Issue 3

Pittsburgh Pinball: A Love Story the crack of the ipper, the click of the drop target, and the agony of defeat

The Fourth River professor buzzkill leaks our secret, drains our hope, and pours us a cup of cold hard truth

Anybody Out There? an excerpt from planetary messenger muses about our neighbors in the cosmos

Hacking Pittsburgh(ers) grindhouse wetware is implanting electronic devices into humans, so let’s talk about that

Entrepreneurial Aptitude jason sauer gives us another nudge in the right direction, away from our jobs

Matters Of The Heart

And A Crossword Puzzle, Too

an intro to our new dating advice column. this issue: online dating safety tips

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MATTERS OF THE HEART: raise your hand if you need dating advice. that’s most of you. susan dunhoff is here to give us all a few pointers.

contents

28

steel this crossword:

10

daniel finan does it again. try not to cheat

HACKING PITTSBURGH(ERS): a slice of life piece about slicing into people. subdermal computer chips, magnets, lights, and more.

35

THE FOURTH RIVER: professor buzzkill dampens our spirits again as he voyages through pittsburgh’s subterranean water world.

24

PITTSBURGH PINBALL: sometimes you win, every time you lose.

Steel This Magazine needs your help. Writers, Photographers, Salespeople... we need you!

If you’re a creative, or if you simply have some good story ideas, please reach out to: John@SteelThisMag.com to get involved.

Staff:

Publisher - John Dubosky Editor In Chief - Ernie Pantusso Creative Director/Graphic Design - Kelli Koladish Head of Photography - Brian Volinic Contributing Writers - Bob Stallsmith, Jennifer Klountz, Amy M Edwards, Professor Buzzkill Crossword Puzzle - Daniel Finan

ANYBODY OUT THERE? in this issue’s fiction spotlight, dr. jacob haqq-misra muses on the likelihood of bumping into extraterrestrial life.

41 55 ENTREPRENEURIAL APTITUDE: ready to quit your job? here’s another idea for you to launch a startup.

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TOGETHER, THEY’RE

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SUBDERMAL

conversation Q&A session with Tim Cannon of Grindhouse Wetware, a bio-hacker getting under Pittsburgh’s skin.

By: Amy M Edwards Photos By: Ryan O’Shea

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ranscending the online forums of biohack.me in the winter of 2012, Grindhouse Wetware formed in Pittsburgh as an open-source biotechnology company geared towards augmenting reality and human capability, most noticeably through the subdermal implantation of cybernetic devices.

According to biohack.me, an online forum whose mission is to, “promote talk in the self-biohacker [or, grinder] community,” “Grinders are passionate individuals who believe the tools and knowledge of science belong to everyone. Grinders practice functional extreme body modification in an effort to improve the human condition. [Grinders] hack [them]selves with electronic hardware to extend and improve human capacities. Grinders believe in action, their bodies the experiment.”

Pittsburgh based startup, Grindhouse Wetware, is one of the only open source biohacking companies in the world and, as such, occupies a unique position to bear witness to and inform the future coalescence of the human and the technological.

Tim Cannon, co-founder and Chief Information Officer of Grindhouse Wetware, is a software developer turned entrepreneur. He was the first to implant one of Grindhouse’s wares in his body and agreed to answer a few questions about his experiences:

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The Grindhouse WetWare Northstar implant.

Cleaning and suturing a wound after a recent implant.

You were the first to get Grindhouse-designed biometric implants. How many individuals now have GW implants?

I would say that is still in its infancy; maybe 20 people have powered implants done by Grindhouse, at maximum. We are very careful with who we allow to get these implants as it places a responsibility on them to report to us regularly and participate in testing.

Which implants do you currently have and what have you had in the past? Which have you found to be the most beneficial or enjoyable?

I currently have several magnets: finger, tragus, wrist, side of the hand. I have found the magnetic sense quite useful.

I have an xNT NFC chip in one hand and a standard RFID in the other hand. The one on my left is attached to the Pittsburgh hackerspace, that has saved me some time, I can tell you. I would forget the swipe card all the time. I have the NorthStar unit, which is the first version of the NorthStar being released. This one has brought me the most fun. It makes people curious, and I can’t help but love watching the reaction on people’s faces when it lights up. It”s fascination, horror, or both.

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What is the long-term goal for the evolution of implants towards the augmentation of human capability? Biofeedback and health, or something more?

I would say biofeedback, tracking biological data, and mining the data for patterns is the short term. But the long term goal I think is to make this so accessible and easy to design and imagine that our ability to predict breaks down. I think when it becomes super easy to change the form and function of your body then diversity takes on a whole new meaning.

Are other companies, universities or start-ups pursuing similar designs through different avenues? Do you view them as competition or allies?

There are others in all spheres that you mentioned. We tend to view it more like “co-opetition.� This community tends to be small. We specialize in various areas and share information, challenges and sources freely.

The founders of Grindhouse Wetware show off their glowing subdermal devices.

How do you balance the cerebral and the corporeal? How does this affect your innate sense of humanness?

At the end of the day it is all cerebral. That said, my sense of humanness is mostly bound with my progression away from biology. I don’t think biology makes us human. I think it’s intelligence and consciousness. The more conscious I become, the more human I am. Thus, if I add senses, I become more conscious, and therefore more human.

In the future when augmentation becomes more common, how do you think accessibility will be addressed or affected? Will this technology be available to most or will there be a prohibitive cost involved?

We try to use open source technology and we do everything at the lowest possible cost. I imagine that will put pressure on people and on major corporations to reduce the costs. However, until we solve some underlying social issues and biological issues, I imagine the cost will be prohibitive of some new and important technologies when they first arrive to market.

