessarily indicate that the organism it reveals the presence of is alive. Certain bacteria can produce antibiotics in order to compete with other bacteria. Among eukaryote genes, chickpea and cucumber genes were commonly found. Cockroach genomes not being sequenced, the mighty roaches of New York have yet to take their rightful place, now they are lumped in with the "unknowns". The amount of human DNA found varied from day-to-day... Dr Mason admitted that no swabbing was done on the day of the No-Pants Subway Ride. The human DNA that was found corresponds with census data- zooming in on the different areas of the Pathomap, one can predict the census results due to DNA matches. Humanity's "molecular echo" rings throughout the Pathomap.
Noting that the bacterial "map" of the subway system looked like an ad for Uber or a full-body condom, Dr Mason tackled the question, "Should I ride the subway?" He said, "It's okay, you're all healthy." He concluded that we should ride the subway.
The final section of the talk concerned future projects. The NYC subway system, with 1.7 billion riders, is the seventh busiest subway system in the world. The swabbing and mapping of subways in other cities has already begun. Another upcoming project is a Hospital Microbiome Project. An integration of molecular and technical data would result in a "smart city" in which pathogenic microbe alerts could be issued. Nanopore sequencing, measuring DNA as it passes through pores, is making genome sequencing even more rapid, which led to a discussion of the need for BIG DATA storage, with Dr Mason musing about Yottabytes of genetic data. He also mentioned the upcoming studies of the Kelley twins to determine the effects of space travel on identical twins (obligatory shout-out to the mad genii of Riddled!)
In the Q&A, some bastard in the audience asked if there was an appreciable difference between the outdoor stations, exposed as they are to UV rays and winter cold, and the sheltered underground stations. Dr Mason indicated that there was almost the same level of genetic diversity, but the outdoor stations had more plant DNA than the underground stations. Other topics addressed included probiotic deodorant sprays (the bacteria prevent the "stink producing" bacteria from proliferating, but showering washes the probiotics off). Regarding DNA sequencing and genome-based medicine, Dr Mason urged us not to run away from genetic information, but to be wary of a loss of privacy. On the "Ebola question", Dr Mason noted that Ebola is an RNA virus, and no testing for it has occurred. MRSA was found at three spots in the system. Dr Mason briefly touched on DHS pathogen detectors, using air filtration, but the feds don't typically share data. One wag, noting that Dr Mason was a charismatic, entertaining speaker, asked if he would be giving Neil Degrasse Tyson a run for his money as the great populizer of science, to which Dr Mason responded that he had met with Dr Tyson and had "exchanged microbiomes" by shaking his hand. For those of you fantasizing about hunky scientists hanging out, this isn't the first time that topic has been raised. Regarding the Gowanus, there are a lot of Archea there, talk about extremophiles!
At the end of the Q&A, Dr Mason mused about the use of bacteria to protect astronauts from radiation on long space flights, and about "microbiome synchronization" in the tight spaces astronauts would deal with. He ended by noting that the best hope for long-term human survival is space colonization. We won't be going along on to the "final frontier", we'll be travelling with trillions of our closest friends.
Once again, the Secret Science Club dished out a fantastic lecture, one that hit the "sweet spot" of imparting information, giving a look into the processes used by working scientists, a healthy dose of humor, and perhaps most important of all, a compelling local connection. Put succinctly, Dr Mason knocked it out of the park. Kudos to Dr Mason, Dorian and Margaret, and the staff of the beautiful Bell House. The ride home on the subway system was wonderful, I was able to bask in the rosy glow of knowing that I was traveling with a myriad of little buddies.
Here's a quick video featuring Dr Mason:
And, for extra measure, here's the Pathomap- be warned, though, you could spend many, many hours playing with it.
It's been a momentous week, and not in a good way. I've been working through the events of the week one post at a time, and I've now come to my post about the death of one of my all-time favorite authors, Gene Wolfe, who died last Sunday at the age of 87. I have posted about Wolfe off-and-on for years. Gene Wolfe was a genre writer, he wrote science fiction, fantasy, and a bit of horror fiction, but the general consensus, which I share, is that he rivaled any 'literary' author.
