The Hero Project

Jonah Lehrer reports on Phil Zimbardo's latest project (remember the Stanford Prison Experiment?) in San Fransisco: a school for heroes.

The goal of the project is simple: to put decades of experimental research to use in training the next generation of exemplary Americans, churning out good guys with the same efficiency that gangs and terrorist groups produce bad guys. At first glance, this seems like a slightly absurd endeavor. Heroism, after all, isn’t supposed to be a teachable trait. We assume that people like Gandhi or Rosa Parks or the 9/11 hero Todd Beamer have some intangible quality that the rest of us lack. When we get scared and selfish, these brave souls find a way to act, to speak out, to help others in need. That’s why they’re heroes.
Mr. Zimbardo rejects this view. “We’ve been saddled for too long with this mystical view of heroism,” he says. “We assume heroes are demigods. But they’re not. A hero is just an ordinary person who does something extraordinary. I believe we can use science to teach people how to do that.”

Um, awesome! TAE suggests this is a great idea. However, what makes me sad is that Zimbardo thinks we need such schools, which implies current school curricula is lacking in heroic (moral) education. Give the whole article a read, it's interesting.
Zimbardo suggests a curriculum to foster ordinary heroes: increased awareness of personal faults that could become "evil," study and admiration of historical and fictional heroes, and eventually performing real life acts of kindness and integrity.
I'm reminded of a scene from one of my favorite movies, Sam Raimi's Spiderman 2:

Henry Jackson: Hi Peter!
Peter: Hi Henry. You've grown tall!
May Parker: You'll never guess who he wants to be...Spiderman!
Peter: Why?
May: He knows a hero when he sees one. Too few characters out there, flying around like that, saving old girls like me. And Lord knows, kids like Henry need a hero. Courageous, self-sacrificing people. Setting examples for all of us. Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And years later, they'll tell how they stood in the rain for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them how to hold on a second longer. I believe there's a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams.

Zimbardo is apparently dreaming big:

One day, though, Mr. Zimbardo hopes to have a hero project in every city. “One of the problems with our culture is that we’ve replaced heroes with celebrities,” Mr. Zimbardo says. “We worship people who haven’t done anything. It’s time to get back to focusing on what matters, because we need real heroes more than ever.”

Huh, ya think?
Here's the thing, and both Zimbardo and Sam Raimi  nail it: heroes must be cultivated. Peter Parker became a hero after gaining his spider-powers, yes, but the ethics and morals that compelled him to "do good" were fostered in him by his Uncle since he was a kid. "With great power comes great responsibility," his Uncle had told him for years.

TAE posits the following: to teach someone to be a hero, you need only teach them altruism. And unsurprisingly, TAE has previously written that perhaps altruism is the single trait (if a single trait could be identified) that defines us as human. Especially in the sad modern culture of America, selfishness has become a way of life. "Greed is good," Gordon Gekko intones. Reality TV tells us we should have cameras, following us constantly, documenting our lives (because we are so interesting). Facebook enables us to broadcast ourselves, our every activity and interest (with pictures) for the world to see. These activities are all fine, sure. I'm not saying everyone that uses Facebook is a "villain." Rather, I am saying what the world needs is regular lessons and reminders that once you turn off Facebook, turn on your altruism. Once you stop watching reality TV shows, start remembering that other people on this planet exist besides yourself and they could probably use a little help.
As Zimbardo says: "Though real heroes take risks...one can’t begin with reckless acts of altruism. Courage requires practice." Would that we all practiced, daily.


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The Large Hebron Collider

Earlier this morning, Israeli physicists announced plans to build the Large Hebron Collider, a giant circular ring designed to hurl Israelis and Palestinians at each other at speeds nearing the speed of light. Israeli scientists hope that by smashing individuals of the two groups together, they might successfully detect the MOT Particle, which they have nicknamed the "One True God particle," putting to rest several thousand years of debate over the exact conditions at the formation of the West Bank.


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Business

Back from the conference, new posting soon.


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Dear TSA

Dear TSA,

I'm no terrorist. In fact, I'm surely the opposite. Evidence for this being the fact that I really don't mind so much when I get zapped with x-rays in the name of safety, or the fact that I maintain a high-level security clearance with not problem.
The enhanced pat-downs and the x-ray scanners with naked pictures are lame, sure, but I'd rather have 'em than a terrorist on an airplane.

That said, I have to call into question one of your current policies: laptops. I noticed, yesterday, as I was flying from Kansas City to New Orleans that I had to pull out my laptop and put it in a separate bin from my satchel, for some reason. That's fine. But why didn't you check my laptop charger?
Because my laptop is pretty old, my laptop charger is a brick, approximated 4" x 3" x 1". It has cords running out of both sides, one ends with a DC port, the other cord runs to an AC adapter plug. It seems to me that I could have stored a sizeable block of C4 inside that charger and you'd have let me do it.
In fact, I am sitting here looking at it. Based on my measurements, I could package a 0.75" X 3" X 1.75" block of C4 inside the charger. The cord that runs from "the block" to my laptop could easily have been the detonator cord (the detonator having already been pressed into the C4), that I spray painted black to match the block.
Now, take me and three of my friends, all with "laptop chargers" in their satchels on the same plane. One of us has a simple Arduino board (that also went right through security no problem) to use as the trigger. Lo and behold, we could VERY easily take the airplane down.