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The most common implants are the smaller magnets and injectable NFC’s (Near Field Communication apparatus that enables two devices to establish communication when within 2 inches of each other think automatic keypad entry and smartphone point of sale). The benefit of an NFC implant is obvious for anyone who has ever, as Tim mentioned, forgotten their swipe card at work, or, in the case of POS transactions, lost their debit card in Manhattan while on a weekend trip. The magnetic implants carry a less perceptible, yet arguably more mind-bending, advantage. Individuals who have undergone magnetic implantation claim to be able to perceive the electromagnetic fields in our surroundings such as those from cash registers, computer fans, power cord transformers and microwaves. This added sense enriches the modern technologically-populated environment that we already inhabit and allows us to interact with it on a more fundamental level.

The Northstar device that Tim currently has implanted is the first version, or V1. At this time, the Northstar is purely aesthetic in nature, lighting up with a series of LED’s. Through the implantation of the current V1 version of this device, Grindhouse may study the efficacy and safety to apply to future implants of similar size and construction. The second, upcoming version, or Northstar V2, will have further capabilities such as gesture recognition and Bluetooth capability in order to build a stronger conveyance, or communication, between machines and humans. Such gesture recognition technology would have monumental impacts on the way in which we interact with our technology, potentially even making conventional forms of information input, such as keyboards and touchscreens, redundant. Other less invasive advances in gesture recognition are currently in development, such as wired gloves and vision tracking cameras, and only time will tell which win out in the largest market, the home consumer market. In addition to gesture recognition, biometric data feedback would be collected via the V2, such as blood pressure and sugar levels, aiding incontestably in preventative medicine.

For more information, visit www.GrindhouseWetware.com Follow Tim Cannon on Twitter @timthecyborg

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MATTERS OF THE HEART

DATING AND RELATIONSHIP ADVICE FROM ONE OF PITTSBURGH’S FOREMOST EXPERTS, SUSAN DUNHOFF, PROFESSIONAL MATCHMAKER AND RELATIONSHIP ADVISER. HOLIDAY 2016

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or more than two decades my business has been pairing my clients with single, compatible romantic partners. I’ve seen couples go from sharing a bottle of wine on a first date to reading their vows to one another on their wedding day. People come to me when they’re serious about building a romantic relationship. Herein lies my expertise.

Through this process, I’ve seen my fair share of love, excitement, anxiety, frustration, and a laundry list of interactions that run the gamut of human emotion and experience.

I’m here for posterity, to lend some advice to any readers wishing it, and to hopefully help make dating more safe, rewarding, and enjoyable for everyone involved.

In this column we’ll explore the ways in which we interact with and meet potential romantic partners. We’ll talk about how to find and engage with new people, the best ways to go about making the first date happen, and I’ll give some tips along the way on my do’s and don’ts for the early stages of dating. I’ll give pointers on how to make communication easier, and show you how to build trust and respect. We’ll talk about important aspects of healthy relationships like compromise, intimacy, humor, forgiveness, and the importance of understanding the nuances of human communication.

We’d also like to hear from you. Each issue we’ll go over submissions from our readers to answer questions, analyze dating story lines, and give advice. Whether you’re dating online, mingling with friends, or just keeping your eyes open for love, we’ll try to make this a good place of reference for you.

So, for this first issue, I’d like to give a few tips for what many of you are already trying, online dating. The advent of social media dating is revolutionizing the way people meet and interact with one another in a romantic setting. According to the Pew Research Center, online dating sites and applications use among 18-24 year olds has nearly tripled since 2013, and the numbers are also up for people aged 55-64 years. It’s an exciting new way for people to cast a net, as wide as they’d like, and drum up new acquaintances.

These sites can be tremendous resources for people, but they also come with their pitfalls. The foremost concern I have for these sites is safety. Here are a few simple steps to take to be sure you’re being safe, having fun, and not wasting too much time with misleading profiles.

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ONLINE DATING SAFETY TIPS: Get their last name. This sounds almost too simple even to mention, but in my experience a few text messages behind an attractive face can lead people to rush into a date scenario without any real information about the person they’re meeting. There’s nothing wrong with a casual meeting for drinks, but people are rarely forthcoming with negative personal behaviors or experiences that my be unhealthy or unacceptable to others. Which brings me to my next tip: Perform a criminal background check. Many of my clients are surprised at this suggestion and I often hear people scoff at the idea of going to such measures for a meeting organized on an app like Tinder. However, it costs as little as $25 with companies like InstantCheckmate.com. The price of a round of cocktails could save you a ton of time and increase your safety exponentially. At the very least you can check court dockets using PA’s Unified Judicial website, ujsportal.pacourts.us. or Pennsyvlania Access to Criminal History’s website, epatch.state.pa.us. These searches cost nothing but will give only vague information about court history; they won’t tell you credit history, out of state matters, or potential aliases. While you’re at it, there’s also a free search for PA police records at psp.pa.gov.

Have a backup plan. Call your friends before your date, let them know where you’ll be and how long you’ll be there.

Meet in a public place such as a coffee shop or busy restaurant.

If you’re driving, valet parking is best but not common in most restaurants. Try to park as close as you can to the venue and be sure you are not being followed when you leave.

Never get into anyone’s car! Until you’ve met someone, feel comfortable with them, and have a good sense of their character I recommend against getting in a stranger’s car. Once you’re in there, your date is in control of where you go and when you get there.

The most important advice I can give is be comfortable with yourself and have fun. Try to enjoy getting to know new people.

Oftentimes, people can become so obsessed with finding their future life partner that they don’t stop to enjoy dating and getting to know new people. Your first date may not be your new partner, and that’s perfectly fine. So long as you’re comfortable and content with yourself as a person, the rest will fall into place.

Have a dating story you want to share with us?

Drop us a line at: Mail@SteelThisMag.com

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professor BUZZKILL

PITTSBURGH HISTORY MYTHS WITH:

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PITTSBURGH'S FOURTH RIVER We love our Steelers, we love our pierogies, and we love our rivers. The aristocratic Allegheny has its yacht clubs and kayaks. The muddy, muscular Mon does all the hard work. And the Ohio is our gift to the midwest, forged by the combination of the other two rivers’ personalities.