I first encountered Gene Wolfe in high school, when I read a tale in an anthology which haunted me, though I forgot the name of the author in the press of academic work and extracurricular activities. The long short story, which I later rediscovered was Seven American Nights, about a traveler from a technologically advanced Iran to a decrepit, backwater of a United States, has staying power with its slow burn of a narrative, in which details accumulate in the reader's mind until an 'aha' moment which punches the reader in the gut:
There seems to be no logic to the prices in this country, save for the general rule that foodstuffs are cheap and imported machinery-cameras and the like--costly. .Textiles are expensive, which no doubt explains why so many of the people wear ragged clothes that they mend and dye in an effort to make them look new. Certain kinds of jewelry are quite reasonable; others sell for much higher prices than they would in Teheran. Rings of silver or white gold set, usually, with a single modest diamond, may be had in great numbers for such low prices that I was tempted into buying a few to take home as an investment, Yet I saw bracelets that would have sold at home for no more than half a rial, for which the seller asked ten times that much.
Wolfe often employed unreliable narrators, protagonists with memory issues, protagonists who are trying to deceive, or whose perception of events is colored by drug use or simple naiveté. A Wolfe story is a puzzle, in which the reader must pierce the fog of the simple narrative in order to suss out an approximation of what is actually occurring. Simply put, Wolfe forced his readers to become better readers.
Wolfe's first major book was The Fifth Head of Cerberus, a set of three intertwining novellas set in a distant star system on twin planets originally colonized by Francophone spacefarers. The first novella centers around a young man who is trying to come to grips with his home life under a despotic father who subjects him to a battery of different tests. The second is an anthropologist's account of a legend concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of one of the planets from before first contact with humans and possible extinction at their hands. The third novella ties together the first two, as the anthropologist who authored the legend synopsis is interrogated in prison. The connections between the novellas have to be pieced together by the reader- small details in each possible refer to events in the other novellas, but nothing is made explicit. Like all of Wolfe's books, The Fifth Head of Cerberus rewards re-reading with an attention to detail, so details revealed later can be correlated with previous elements of the story.
Wolfe's magnum opus is The Book of the New Sun, originally published in four volumes. This novel, which superficially seems a love letter to my beloved Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories, also features an unreliable narrator, a man who claims to have a perfect memory, but has grown up in a sheltered environment with a limited, specialized education... he might also be deceptive at times. The story takes place in a far-distant future, when the sun of Urth is moribund, the planet's natural resources have been depleted, society is divided into a vast population of poor people living under pre-modern conditions and a tiny minority of ultra-wealthy persons with access to high technology, and so much history has taken place that, as Wolfe once wrote: “If we are remembered at all, it will be as the contemporaries of Herodotus and Mark Twain.” Details of the planet's antiquity come in hints, references to things poorly understood by Severian, the narrator:
The picture he was cleaning showed an armored figure standing in a desolate landscape. It had no weapon, but held a staff bearing a strange, stiff banner. The visor of this figure's helmet was entirely of gold, without eye slits or ventilation; in its polished surface the deathly desert could be seen in reflection, and nothing more.
This warrior of a dead world affected me deeply, though I could not say why or even just what emotion it was I felt. In some obscure way, I wanted to take down the picture and carry it - not into our necropolis but into one of those mountain forests of which our necropolis was (as I understood even then) an idealized but vitiated image. It should have stood among trees, the edge of its frame resting on young grass.