Now, I am not advocating this. Terrorism is heinous and evil and not a productive way to bring about social change, unless chaos is the social status you wish to achieve. I am just suggesting to the TSA that maybe they think about how dumb it is to scan laptops in the x-ray scanner but not the charger block.


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Murder

I spotted him about 4:45 pm. He was tall, and looked in pretty good shape. He certainly towered over the others around him. He showed up where I hadn't been expecting him. I'd assumed he be further down the hill, further away from traffic.
In any case, there he was. Looking all proud of himself around the ladies. Some other dudes were nearby, but he clearly was being territorial, being alpha. From where I was, he didn't see me. Which was lucky, I suppose, because I wasn't trying extraordinarily hard to remain hidden. As he'd gotten in view I'd perked up from where I was hunkered down. Now I slowly reached down and lifted my rifle onto the shooting sticks I had lain in front of me. He still didn't see me. Unfortunate for him.
He was moving now, following 'his' girls. Didn't seem in a particular hurry. Arrogant. That'd cost him. Through the scope of my rifle I could clearly see his face. He kept nonchalantly looking over his shoulder at the other boys, seemingly to confirm they were being sufficiently submissive. We'll see if he finds hot lead submissive.

I'd been waiting for him, for quite some time. Most of the year I'd been planning when and where I would kill him. I dreamed about it. Thought about it. Even talked to my dad about it. I'd worked out a game plan. Chosen a place to kill him. Imagined walking up to his still body. Imagined standing over him, seeing that lifeless gaze in his eyes. Seeing the drips of blood coming off his chest from the bullet wound. Maybe I'd press on his chest, I daydreamed, and hear the shuddering wheeze of a destroyed thoracic cavity.

So there he was, standing there all proud and fearless, in my scope. I took off the safety and held my breath. The lack of a breathing rhythm froze the muscles in my chest, making the gun steadier. Also, by holding my breath, my heart rate dropped - making my aim even steadier. The cross-hairs rested right on his chest, just below the shoulder. The kill zone. I gently squeezed the trigger.

A muzzle flash filled the scope, and I blinked. Like always, I didn't feel the gun recoil at all. I watched him take off running. The girls he had been with scattered like quail. The other boys, elsewhere on the hillside, stood there trying to figure out what was happening for a moment, then took off running too. He stumbled and fell, got up and ran, then stumbled and crashed to the ground, spinning a half circle. He struggled a few times, there, on the ground...then lay still.
Even from 200 yards away, I heard his crashing fall. Even over the hammering of adrenaline-powered heartbeats in my ears. A surge of emotion went through me. I had just killed. I had just ended a life. The calm serenity of his life had been shattered by me, by the thoughtless energy of my rifle, and by the steady efficiency of my ability.
I loaded another cartridge into the chamber. Perhaps he'd rise again. Or perhaps I could kill another. A double kill seemed too much to hope for. My breathing slowed, I hadn't realized I had been gasping for breath. It had all been over in seconds. The hillside was empty now, save for me and the heap of flesh laying a ways in front of me.

Walking up to a dead body is always a weird experience. Will the body suddenly rise? Perhaps he's not dead; perhaps he's just gathering strength for a counter-attack. As is my nature, I don't keep a gun ready at those moments. If he had the strength left to fight back, it'd be just my physicality versus his. But he lay there, still. The only movement was the slight blowing of his hair in the wind. The only sound was my breath.
I stood over him. I saw, as I had imagined, the lifelessness in his eyes. He was gone. Gone forever. I had...I had murdered him.

What else can you call it? He was innocent, he had done me no harm. But I, well honestly, I delighted in his death. I was proud of it. I was looking forward to telling people about how I had killed him. How deadly accurate I was. How I had waited for the perfect shot. How I had taken him, right through the heart. I had known, from the distance, that he was a big boy. But up close, he seemed huge. I wondered how, out there alone, I would take care of his body. Loading it into the back of my truck was going to be a nightmare. Maybe I could just use ratchet straps; tie them around him, then just lash him to the tow hitch and drag him up to the barn. Hang him up in the barn and let the blood drip out of him.