But what about the fabled fourth river in Pittsburgh? Stand still for more than 10 minutes anywhere in the 412 and you’re bound to be approached by a yinzer, ready to regale you with Pittsburgh tales: the bomber in the Mon, the Green Man, and the famous fourth river. It’s underneath us, they say, and has been covered up by city streets. Strange, golem-esque creatures are down there. They live off blind river fish and have Myron Cope accents. The fourth river isn’t entirely underground, locals will tell you. While most rivers simply empty out into oceans or lakes, our beloved fourth provides its own majestic finale by shooting up powerfully to form the fountain at Point State Park.

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wish these weird tales were true, but they aren’t. The truth about the fourth river is even weirder. At least, that is, for all us who aren’t geologists. The river beneath downtown is an aquifer, which was formed during the last Ice Age (somewhere between 12,000 and 100,000 years ago), along with our other rivers and valleys. An aquifer is an underground layer of rock, sediment, sand, and gravel that is permeable enough to hold water (and to have water flow slowly through it).

The aquifer is constantly active, with water flowing into it from the Allegheny and the Mon as well as from its own supply.

What’s more interesting, and weirder in a way, is that the aquifer is used for heating, cooling, and regulating the temperature in some of the major buildings downtown.

Staying within a range of 50 to 54 degrees year-round, the aquifer water provides the perfect thermal baseline for these buildings. It only takes a little extra energy to boost the water’s temperature in the winter and almost no energy to use it as a coolant in the summer.

Professor Buzzkill runs a blog and podcast about history and historical myths – professorbuzzkill.com

Wells were sunk all over the downtown area over the years, and the aquifer water was drawn whenever it was needed. Once mechanized heating and cooling systems became sophisticated in the early 20th century, aquifer water became an essential civic and commercial resource. Even hyper-modern PPG Place uses the fourth river as part of its heating and cooling system. Our region’s water companies even draw from the aquifer. And some of the fourth river’s water is combined with city water to create our beloved Point State Park Fountain.

It’s easy to visualize water from our aboveground rivers being used for commercial and industrial purposes. After all, drawing

river-water has been common in human history. The key thing that makes the fourth river so useful, however, is that it is easier to transport its water, and it’s much cheaper to get it to the temperature needed for the purpose. Imagine having to pipe water from either of the big rivers, and then massage its temperature for all of downtown’s needs. Aquifer wells turned out to be more direct, efficient, and cost effective.

And by using the fourth river, early yinzers were only following what had been done for centuries — using the most readily available and replenish-able resource. Digging a well to the aquifer was smart. Hauling it from one of the rivers was dumb.

What’s weird about the existence of the aquifer is that it means that downtown seems to be resting on a sponge. Granted, it’s a pretty stiff sponge, but it’s still porous and soaked with water.

But aquifers aren’t exactly the type of river or water source that we’re used to seeing, and the unseen is usually the source of myths. But legends about being able to kayak down it via our sewer system are not to be taken seriously. First of all, you can’t really get to the fourth river. It doesn’t exactly “flow” as rapidly as above-ground rivers. And your kayak would get stuck on the sediment. So aquifer really is a better term for our fourth river.

Geologically speaking, of course.

But Pittsburghers don’t stand for fancy science-talk. We like giving things our own names, like “gum bands” and “dippy eggs.” So the only thing missing from our fourth river is a real Pittsburgh name.

Let’s call it Myron.

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CROSSWORD

LONG VOWELS Across 1 50 ___ 5 River bed residue 9 With 40-Across, “Top Hat” star, 1935 13 Renee Zellweger’s role in “Chicago”

By: Daniel Finan

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64 Golf legend who passed away in 2016, familiarly

25 SUPER apologetic

66 Professional specialty 67 Like a beanpole 68 Bought flowers for, say

32 35

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60 “Hooked on Phonics” topic... and a hint to this puzzle’s theme

30 They’re not manned by men

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53 Former Iranian ruler

20 Blonde, stereotypically

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15 Prom night ride

19 1994 Piven/Favreau comedy

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14 Haloed one, in France

17 VERY remote

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51 Where some MONSTER homers are hit

16 Like some Peruvian ruins

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31 “Six Million Dollar Man” org.

33 Compounds in kilos

69 Show evidence of getting too much sun

4 Be inclined (to)

33 1995 Stallone title role

35 Pittsburgh-to-State College dir.

70 Nos. following phone nos.

5 Babysat

34 Variety show

71 Anchor material?

6 Focused, as an athlete

38 It may have a fisheye lens

7 JKF alternative

39 Phonetic division: Abbr.

8 Chinese flowers

41 Chicken General?

9 Prop in “A River Runs Through It”

42 Plant bristles

32 Go into a tailspin

36 Suffix with pant or aunt 37 Sends again 40 See 9-Across

Down “Lord of the Flies” symbol

Presented By:

48 Steeler’s rival

11 Outback bird

49 Wally’s TV bro

12 Feature of every website

50 Pontiac muscle car

13 Tears (up)

52 Final word from Porky Pig

18 Derriere

54 A fire sign

21 “Steel This Magazine” installment: Abbr.

55 Like some Instagram filters

24 String that I will follow 26 Chaplin of “Game of Thrones”

HOLIDAY 2016

45 Gold or silver, but not bronze

10 Christ Redeemer site

58 Sunup 60 Support for many computers 61 49ers’ prize

27 “Wait for it... wait for it...

THERE!”

62 Post-marriage clarification

28 KOA regulars

65 Sushi ingredient

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63 Sex ___

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Presented By:

Theme Answers The circled names are in their respective entries, so, for example, Author Silverstein described with just a few words would be SHEL in A NUTSHELL.

Est. 2004

412.758.5880 w 6328 Butler St. Pittsburgh, Pa

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EVERYONE LOSES, IT’S NOT A BIG DEAL

Pittsburgh's Pinball Love Story

By Bob Stallsmith

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“Three years of trying to be the winner of a group in a game where everyone loses. Every game ends with striking the machine while using the choicest expletives.

This is followed by a deep breath, before appreciating the points received instead of the ones that were left on the table.”