Wolfe's particular genius in The Book of the New Sun was making his protagonist a professional torturer, raised in his guild since infancy. The narrative arc involves his exile from the 'Order of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence' for showing mercy to a prisoner he has fallen in love with, and his exposure to the world outside of the cloistered environs of the the most curious tower in which he lived:
But perhaps before I write further I should explain something more of the nature of our Matachin Tower. It is situated toward the back of the Citadel, upon the western side. At ground level are the studies of our masters, where consultations with the officers of justice and the heads of other guilds are conducted. Our common room is above them, with its back to the kitchen. Above that is the refectory, which serves us as an assembly hall as well as an eating place. Above it are the private cabins of the masters, in better days much more numerous. Above these are the journeymen's cabins, and above them the apprentices' dormitory and classroom, and a series of attics and abandoned cubicles. Near the very top is the gun room, whose remaining pieces we of the guild are charged with serving should the Citadel suffer attack. The real work of our guild is carried out below all this. Just underground lies the examination room; beneath it, and thus outside the tower proper (for the examination room was the propulsion chamber of the original structure) stretches the labyrinth of the oubliette.
The real power of The Book of the New Sun is that it is a story about stories. On the Vancian framework, Wolfe hung allusions to Borges, Robert Graves, Rudyard Kipling, Herman Melville... in order to 'get' the book, one is required to read other books. The novel features numerous subsidiary stories, as storytelling is a favorite pastime of the characters who live in a resource-poor milieu. The far-future setting is reinforced by ancient legends in which the Minotaur and the Monitor are conflated, in which The Jungle Book, the legend of Romulus and Remus, and the founding of the Plymouth colony are mashed-up. One of Wolfe's greatest achievements was coming up with a counter to Orwell's Newspeak when he has a prisoner of war from a totalitarian society which has reduced its language to Goodthink phrases from an equivalent to Mao's Little Red Book join in a storytelling contest for the hand of a soldier in a field hospital. Wolfe was confident that the human spirit could prevail even in the face of Orwellian thought-control:
The next morning, when we had eaten and everyone was awake, I ventured to ask Foila if it was now time for me to judge between Melito and Hallvard. She shook her head, but before she could speak, the Ascian announced, “All must do their share in the service of the populace. The bullock draws the plow and the dog herds the sheep, but the cat catches mice in the granary. Thus men, women, and even children can serve the populace.”
Foila flashed that dazzling smile. “Our friend wants to tell a story too.”
“What!” For a moment I thought Melito was actually going to sit up. “Are you going to let him—let one of them—consider—”
She gestured, and he sputtered to silence. “Why yes.” Something tugged at the corners of her lips. “Yes, I think I shall. I’ll have to interpret for the rest of you, of course. Will that be all right, Severian?”
“If you wish it,” I said.
Hallvard rumbled, “This was not in the original agreement. I recall each word.”
“So do I,” Foila said. “It isn’t against it either, and in fact it’s in accordance with the spirit of the agreement, which was that the rivals for my hand—neither very soft nor very fair now, I’m afraid, though it’s becoming more so since I’ve been confined in this place—would compete. The Ascian would be my suitor if he thought he could; haven’t you seen the way he looks at me?”
The Ascian recited, “United, men and women are stronger; but a brave woman desires children, and not husbands.”
“He means that he would like to marry me, but he doesn’t think his attentions would be acceptable. He’s wrong.” Foila looked from Melito to Hallvard, and her smile had become a grin.
“Are you two really so frightened of him in a storytelling contest? You must have run like rabbits when you saw an Ascian on the battlefield.”
Neither of them answered, and after a time, the Ascian began to speak: “In times past, loyalty to the cause of the populace was to be found everywhere. The will of the Group of Seventeen was the will of everyone.”
Foila interpreted: “Once upon a time …”
Gene Wolfe converted to Catholicism when he married his wife Rosemary, and his was a convert's zeal without a convert's dogmatism. Catholic themes, and Catholic imagery pervade his works- allusions to the Eucharist, meditations on sin and redemption, and biblical analogies. He was also a conservative before the word was tainted by anti-intellectualism and bigotry. He occasionally wrote about environmental themes, particularly in the context of energy production and use of chemicals in our foodways. One particular favorite quote of mine comes from his short story The Adopted Father:
John Parker crossed to the window and stared at the dark sky beyond the glass. "That's coal smoke, the technology of the Nineteenth Century brought into the Twenty-First and hard at work. They could have conquered the solar system and harnessed the sun, but they did this instead, because there was no fun involved. Their great-grandfathers had done it, and they knew it would work."