I got out my knife. Best just field dress him right here. He'd be lighter, that would help. The crows and coyotes can have his entrails. As I split him from sternum to hips, his guts poured out. They were hot. Steamy and hot. The smell of them was strong, stronger than I had remembered since my last kill. I took care: if you are careful the whole abdominal cavity will just sort of pour out. Don't want to puncture the stomach...contents always reek. Cut the bottom end of the intestine to release it from the anus.
Then I cut through the diaphragm. Blood poured everywhere. Working blind, I reached up past his lungs and heart (I could tell his heart was in pieces) and cut his windpipe and esophagus. His lungs came out, and his heart sort of poured out. My shot had been good. He had been dead before he knew the bullet hit him. With that, the work was mostly done. I elevated his head and back, to let the majority of the free blood pour out onto the ground. Man, big boys like this can sure bleed. Then I began the onerous work of heaving him into the back of my pickup.

A half hour later he was hanging by his neck in the barn, blood lazily dripping onto a tarp below. I'd let him hang, and cool, for a couple days, then with dad's help I'd grind him up and put him in the freezer. We'd drag the bones and sinew down to the hedgerow for nature to clean up.

From a single shot fired on that hillside to hanging that deer in the barn had been less than an hour. The gruesome efficiency gave me a strange sense of satisfaction. I am an apex predator. I proved it.


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The Definition of "Discovery"

I have to admit, before I get into this, that I am a little jaded. I got excited, like everyone else, by Kottke's implication that yesterday's NASA announcement might be the discovery of E.T. Then, when it turned out to be a horrifying well-performed press conference that was a strange concoction of part roundtable, part lecture, and part press release...I must admit that I had furrowed brows. Maybe even a scowl.

That said, I think we need to discuss whether or not it is a huge misnomer to call Wolfe-Simon's GFAJ-1 bacteria a "discovery." Let us pretend, for a moment, that I took an algae, maybe some monocell from the chlorophyta division, and added DNA for a green phosphorescent protein. Presto, change-o, I've got glowing algae. Should I announce I have "discovered glowing algae"? Or would a better word be "created"? Or suppose I took a flu virus, and weakened it until it was harmless in terms of symptoms, but still provided the immune system with a response that would give a host later immunity to the same flu virus at full strength (this is a common method of making annual flu vaccines). Should I announce I've discovered a "cure for flu" or should I say I've "created" a flu vaccine?
The point I am driving towards is that while the ability of a living organism to seemingly thrive in the absence of phosphorous is truly amazing, the fact that it was not a naturally occurring phenomena makes the idea of it being a "discovery" less certain.

Extremophiles - bacteria and microorganisms that seem to thrive in awful conditions - are prevalent all across this planet. From sulfur-loving organisms living on volcanic vents on the pitch black seafloor, to algae growing in hot springs in Yosemite, to whole ecosystems living under the ice in Antarctica, you name the place...there are bugs there, delightfully thriving, pushing the limits of what a "hostile environment" really is.
And each of these organisms leads to the obvious conclusion that life on other planets might not need a perfect oasis of nutrients, water, and sunlight in order to exist.
But TAE wonders: though life can exist in a hellish, arsenic-laden place like Mona Lake, California - can it also evolve there?
It'd take a better biologist than I to tell you which came first...the thermophiles or the rest of us, but go far enough back, to the Primordial Ooze, and you have to eventually find "The First" which spread into life on Earth.
I think what we should be focusing on here is not the fact that "The First" used Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon, Sulfur, and Phosphorous as its essential 6, but rather that The First appeared precisely when the Earth was at a chemical state conducive to it's appearance. And that chemical state included the most biogenic chemical compounds, which were created from the most biogenic atoms available.

Expand this view to other worlds, or their moons (like Titan), and while the cocktail of chemicals on that moon does not necessarily, in my view, eliminate the possibility that life might evolve there, the state of those chemicals as well as the state of the moon itself lead me to believe that Titan is a lifeless hydrocarbon-laden rock. I'd like to believe in methanogenic mice, skittering around pools of acetylene and playing on the frozen water rocks strewn all about...but I just can't see that such a place would allow for the development of a First.

So what of this arsenic-eating bacteria "discovered" at Mono Lake? Sadly, I have to believe that the fact that it needed laboratory coaxing to achieve phosphorous-free status actually weakens the chances of E.T. evolving on an arsenic world.


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New Life Discovered! (on Earth) - UPDATED

Cat is out of the bag:

At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same. But not this one. This one is completely different. Discovered in the poisonous Mono Lake, California, this bacteria is made of arsenic, something that was thought to be completely impossible. While she and other scientists theorized that this could be possible, this is the first discovery. The implications of this discovery are enormous to our understanding of life itself and the possibility of finding beings in other planets that don’t have to be like planet Earth.

It is not an overstatement to say this may be the biggest discovery in my lifetime. More to come.

UPDATE: I stand a little underwhelmed by the news. Researchers basically took a bacteria from an arsenic-rich environment and coaxed it a little further, until it didn't need the phosphorous at all. The bacteria wasn't already phosphorous free.
The smoking gun in exobiology will be the discovery of a bacteria that violates the current HONCSP requirement without tampering by humans. While this does have huge and far-reaching implications, it really isn't the thunderous breakthrough I was hoping for.
Sadly typical of NASA...


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