There are very few things in life that I can say I started doing because I saw pretty girls doing them. Pinball is one of them. A few beers into an evening at my favorite watering hole, disinterested in my friends’ conversation, I decided to approach two women playing with a new, large mechanical box where a coat rack used to stand. Having struck out in the companionship department, I went home that Spring night with nothing but a budding interest in pinball. A few short days later, I found that a good friend of mine in the neighborhood also played.

Weeks later I made the singular decision to allow time to foster my interest in this new hobby, and got fired from my job. This job could at best be described as an empty, loveless relationship that had been allowed to go on far too long. More accurately, it was like two strangers with nothing in common sitting across a table from each other for three and a half years, waiting to pull the trigger.

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Inches down this time line that I’m building, my friend, let’s call him Frank for simplicity’s sake, took me to the Professional and Amateur Pinball Association facility in Carnegie.

I began to realize that the pinball iceberg was much larger than what I had perceived.

In a part of the city I had no reason to visit previously, behind a crumbling warehouse, stood another warehouse. Inside was everything I ever wanted in a casino which, pretty much, is not a casino. I found wall to wall machines creating sound and light.

The first game I recall playing was a dirt bike racing themed table with an upper vertical playing field named, Banzai Run. In order to play the last game, the latest-and

not really the greatest-Avengers themed machine, Frank and I left his family waiting in the van. Later, I found out this event was the World Championship of Pinball.

Discovering that such a thing happens, and has been happening, in the city where I live is the closest I will ever come to believing the Earth is the center of the universe.

This is where life comes from.

This is important.

Still unemployed throughout that Summer, it was easy enough to find me. Check the pool, check the library, check the pinball machine at the Rock Room. I spent too much time and too much money playing the AC/DC pinball machine they had in their back room.

If my interest in pinball was budding in the Spring, it didn’t properly bloom until Frank told me about the Pittsburgh Pinball League.

I remember the first game I played, X-Men, a game I had played many times at Gooski’s.

This time was different with the anxiety of playing around so many strangers, and the lack of alcohol coursing through my system. After the first multi-ball on that game, I was shaking. I’m not that great at pinball or writing, but I’ve always been adept at pointing out how ridiculous I can be, and thereby managed to calm myself down enough to keep playing.

Today my favorite bar has three pinball machines, and it’s still the

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safest place to find me if I’m not at home or at work, which I unfortunately had to start doing again. I’m in a pinball gang, club, team… whatever. My selfdefeatist nature has probably kept me in the league for what is now my tenth season and third year of playing pinball. Three years of trying to be the winner of a group in a game where everyone loses.

Every game ends with striking the machine while using the choicest expletives. This is followed by a deep breath, before appreciating the points received instead of the ones that were left on the table.

Providing, of course, that you didn’t have a crap ball. In that scenario, you’re just mad.

And that’s what I say to everyone who tells me, “I’ll play, but I’m not good.” No one is. Everyone loses. It’s not a big deal. Just keep the ball in play. And when you’ve figured that out, aim for lights. If you manage to get that part of the game down, figure out what the lights mean and how to light them.

The best thing that can be hoped for is a free game, usually signified by a loud screeching sound emitted from the machine that has been described as: “tires rubbing against a curb” or “someone kicking a puppy.” If you do really well, you get to spell your initials in LED’s, so others can see who got lucky.

I encourage you to pull the coat

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off of the machine at your local drinking establishment, pump in some quarters, and enjoy this part of Pittsburgh’s competitive culture. If the machine is busted, say something. It’s worth it. And if a pretty girl joins you, well, that’s like a free game.

Bob Stallsmith is a sports writer, comic book enthusiast, and a semiprofessional pinball player with Polish Hill ‘Full Tilt’ Pinball.

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“

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In this issue’s fiction spotlight, we’re checking back in with astrobiologist and meteorologist Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra for an excerpt of another sci-fi work of his: Planetary Messenger (CreateSpace, 2009), written during his time at Penn State.

In this passage we follow Shane, a freelance journalist during his last day of a conference on planet finding. The Planet Finder Mission has just launched and conference goers are sharing ideas about the potential discoveries of biosignatures in newly discovered planets.

As the speaker from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute takes the stage, he posits the question: “Where are they?”

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I

spent the morning and the last session of the conference learning about current discoveries in the geology of Earth’s history; the rest of my week lacked in geology, so I thought it best to remedy the situation while time remained. I furiously took pages of notes, scribbling to replicate diagrams I thought I understood with captions even more incomprehensible.

I had enough trouble with the geologic record, but it slowly became easier to at least try and think about what millions of years meant, though billions of years still remained baffling to conceptualize. The session concluded exactly on time as the crowd herded across the conference center to a hall set up for a lunch banquet. I looked around for Art to no avail, so I navigated toward a table with some of the younger scientists and other journalists. We made introductions as we dug into our meals but had hardly started talking when the program began. The speaker was introduced as Allen Bryan, SETI institute researcher and former professor of anthropology. Dr. Bryan used no electronic slides or projection system but simply stood behind the podium and delivered what was for me the most thought provoking lecture of the week.

“Where are they?” Dr. Bryan peered over his audience as if actually searching for someone to answer his question. “We’ve been searching the skies, listening and looking for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, but so far all we’ve received is silence. If they are out there, then why haven’t we seen them?

A form of this question was posed by Enrico Fermi, and the resulting discussion became known as the Fermi Paradox: intelligent life appeared here on Earth after approximately four billion years of evolution, but once intelligence arose it did not take long for technology to develop. In a geologically short time our species has developed technology that, among other feats, allows us to explore our own Solar System. Fermi posited that given this exponential pace of development it would not require a significant technological leap for interstellar travel, perhaps no more than one to ten thousand years from now.