Regarding the decrepit setting of The Book of the New Sun, Wolfe wrote:
The challenge to science fiction today is not to describe a slightly hyped-up present, but a real future- a time radically unlike the present, that is. Clearly , there are more than one of these futures, there is the future in which mankind returns to the sea for new sources of food and raw materials. There is the future of extermination. I decided that the future most in keeping with the dark figure I had planned and his journey toward war was what I call the do nothing future, the one in which humanity clings to its old home, the continents of Earth, and waits for the money to run out.
One of Wolfe's most harrowing passages comes from the haunting Seven American Nights:
After I found my pistol and assured myself that it was still in working order, I dragged the thing to a spot of moonlight. When I glimpsed it on the roof, it had seemed a feral dog, like the one I had shot in the park. When it lay dead before me, I had thought it a human being. In the moonlight I saw it was neither, or perhaps both. There was a blunt muzzle; and the height of the skull above the eyes, which anthropologists say is the surest badge of humanity and speech, had been stunted. until it was not greater than I have seen in a macaque. Yet the arms and shoulders and pelvis-even a few filthy rags of clothing---all bespoke mankind. It was a female, with small, flattened breasts still apparent on either side of the burn channel.
At least ten years ago I read about such things in Osman Aga's Mystery Beyond the Sun's Setting; but it was very. different to stand shivering on a deserted street corner of the old capital and examine the thing in the flesh. By Osman Aga's account (which no one, I think, but a few old women has ever believed) these creatures were in truth human beings-or at least the descendants of human beings. In the last century, when the famine gripped their country and the irreversible damage done to the chromosomal structures of the people had already become apparent, some few turned to the eating of human flesh. No doubt the corpses of the famine supplied their food at first; and no doubt those who ate of them congratulated themselves that by so doing they had escaped the effects of the enzymes that were then still used to bring slaughter animals to maturity in a matter of months. What they failed to realize was that the bodies of the human beings they ate had accumulated far more of these unnatural substances than were ever found in the flesh of the short-lived cattle. From them, according to Mystery Beyond the Sun's Setting, rose such creatures as the thing I had killed.
Earlier in the story, the narrator notes:
Everyone knows that these Americans were once the most skilled creators of consciousness-altering substances the world has ever seen.
The same knowledge that permitted them to forge the chemicals that destroyed them (so that they might have bread that never staled, innumerable poisons for vermin, and a host of unnatural materials for every purpose) also contrived synthetic alkaloids that produced endless feverish imaginings.
Surely some, at least, of these skills remain. Or if they do not,, then some of the substances themselves, preserved for eighty or a hundred years in hidden cabinets, and no doubt growing more dangerous as the world forgets them. I think that someone on the ship may have administered some such drug to me.
I could go on gushing about Gene Wolfe, and cutting-and-pasting particular favorite passages of mine, but I've gone on long enough, and I'm distracting you from reading the man's work itself. Suffice it to say that we lost a literary titan, and a particular favorite of mine. As I have noted before, Gene Wolfe raised the bar for his readers, he demanded that we become better at reading, and that we read more and that we read more carefully. For that, I will always be grateful to him.