“Even if technology takes an average of four billion years to develop on a habitable planet, the galaxy itself is around nine HOLIDAY 2016

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billion years old, providing a window large enough for life and intelligence to develop around other stars. And if any theme can be singled out from this week, I think we would all agree that planetary systems are common in the galaxy and, as we are currently discovering, rocky terrestrial planets are also typical features of many stellar systems. If life, too, is common, then intelligent life should have formed elsewhere in the galaxy and continued the pace of technological development in order to visit and colonize planets orbiting other stars.

Even conservative estimates of time to travel between stars indicate that an intelligent species could have colonized the ninety thousand light years across the galaxy many times over. Given this assumption about the development of intelligence and technology, where are they? Plenty of time has gone by, so why haven’t we been visited yet? Is this a sign that we are in fact alone?

“There is no shortage of answers to this question. Some solutions make assumptions about the nature of extraterrestrial intelligence: the zoo hypothesis, for example, postulates that extraterrestrials would recognize our planet as a world still in development and therefore designate our region of space as a wildlife preserve of sorts. Using their superior technology to observe us without detection, they will finally reveal themselves to us once we cross a certain technological threshold. Other resolutions to this question conclude rarity for the occurrence of life and intelligence; after all, we only have one example of life on one planet, and the appearance of this phenomenon could be so uncommon that it only occurs once or twice in an entire galaxy—or perhaps life is so rare that Earth is unique even in the entire universe! Life itself may be common but the same may not be true of intelligent life that develops space travel. Perhaps the silence in the skies is evidence for our solitude, yet the absence of evidence is insufficient in itself to conclude that we are alone.

“In this business of searching for the unknown we must always be mindful of our assumptions. Assuming too much may limit our vision to a narrow view that misses a grander picture, and assuming too little leaves us with nothing to focus on at all. In reality the best we can do is to remember the constraints we deal with and be mindful of questioning these assumptions to see

if they still work. That we have not been visited by extraterrestrial intelligence only indicates that the expanding technological society who colonizes all planets in the galaxy does not exist. Perhaps, though, we can investigate the reason for posing the question like this and purge our concept of intelligence from our assumptions about the behavior of intelligent species. This is best done, I think, by looking at our own species and tracing exactly how this technology of ours gave us such great capabilities in a small amount of time.

“Likely originating in sub-Saharan Africa, our species developed in tribal communities composed of around two hundred individuals that could be identified from other tribes by their unique cultural identities, including their own history, mythology, crafts, governance, and lifestyle. These tribes practiced varying degrees of foraging, hunting, and gardening for sustenance and occupied a diverse set of ecological niches: in the jungle, near the desert, on icy tundra, or on windy plains. Tribes of Homo sapiens lived like this for a hundred thousand years or longer—while the ancestors of the genus Homo are over a million years old—developing technology, art, and ideas and maintaining some communication and trade with neighboring human tribes. Of course, the particulars of a tribe’s isolation or integration and the degree to which they lived a sedentary life varied, but in any case, the human population was represented by a diverse collection of small tribes adapted to living in particular environments both biologically and culturally. The tribes in cold regions learned to deal with the unique features and dangers of their land and developed a shared knowledge that was passed through generations, while desert tribes did the same with their knowledge of how to survive in the heat. Technology developed at a steady pace, including pottery, tool design, and metalworking, and was partially dependent on the particular resources available in a given region.

“Human ingenuity certainly drove creativity and discovery then just as now, yet the pace of development remained slow and steady compared to today. This is not because of the labor required for the hunting, foraging, and gardening lifestyle but rather a matter of numbers. In fact, modern tribal groups often spend only a few hours providing for their daily needs to find an abundance of leisure time the rest of the day; with a collective of just two hundred people, though, the

rate of technological development will inevitably be slower. We often assume that our total reliance on agricultural practice was necessary to generate the food surpluses that permitted specialists to work on art, science, and technology. However, modern tribal communities produce knowledge at a slower rate not for lack of free time, but for lack of sheer numbers. A global network of billions generates knowledge and invention at an accelerated rate compared to a tribe of two hundred. At some point in our history something changed that caused our numbers to grow exponentially.

“Approximately ten thousand years ago at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, the hunters, herders, and foragers of the Near East discovered the land had become unusually favorable and fruitful. The change in climate allowed certain cereal grains to thrive and, with the selection effect of human gathering, the grains developed into a useful and important source of nutrition. More importantly, though, these formerly nomadic tribes began a sedentary life to cultivate these grains; wheat and barley, among other crops, provided an important source of protein and calories. This region now known as the Fertile Crescent also housed a wide variety of domesticable animals—sheep, cattle, pigs, and goats—and work animals that became additional sources of food and energy. Other regions of the world had some of these resources available—yams in Africa, for example, or corn and llamas in the Americas—but no other region benefited from the luxury and abundance found in the Fertile Crescent. Indeed, this land almost literally flowing with milk and honey would have appeared as a blessing from above; there was no need to wander with such a rich and productive land.

“This accidental feast led to a drastic change in cultural practice among these people: the overabundance of food prompted unprecedented growth, and with population growth came a radical shift in agricultural practice. The Agricultural Revolution, as we call it today, did not occur overnight but developed over many generations. Let me also point out that agriculture itself was not uniquely invented ten thousand years ago in the Fertile Crescent, for ancient farming systems are found all over the world.

Foraging, hunting, and gardening previously provided sufficient food to maintain tribes of around two hundred people without HOLIDAY 2016

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long term growth, but this new agricultural system generated food surpluses by using all available land for human food production.

In addition to reducing biodiversity, this practice led to the ecological demise of the Fertile Crescent, evidenced by the barren wasteland that remains today.

“Nevertheless, these societies succeeded on a global scale and have propagated through history to the modern world. The explosion of human growth in the Near East spread across northern Africa, westward through Europe and eastward across Asia. An increase in food production generates a greater population, which in turn demands an increase in food production; here we have what is known as a positive feedback loop. An expanding population needs more food, which requires more land for farming and forces geographic expansion to satisfy this demand and intensify the cycle.

Through this positive feedback mechanism the great cities of our civilization were born, powered by continual growth and the constant need to expand. The pattern of this expansion is markedly different than the former nomadic life of tribes, for now people were both settling and expanding; rather than a few hundred wanderers, the few became thousands, then millions and more as densely populated cities spread throughout the land.

“This expansion continued across the Atlantic to the Americas, where privileged Eurasian settlers exterminated or subjugated the native peoples who lacked the geographic luxuries of the Fertile Crescent.

Even the cities of the Maya and Inca, which may have benefited from similar geographic advantages, were outmatched by the sheer abundance of resources in Eurasia; the smallpox and other diseases that destroyed these people also stemmed from the advantage of domesticable animals found in the Near East. Scatterings of indigenous people groups persist in the world today, but by population our particular culture that enjoyed accidental advantages ten thousand years ago has come to swell across the globe and occupy more space than practical.

“I mention all this to identify our underlying assumption that intelligence and expansion are somehow intrinsically linked. Indigenous groups that predate our curious exponential growth are composed of individuals certainly intelligent by any definition of

the word, yet continual expansion is not an inherent trait of their lifestyle. Our particular expansion is not driven by some force of curiosity that advances the state of knowledge but by the practical realities of exponential growth. And as a result of this unsustainable growth, our particular culture has developed complex technology at a rate faster than any indigenous group of roughly constant population. I designate our form of growth as unsustainable because exponential expansion cannot continue without bounds. A sustainable system is one which can be maintained indefinitely if all other factors are held constant, and a positive feedback loop between population, consumption, and expansion cannot persist for any lengthy duration of time in a world of limited resources. I will not venture a guess as to when we will reach this limit, but any unsustainable system is inevitably shortlived on geologic and astronomic timescales.

Ten thousand years of human civilization is a drop in the bucket of our own species’ million year history, notwithstanding the four billion years of life on this planet, nine billion year history of the galaxy, or the thirteen billion year age of the universe.

We may manage another hundred years or another ten thousand, but ultimately a system reliant upon exponential growth or consumption will fail.

“Let’s think back now to the Fermi Paradox, which assumes that an extraterrestrial intelligence will use its technology to expand across the galaxy, forming colonies and an intergalactic civilization. Our inferences about the behavior of extraterrestrial intelligence are obviously based upon our own conceptions of intelligence, but in this case I think we are needlessly assuming expansion to be an inevitable consequence of intelligence. Suppose that an intelligent extraterrestrial life form is favored with the same advantages that led us to exponential growth and rapid technological development so that in a short time they develop interstellar travel. Driven by the need to expand and continue growth, this galactic civilization will successfully move from planet to planet, colonizing each world to discover new resources and feed a continually growing population. However, because this galactic civilization is based on exponential growth, their success will be short-lived. Expansion across the galaxy will be quick, astronomically speaking—about one to a hundred million years—but their HOLIDAY 2016

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growth will cease and collapse upon reaching one of two limits: they will either reach a technological limit where expansion is no longer possible, or they will reach a physical limit where all available resources have been extinguished. It is impossible to predict exactly how long this galactic civilization would persist, but the unsustainable nature of their expansion means such a society will necessarily have a short lifetime. Thus, the galactic civilization of the Fermi Paradox should not be observed, because if any such civilization existed it would not last long enough for us to notice.

“Looking around at the variety of human life in the past and today shows us that many intelligent human cultures have not followed this pattern of exponential growth but have survived with sustainable practices as long as their surroundings remain habitable.

Our assumptions of what to look for when seeking intelligence among the stars is often colored by our particular pattern of rapid technological growth, yet no observable extraterrestrial intelligence will behave in a similar way. Any extraterrestrial intelligence we may observe, then, should follow sustainable practices simply because those that don’t will not persist for any length of time. We may be able to identify intelligent beings on other planets by drawing parallels to the conception of human intelligence, but we will not be able to do so by seeking out analogues to human expansion.

“This bleak picture of our civilization does not imply that technological extraterrestrial intelligence is nonexistent or that our own society is doomed to collapse. If we continue relying upon an unsustainable development then collapse may indeed occur, but it is certainly within our power to shift toward a way of life that maintains a population within our carrying capacity and does not depend on exponential resource consumption. Curiosity is also a human driver of exploration, and even though an intelligent species cannot expand through the cosmos without limitation, they can certainly explore distant worlds for the sake of knowledge—and perhaps the hope of finding other living creatures. Ultimately, though, we cannot say for certain what a sustainable technological society would do, because we have no examples as to how such a society operates. People groups living sustainably today have not yet generated the technology required for space exploration; our own civilization has this technology, but it

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flipped past the first page of creation until I found the Garden of Eden. I slowly read through the story, carefully digesting the familiar and ancient tale, and was surprised by what I found.

I had read the story of Adam and Eve countless times as a child and an adult, but this time around I saw something new. This Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil always seemed a bit elusive: what exactly was this knowledge? I reread the words of God to the heavenly host after learning of Adam and Eve’s misdeed: Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the Tree of Life, and eat, and live for ever’—therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.

The nature of this tree puzzled me upon rereading the verse, for the second half also provides an incredible historical insight: Adam and Eve lived in the garden as foragers, collecting whatever food they could find each day, but they left the garden as full time agriculturalists, a cursed existence where they would sweat and toil by their own hands. I had just sketched out a few ideas when the flight started boarding.

I kept my notebook and pencil handy and found my seat next to an elderly gentleman who could have been my father, had my father lived in Southeast Asia. He seemed intent on sleeping, so I opened up a fresh page to explore this matter.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve have free reign to eat from any of the trees and bushes that they find tasty and appealing.

Here was everything they could ever want, including safety from predators and the lack of starvation. Day in and day out they experienced the blissful life of this existence, foraging for food and enjoying the rest of their time as leisure. In a sense they lived like all the other animals in the garden, collecting whatever food they needed to live each day.

In the center of the garden stood two trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowing Good and Bad. These trees bore the two specific qualities of the heavenly host.