It's been a l-o-n-g time, but The Pixies have released a new album titled "Indie Cindy". The single Bagboy, released last year, had that typical Pixies' guitar crunch, but the lyrics were delivered in a deadpan spoken-word performance which contrasts with the older Pixies "power pop from a warped alternate universe" soft/loud delivery. Sounds like they'd been listening to a lot of rap and a bunch of Cake singles:
I'm digging the new stuff so far, and more importantly, the Pixies are out and about, touring and making live recordings in various venues:
If there's one fly in the proverbial ointment to temper my Pixiesbliss, it's that bassist/vocalist Kim Deal was ousted from the band last year. I have to confess that I get a little weak in the knees everytime I hear her backing vocals in the outré song Debaser, a personal favorite:
I spent most of the day away from all sorts of media, being preoccupied with my volunteer gig all morning and with work all afternoon, but I did catch snippets of commentary regarding the death of George H.W. Bush at the age of 94. Most of the coverage was sickeningly anodyne- even so-called 'liberal' pundits and Democrats were talking about how 'civil' Bush the Elder was- not as clumsy or random as a Trump, an elegant Republican for a more civilized age. I say 'balls' to all that... the guy was a bad egg, bad for America, bad for the world. I am relieved that one pundit, Medhi Hasan of The Intercept, has written an article critical of Bush 41, that I am not alone in my rancor.
First of all, Bush 41 was Reagan's right-hand man, and probably wielded much of the presidential power while Reagan was slipping into dementia. Bush was the keynote speaker at my college graduation, and I have vivid memories of a distraught woman running up the aisles screaming 'Asesino!', referencing the Reagan administration's heinous Latin American policies, until security dragged her off, still screaming. I was young, I wasn't very political at the time, but this was a woman unprotected by my white male privilege.
Bush was comfortable using racism to further his political ends, with the Willie Horton ad against Michael Dukakis being a textbook example of stocking racialized fears while portraying Democrats as 'soft on crime'.
The litany of Bush's missteps, crimes, and atrocities has been ignored by the mainstream media, which is content to run the sanitized version of his tenure in the government. As Driftglass has often noted, liberals are cursed with memory... I can't forget living through the Bush years, especially watching the news media covering the war as if it were a sporting event (I vividly remember watching the initial airstrikes on Baghdad while drinking a beer in a bar and thinking, 'Weird, I guess we're at war now.').
Oddly enough, the people who seem to be most critical of the Bush hagiography are the QAnon loons, who ignore the man's actual crimes and accuse him of being an elite pedophile and the killer of JFK... I guess that Bush's 'New World Order' is still catnip to conspiracy whackaloons. I imagine that, if I were to delve deeper into their cesspool, there would be far-right trolls claiming that this frail 94 year old had been executed for his 'Deep State' crimes (these idiots believe that John McCain was executed by a military tribunal).
Enough of the conspiracy-mongering, I think I'll end this post with the guy who had the last word on HW and his 'thousand points of light' nonsense:
Sometimes, it takes a Canadian to tell it like it is about these here United States.
In his subversive Andy Griffith Show, Griffith portrayed a gentle Southern sheriff who lived in a sanitized, all-white town... a role antithetical to the tradition of the Southern lawman embodied by Bull Connor. While superficially all-American, Griffith's Sheriff Taylor represented the tyranny of the state and a soft-on-crime belief in the power of rehabilitative jailing:
Of course, in later years, Andy Griffith didn't even bother to hide his socialist, statist tendencies:
Uh, if I can turn off the snark for a while, I have to say that my favorite episode of The Andy Griffith Show was the episode in which Gomer Pyle tried to effect a citizen's arrest of Deputy Barney Fife... it cracks me up every time:
Dr Frank's talk riffed on the topic of the book- the research behind it came out of being a science writer who specializes in outreach. In the book, he wanted to address climate change denialism. An astronomer looks at what happens to planets undergoing climate change differently than a typical climate scientist. Regarding climate change, the problem can't be solved unless it is understood, and it can't be understood unless its story can be told. Anthropogenic climate change being a recent phenomenon, there is no broad story about it. The story that must be pieced together is: what is the human future on a climate-changing planet? Currently, there is an anthropogenically driven change in the planetary climate state from 'warm and moist' to an unknown state. Climate change will be accompanied by resource depletion, most dangerously, a depletion of potable water.
"Air pollution is no longer confined to isolated places. This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through radioactive materials and a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. Entire regional airsheds, crop plant environments, and river basins are heavy with noxious materials. Motor vehicles and home heating plants, municipal dumps and factories continually hurl pollutants into the air we breathe. Each day almost 50,000 tons of unpleasant, and sometimes poisonous, sulfur dioxide are added to the atmosphere, and our automobiles produce almost 300,000 tons of other pollutants. "
Currently, climate change denialism is another aspect of our political polarization.
In 2000 publication, Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer coined the term Anthropocene (PDF) to describe the current geological epoch in which human activity is a fundamental driver of coupled Earth systems. Humans are altering the planet to the extent that researchers a million or two years in the future could be able to detect isotopic evidence of human activity. Humanity is pushing the levers on climate, biodiversity, the nitrogen cycle, and the phosphorous cycle. In 2009, Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Centre led an effort to describe the planetary boundaries within which humanity could thrive and to foster stability. Dr Frank described the Anthropocene with a wonderful turn of phrase: We have reached a mythic power regarding planetary change.
Dr Frank characterized his fusion of astrobiology and the Anthropocene as the 10,000 light-year view. Astrobiology is the study of life in an astronomical perspective. The difficulty in astrobiological studies is that it involves an N=1 problem because we only know of one life-bearing world. That being said, there were three revolutions in the field: the first being the discovery of exoplanets, the second being the exploration of the solar system, and the third being an exploration of Earth's distant past.
The existence of life on other planets has occupied the human imagination for millennia, with optimists and pessimists vying for public acceptance. Epicurus believed that extraterrestrial life was common while Aristotle believed that Earth is unique. Newton believed in extraterrestrial life, but by 1900, pessimism regarding life beyond Earth was ascendant. In 1995, NASA's Kepler Space Telescope detected the first concrete evidence of an exoplanet. Since then, planets have been found wholesale- almost every star has planets orbiting it, with one in five stars having planets in the Habitable Zone- that region around a star in which liquid water can exist.
The exploration of the solar system has proceeded apace, with all sorts of objects (planets, asteroids, comets) being visited. Climate is the generic status of all planets with an atmosphere, and climate models exist for the other planets of the solar system (PDF). Climate is a universal planetary phenomenon. Mars used to be a blue world, with a vast amount of liquid water. Dr Frank described its current state as hellish, a cold and nasty place, and joked 'bring your blanket!' He then noted that you can change your planet, it might not be the one you grew up on.
Dr Frank then showed us an image of various planets and asked us to identify them- they all turned out to be artists' conceptions of the stages of Earth's development, much like depicted in this gorgeous painting. At one stage, the Earth was molten. At another stage, before the formation of continents, the only landmasses were cratons. At another stage, it is believed that there was a Snowball Earth. During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, it is believed that Earth had no sea or land ice. Dr Frank quipped that the Earth has worn many masks.
The study of the Earth's past involves the study of many Earth systems: the co-evolution of the atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, and biosphere. The Holocene, the geological epoch which encompasses our current Anthropocene, is one of many interglacial periods. AlL of human history has taken place in this epoch, approximately the last 10,000 years. Dr Frank posed the question, what would you experience if you landed on Earth three billion years ago? The answer is that you would asphyxiate because of a lack of oxygen in the atmosphere. The presence of free oxygen in the atmosphere is due to life- the Great Oxidation Event occurred when cyanobacteria 'farted out' oxygen as a waste product of photosynthesis. Life has changed the atmosphere over and over again. Successful species are numerous, but such success can lead to catastrophes- the cyanobacteria changed the atmosphere enough that it killed most of them off.
In 1979, James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis formulated the Gaia Hypothesis, the idea that the planet changes to maintain life. The hypothesis was controversial due to the notion of a teleological planet, a planet that 'wants' life, even though evolution is a blind processs. The idea of a 'living' planet led to some loopy interpretations in the public imagination, which led to some pushback, but it is undeniable that life plays an enormous role in Earth's systems dynamics. Earth and its life have been evolving together as a coupled system for a long time.