God specifically commanded Adam and Eve to stay away from the latter of these trees, the threat of death a consequence

of disobedience. Though the Tree of Life was not expressly forbidden, there is no indication that the humans or other animals had eaten from either of the two trees until the serpent approached Eve. Once the crafty serpent put in Eve’s mind that she, too, could become like one of the gods, knowing good and bad for herself, the human couple befell their demise. God curses the man, woman, and serpent, but he then speaks to the rest of the heavenly host, knowing full well that this act of disobedience meant the humans must leave the garden, and banishes Adam and Eve to a hard life of toil in the dirt. They became agriculturists and lived a full life outside of the garden.

Where was the promise of death when they disobeyed? Why did Adam live for hundreds of years after his eviction from paradise? And what exactly was the meaning of this Tree of Knowing Good and Bad? What special knowledge of the gods was so dangerous in our hands?

the tree of the gods—should also be theirs!

This knowledge is of what you should and should not eat, what must be harvested and what must be left, when to kill and when not to kill; it is the heavenly knowledge of who should live and who should die.

It made little sense that the Tree of Knowledge contained an encyclopedic database of architecture, engineer¬ing, science, art, and literature that passed into Eve as she bit the fruit. Nor did it seem likely that this knowledge was of sexuality, for all the creatures in the world, presumably including Adam and Eve, already practiced their sexual knowledge. The tree was nothing at all like a magical elixir that opened one’s eyes; instead, the tree was forbidden because it was not intended for humans to eat.

The humans now worked long and hard in the fields every day to produce the food needed to stay alive. Day in and day out, their survival depended on their success at cultivation: they now lived and died by the work of their own hands, not by the providing hand of God. In a sense, this story is about the tragic birth of human agriculture, when Adam and Eve’s defiance in the garden traded paradise and leisure for hardship and struggle where failure meant their demise. Come to think of it, this story says almost the opposite about dominion.

The garden was a delicately balanced place where Adam and Eve ate whatever looked good and the other animals did the same.

Not every plant was useful for Adam and Eve, but these were enjoyed by other creatures. Throughout the garden was food for humans to eat and food not for humans to eat, and Adam and Eve lived the first part of their lives content with this distinction.

The Tree of Knowledge was one of those trees not for humans to eat because it was the food of the heavenly host. By taking and eating of this tree, then, Adam and Eve were claiming entitlement to food not only from the trees meant for them but also from those meant for others. God and the heavenly host who planted the garden decided which foods each creature should eat. All was right in the garden until these humans decided that they deserved more; the daily allotment of food free for the taking was not sufficient, for the other trees of the garden—including HOLIDAY 2016

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Under no circumstances could these humans remain in the garden. Armed with the gods’ wisdom, the humans would claim and consume the garden themselves, so Adam and Eve were sent to become agriculturalists and till the soil, to grow their own food and live and die by their own hands. In the garden, after all, they never worried about where their food came from, for each day they simply took a walk and found good things to eat. God made the garden grow and provided for them each day, and they only went hungry if God made the garden less fruitful. They lived each day in the hand of God, but the garden soon became a distant memory.

The promise of death did not mean that Adam and Eve were previously immortal but instead was a promise that the consequence of this knowledge is the burden of your own life.

Uncontent to eat what was freely provided in the garden, they faced the frightening prospect of working hard simply to avoid death. Remaining in the garden meant Adam and Eve would continue devouring the trees including the Tree of Life, which would make them immortal and fully like the gods.

Evicted from the garden, they lived a cursed status of partial godhood, armed with the knowledge to live on their own but powerless against their ultimate and inevitable death.

Indeed, if they could not have eaten from both of the trees, it would have been better to have left them alone entirely.

This story puts the origin of humans at around six to ten thousand years

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discussed this morning, this coincides with the advent of the Agricultural Revolution.

The Garden of Eden is not so much a tale of human origins as the birth of the unsustainable development that fuels our expansive civilization; it is a story of the folly of this decision, the complete and utter futility of basing a society on the belief in human entitlement.

Neighboring societies of this exploding agrarian culture must have been baffled and confused by this strange behavior.

Why would any creature work harder than necessary just to survive? And what if the soil becomes too dry to farm? They will suffer famine and go hungry, while we can just move to another place! Nevertheless, this expansive way of life spread across the land and swelled to populations that dwindled the cultures not already destroyed. Adam and Eve were evicted from Eden, then, because they decided to dominate the earth.

I ran my hands across the lines of my notebook and considered the meaning of all this in a story. The tale of the Garden of Eden is, after all, an ancient and mythological way of viewing the world. I do not mean myth in the sense of untruth but as a vehicle for communicating an idea, regardless of its historicity, plausibility, or predictability. A myth is a story we use to construct meaning between ideas. All human cultures create myth to explain their place in the world; our own account of beginnings may include the divine hand of God, the Big Bang, or something in between, but any account of this type forms a mythological framework for viewing the world. Myth reflects the cultural viewpoints and values of the society telling the stories.

The writer of this narrative in Genesis viewed the concept of dominion as foolish and deadly, but our own culture thinks differently, behaving as if we really are entitled to all of the world’s resources.

Our culture, the one reflected in the rest of the Bible, believes it is our God given destiny to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it,” and our mythology—whether from the Bible or television commercials—reflects and reinforces this mantra, for believing this myth is the only way we succeed. So where did this idea of dominion come from? An accident of convenience.

When the Near Eastern wanderers saw the Fertile Crescent bursting with abundance, they were overjoyed at first. The land itself was so fruitful that it might have seemed as if everything were created for humans to eat—and so some people started believing it. From this land of plenty, this land of near gluttony, came the belief that everything on earth was meant for humans, the lush Fertile Crescent a testament to the destiny of human rule. True, the practice of dominion led to densely populated cities that generated science and art at a tremendously rapid rate, yet it instilled upon everyone the constant fear and reminder of their impending doom, for death could arrive at any moment when diligence and cunning failed to produce enough food. Here was the birth of a tired and fearful culture.