Dr Frank's research involves the study of astrobiological systems to determine if sustainable versions of our type of civilization are possible. Do industrialized civilizations like ours burn out in two hundred years? Astrobiological studies can inform us of new perspectives on our trajectory into and through the Anthropocene. How common are 'anthropocenes'? How fatal are 'anthropocenes'? What is the average lifespan of an industrial civilization? What are the characteristics of planets that survive an 'anthropocene'? Dr Frank urged us to take the prospect of exocivilizations seriously.
At this time, I will leave off the recap for now because bar trivia beckons- what good is learning while intoxicated if one cannot follow it up with showing off intellectually while intoxicated? I will finish this recap tomorrow...
By which I mean today!
Different stars have different characteristics. A star with a different spectrum from our sun would mean that photosynthesis on a planet orbiting it would differ from terrestrial photosynthesis. There are no tools in the toolbox to constrain our models focusing on the co-evolution of civilization and planetary systems. One definition of civilization involves the use of energy by intelligent lifeforms. A problem with studying astrobiology is the bad prosthetic forehead variety of science fiction- aliens provide a snicker factor. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence can be refined, as Dr Frank put it, "This is not your grandfather's SETI." Mentioning the excitement over the discovery of a possible extrasolarian megastructure, he exhorted us: "Consider the possibilities!" Within the next thirty years, we may have data relevant to the possibility of extraterrestrial life. For example, atmospheric signatures of industrial civilization include methane and CFCs.
The theoretical studies of exocivilizations involve a battle between optimists and pessimists. Astronomer Frank Drake formulated the Drake Equation, a theoretical exercise to estimate the possible number of detectable extrasolar civilizations, expressed as:
N is the number of detectable civilizations. R* is the average rate of star formation. Fp is the number of stars with planets. Ne is the number of those stars which have planets which can sustain life. Fl is the number of those planets on which life develops. Fi is the number of those planets which develop intelligent life which can produce civilizations. Fc is the number of those civilizations which have developed detectable communications technologies. L is the duration of time in which those civilizations release detectable signals.
Dr Frank posed the question: What sub-questions in the Drake Equation can be answered? Are we the only instance in cosmic evolution that intelligent life evolved? This ultra-pessimistic view would be a one in ten billion trillion chance. Even a pessimist like Ernst Mayr was ten million times more optimistic than that. Most pessimists would get a universe full of civilizations of two hundred years' duration.
Building world civilizations involves planetary feedback- 'anthropocenes' have probably happened before. We now know enough about planets and how they respond to to anthropocenes to begin how species will drive planetary feedback. Science is about constraining imagination, and the astrobiological/archaeological models are based on the predator/prey population models formulated by Lotka and Volterra:
Predator numbers tend to go up after the amount of prey increases, and crash after the prey numbers crash. Dr Frank used similar equations for population and planetary temperatures- he quipped that planets are machines, push hard enough and they go off. The models used for the equations were based on the population of Easter Island, as detailed in his May 2018 article in The Atlantic. Running multiple scenarios, he determined that there are three main results. The first is a mass die off as population exceeds the planet's carrying capacity. The second is the achievement of sustainability- a soft landing to a steady state is reached. The last is a true collapse, perhaps a runaway Venus scenario.
Dr Frank posed the question, what does the astrobiological perspective change? He joked that he is from New Jersey, so he is naturally combative, then noted that this is not a battle to save the planet- as Lynn Margulis joked: "Gaia is a tough bitch." The planet has been the scene of five known mass extinctions, and the only reason why we are here is because the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct, leaving ecological niches for our ancestors. What are we trying to sustain? What moral imperatives do we invoke to do so? Dr Frank showed the picture of the polar bear stranded on a melting ice flow and noted that it is an apex predator that would easily kill you. He then stated that humans can no longer practice ecological hooliganism. Even if humans are successful in reaching sustainability, there will be no more ice ages. Climate change poses a probably existential threat to the project of civilization, but Earth will survive even if we do not. Ecologically, the Earth's phytoplankton is more important than the charismatic megafauna usually invoked in ecological pleas.