Was this shift to belief in human dominion accidental or malicious? Probably a bit of both. Somehow, though, I felt as if a great weight had lifted when I reread the first few pages of Genesis from the stolen Gideon Bible. There certainly is some truth in those pages. I wondered whether this answer would satisfy those who subscribe to a literal reading of the Bible, but as I looked over my notes I realized this is more than just a theological issue for debate. This is a story of our culture that continues to live in an unsustainable and ultimately futile way. We continue to believe in our dominion and authority over the earth, not because we read it in religious texts—for not everyone who believes this is religious—but because it is ingrained within the fabric of our expanding culture. The problem is not one of religion, but culture.

In order to survive and in order to overcome our fear of death, we must forget the idea that we are the masters of the world. We must remember that we are not special.

Jacob Haqq-Misra holds Ph.D.’s in Astrobiology and Meteorology, has completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Rock Ethics Institute, and has published two science fiction books and more than a dozen scientific articles. He’s an editor for EARTH Magazine, and a founding member and research scientist at Blue Marble Space Institute of Science.

Planetary Messenger and other works by Haqq-Misra are available on Amazon.com and HaqqMisra.net

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Entrepreneurism 101:

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rtist, community organizer, and coolest guy in the neighborhood, Jason Sauer knows how to get stuff done. He’s also learned a thing or two about teaching others along the way after years of training workers in the Learn to Earn Program, an initiative started by Sauer to help ex-detainees from local prisons and juvenile detention centers find work, complete required community service, and become skilled, entrepreneurial workers.

So we thought we’d give the man a microphone and share some DIY know-how with our readers.

Hit the paint store and get your squeegee fingers ready, we’re starting a screen printing company!

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If you’re going to do business, as always we have some simple steps to take to get you square with Uncle Sam. Come up with a name for your business, register it with the PA Department of Revenue at www.Revenue.Pa.Gov. There you’ll also find useful literature like a beginner’s guide to starting a business in Pennsylvania. Once you’re approved you’ll need to open up a bank account for the business. While there, many banks like Citizens Bank will even file for your Tax ID number free of charge.

Sauer’s first step is hopping on the old computer and vegging out on some videos to familiarize yourself with the processes involved in printing. ScreenPrinting. com has a lot of resources, the I Like To Make Stuff Youtube channel has a bunch of good info, as do the videos of

NateScreenPrints1 channel, and Chetan Jain’s tutorial videos. Once you have more of a feel for the process of screen printing, it’s time to go to school for real. Sauer and others in the community offer two-hour long tutorial sessions to increase your know-how, and to school you on things like style, repetition, and consistency. After taking classes, you’ll have a much better understanding of the types of paint, the number of colors, and the various surfaces you’re going to be screen printing. Sauer suggests starting with something like holiday cards on paper rather than jumping into something like T-shirts.

“It’s about the level you want to produce.

Single color images with water-based paint are much less expensive to produce than more elaborate designs,” Sauer said.

Textile ink vs. acrylic ink, four color vs. one color, these things will all make much more sense after taking a class and doing some trial and error on your own time.

The videos and classes will show you how to make your own screens, but if you’d like to save some time, you can buy pre-made screens at Tech Support in Manchester, or Wild Side North in Slippery Rock. A screen and a board with two hinges are going to come in under $20.

During this time, you’re going to be learning the basics such as how much paint to use, proper positioning of the squeegee, what designs work the best. You’re going to want to be as exact with each image as possible. “You want to mimic a machine, churning out the same exact image every time you swipe the paint,” Sauer said.

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“The best place to start is with one color flyers. Put a black image onto a piece of paper. You can color it by hand to make it more elaborate,” Sauer said. Simply get a design, go to Kinkos, have it printed onto a transparency, and you’re ready to set up your screen. Even at this rudimentary point in your screen printing career, you can start making cash. With a rig and a one-color printing station, you can go to a church function, or a booth at a mall, or an arts festival, and start cranking out things like Christmas cards, Valentine’s Day cards, things of this nature. Set up shop, start cranking them out. You can sell them for as little as $0.50 a piece and make your money on volume. Consumers can buy them, and people can also buy them in bulk and turn them around for $1.00 a piece. You can even set up a coloring station for kids and parents to color the cards together once printed.

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Another reason for starting with paper and cardstock is cost. If you make a mistake on a piece of paper, it’s a lot cheaper to redo than on a $7.00 T-shirt.

In order to expand, you’ll want to start making two-, three-, and four-color designs.

Each of these will necessitate another step in the process, while continuing to be concerned with perfect alignment and registration. It takes a lot of practice, and this is where your card printing skills will come in handy. But, what to print?

If you’re an artist, you can start designing your own custom images for retail sale.

Another option is working with local companies on their logos. Printing T-shirts and flyers for company picnics, family birthday parties, and local softball teams are all potential revenue sources for your company. Circulating a few flyers you’ve

Eliminate the risks of online dating. printed and talking to people you know can help dig up some leads and get you into more businesses. Once there, referrals can help carry your incoming workload.

Now that you’re seasoned, instead of selling directly to the public, you can charge $50+ an hour to church groups, corporate gatherings, and other events to set up and print. You provide the materials and the audience gets to keep all of your work.

The next step is expanding your products by offering more colors in prints. You’re going to look at making posters, T-shirts, flyers, anything that you can sell. More colors is a bit more work, but it also means you can sell $20 T-shirts instead of $0.50 holiday cards.

At this point, it’s time to keep your eyes and ears peeled for teams. Corporate picnics at Kennywood, high school

athletics, bands, and clubs. These are where you can get your big deals going, and referrals continually rolling in.

Once you have enough money to float a few hundred T-shirts without compromising your bottom line, it’s time to pay it forward.

“Get in business with your favorite band or rapper. You might be able to float them some merchandise, and if it sells, make money on the back end. You can help them out, and eventually you’re bringing up a new customer. Always try to take some chances on local artists,” Sauer said.

Throughout the entire process, consistency is your biggest goal. “Make sure it’s really good every single piece, every single time. People are wearing your business card,” Sauer said.

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