Dr Frank urged activists to stop with the human hate- the goal should be to sustain the climatic conditions that are amenable to the project of civilization. Sustainability goals should balance a technologically advanced, energy intensive, high population with quality of life. 'Hockey Stick' diagrams won't change the narrative, stories are needed and the wrong story is 'we suck'. Cities are ecosystems just like forests, they have just been invented recently. The wrong question to ask is 'did we change climate?' The right question is 'what did we expect?' When oil was discovered, humans did not set out to change the climate, it was a mistake resulting from one particular sort of energy production. Our mistake now is to keep using fossil fuels. Climate scientist Raymond Pierrehumbert characterized climate change as 'Humanity's Final Exam'. Through right action and skillful means, we might just pass it. If we acknowledge that planets have rules, and achieve sustainability, we might create an 'awakened' planet on which the biosphere and civilization can flourish together, and the Gaia hypothesis can be realized.
The lecture was followed by a Q&A session. The first question involved mass extinctions, and Dr Frank noted that the biosphere would be happy to move on without us, and the burden falls on us to 'think like the biosphere' to benefit ourselves. Some bastard in the audience asked the good doctor for his opinion on the theoretical notion that a planet had 'one shot' to produce a high-tech civilization, because a failing civilization would 'spend all the startup capital' and impoverish any successors. Happily, Dr Frank's colleague Gavin Schmidt posed a speculative scenario in which a high tech civilization evolved millions of years before humanity. What sort of evidence would survive, say, thirty-five million years? Could climate change end one civilization and set up the cycle of fossil fuel production for the next civilization? Would a wind powered civilization be possible? What does a planet provide? What would our footprint be millions of years from now? It would be weird isotopic anomalies.
Regarding Mars, it is not Planet B. There is no way to move a mass of population and enough resources to sustain them to the red planet. Dr Frank then joked that we should 'fuck up' Mars- as we are triggering climate change, we are becoming spacefarers, and the price for climate change is the rest of the solar system.
Regarding the lifespan of technological civilizations, Dr Frank joked that, two hundred years ago, anyone traveling more than thirty miles per hour would be falling to their death.
Regarding the Fermi Paradox, Dr Frank noted that SETI funding has been slim, and that, if space were an ocean, we have only looked at at thimble. If there were aliens which could travel at approximately the speed of light, they could have disseminated throughout the galaxy in six thousand years, but if they had visited Earth, any traces would have been lost, so researchers should (shades of Arthur C. Clarke) look on the moon. I have my own theory about the Fermi Paradox.
Asked for the most effective story about climate change, Dr Frank opined that climate change shows us how powerful we are. He advised us not to bother talking to hardcore climate denialists, and noted that carbon dioxide doesn't care who you vote for.
Regarding Easter Island models, he noted that in most cases the population of the island exceeds its carrying capacity... sustainability is almost impossible. Carrying capacity studies for the planet use real climate models, with the parameters being based on energy sources. Even using wind power as a parameter, a two-degree change is expected. He noted that doctors don't only study sick people, and that many models are needed.
Asked about what technologies are needed, Dr Frank noted that we must get off fossil fuels and develop renewables. He noted that, near his Rochester campus, there are four bits of transportation infrastructure: the Erie Canal, a railroad, a highway, and an airport. Infrastructure changes, technologies change.
Dr Frank delivered a really great lecture- while much of it was speculative, it was a valuable intellectual exercise, and a call to action. I particularly dug the almost Lovecraftian evocation of vast periods of time, unburdened by Lovecraftian cosmic indifference and other less pleasant baggage. This was a superfun think piece. Kudos to Dr Frank, Dorian and Margaret, and the staff of the beautiful Bell House. Here is a video of Dr Frank discussing his new book:
Pour yourself a libation and soak in that SCIENCE!
ADDENDUM: Here is a short, sweet video featuring Dr Frank:
The Big Bad Bald Bastard is a character played by Monsieur _______ of the City of Y______. The role of the Bastard is a handy one to play on subways, walking the streets, and in dive-bars, when being a nerdy, bookish sort is not to one's advantage.
