Whose Mind Is This, Anyway?

"....we are not unitary individuals but superorganisms, built out of both human and nonhuman elements; it is their interaction that determines who we are."  (Kramer & Bressan, 2015)

One of the illusions most of us hold with great conviction is that we are separate and distinct from the rest of the world.  "I am here. You (and everything else) are there."  "I am this.  I am not that." This belief in separateness and in the essence of our self identity seems so clearly true that we tend not to question it.  However, once we begin to examine closely what is meant by "here" and "there," "I" and "you," "this" and "that," things start to get a bit fuzzy.

My somewhat deranged fascination with (a) microbes (aka "germs") and (b) excrement (aka "poop") has led me to discover that there is a lot of scientific evidence supporting the idea that our belief in separateness is simply not correct. I've written about some of this before (see Fabulous Synthetic Poop!, Microbes for Breakfast!, and How About A Fecal Transplant?).  Research has shown that each of us is host to more than 100 trillion microbes that live in, on, and around us. Some microbes have been with us since before birth, influencing our development in the womb, and others joined us as we traveled through the birth canal and when our mothers nursed us. The interdependency between their lives and ours is so complete that for the first year of life our immune systems are switched to low so that more microbes can colonize our bodies -- it seems that the evolutionary advantage of having beneficial strains of these critters become part of us is so strong that it outweighs the risk of early childhood infection from "bad" microbes or other pathogens. In fact, we are dependent on them to the point that we could not survive for long without them. They are essential in digesting food, mounting successful immune defenses against diseases, and synthesizing certain vitamins.

In adulthood there are 10 times more microbes in us than there are human cells. Together they are our "microbiome," a community of creatures that interact with each other and with us in complex ways throughout our lives.  The relative number of different strains of bacteria in our microbiomes is unique to each person -- a kind of microbial fingerprint. In fact, some recent preliminary research has shown that we leave microbial traces in our environments that are as identifiable as fingerprints even without touching anything (Meadow et al., 2015).  It seems each of us has a "cloud" of bacteria that surrounds us and which leaves our unique signature wherever we go. If we could make the cloud visible (a "microbiomic aura") it would be very difficult to discern where our microbes end and "we" begin.
 
"I" and "Me" most definitely do not refer to a single, unitary organism that exists separately from all other organisms.  As I suggested with the opening quote above, it is more appropriate to regard ourselves as "superorganisms" -- beings composed of many organisms whose lives are intimately and inextricably intertwined. This integration goes beyond just physical interactions, however.  There is now considerable evidence that even our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by nonhuman elements within us -- our minds, in other words, may also be those of superorganisms.

The current state of our knowledge about humans as superorganisms was recently presented by Peter Kramer and Paola Bressan of the University of Padua in an excellent article published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science (Kramer & Bressan, 2015). Kramer and Bressan review the data on the microbiome and also research that has investigated other foreign components of our makeup, including viral DNA, cells from other human beings, and microbes that reside in the brain. Their conclusion is quite different from our usual self-view:

...our emotions, cognition, behavior, and mental health are influenced by a large number of entities that reside in our bodies while pursuing their own interests, which need not coincide with ours. Such selfish entities include microbes, viruses, foreign human cells, and imprinted genes regulated by viruslike  elements.......we are not unitary individuals in control of ourselves but rather ... collections of human and nonhuman elements that are to varying degrees integrated and, in an incessant struggle, jointly define who we are.

I'll focus on just two examples to illustrate the psychological influences of our nonhuman residents: gut microbes and brain microbes.  If you want to explore other sources of influence, see Kramer & Bressan's paper, or a less technical partial treatment from BBC.Com, "Is There Another Human Being Living Inside You?"

Effects of Gut Microbes on Behavior, Personality & Mood

Certain strains of microbes in our microbiome have been shown to alter a number of neurotransmitter chemicals, for example by manufacturing and releasing GABA and other neuroactive substances, including noradrenaline, acetylcholine,serotonin, and dopamine. These chemicals are involved in mood regulation (eg., euphoria, anxiety and depression), risk-taking behavior, memory formation, sociability, responsiveness to stress, and they likely play a role in certain mental disorders, such as schizophrenia and autism.

The link between specific patterns of gut microbes and behavior has been clearly shown in animal studies where normally timid strains of mice become adventurous and adventurous mice become timid when colonized with the microbiome of the other strain through fecal transplants. In other studies, mice raised with minimal gut microbes showed lower levels of anxiety under calm conditions, but stronger than normal reactions when stressed.  These effects could be eliminated if the germ free mice were given fecal implants from normal mice, but only up to a certain age: "Thus, early exposure to (healthy) gut flora is required for normal development of the stress response ...[and] neonatal infection with pathological bacteria may permanently alter such response, predisposing the individual to stress-related disorders later in life" (Kramer & Bressan, 2015).  Increasing certain microbe strains commonly found in yogurt reduced despair-like behaviors (eg., passivity, not attempting to escape stressful stimuli) in rats, and feeding mice a microbe-laced broth improved their memory and reduced anxiety and depression-like behaviors.

Studying the psychological influences of microbes in humans is more challenging because our experiences can be unwittingly influenced by expectations and prior beliefs  -- the so-called placebo effect, or just plain "wishful thinking."  Relying on self-reports of mood, for example, is not scientifically convincing, but several studies of the effects of altering microbial concentrations of certain gut microbes have also included more objective measures.  For instance, in one study healthy individuals ingested daily doses of lactobacilli, the same microbe found in yogurt and other "probiotic" products.  After one month there was a significant reduction of self-reported anxiety and depression, but more importantly there was also a measurable reduction in stress-related cortisol levels, showing the same effectiveness as benzodiazepines (eg. Valium). In another study these same bacteria modified healthy women’s brain activity in regions that control processing of emotion and sensation, dampening reactions to facial expressions of anger and fear ... these same regions are involved in anxiety disorders (Kramer & Bressan, 2015).

Microbes on My Brain

Most of us are hosts not only to gut microbes but also to strains of microbes that colonize our brains. Residing in the brain gives them the opportunity to directly manipulate neurotransmitters and to influence behavior. Particularly interesting, however, is evidence that they do not simply influence mental processes, they also manipulate the brain in ways that increase their own survival and genetic viability.

Unlike gut microbes, brain microbes are almost always parasites, in that they exploit us while simultaneously doing us harm. They are surprisingly (and disturbingly) common. We usually think of parasites as prevalent only in poorer, less developed countries, but in the case of certain brain microbes the rate of infection is uncorrelated with poverty or level of development. For instance, toxoplasma gondii infects about 22% of the U.S. population (CDC data), 50% of those in the U.K and continental Europe, and as high as 70-80% is some South American and African countries, but as low as 10% in parts of Asia (Hill & Dubey, 2002,  Kramer & Bressan, 2015). It is generally believed that toxoplasma evolved as an animal parasite and humans are an incidental host that has occurred in modern times because of close contact with certain animals.

Toxoplasma is a particularly good example of a microbe that manipulates the brain activity and behavior of its host. Toxoplasma eggs are usually found in the poop of animals that have eaten intermediary hosts of the microbe. Animals that ingest the poop become infected and the microbe is spread more widely.  A common example is when domestic cats eat infected mice or rats, then excrete poop with toxoplasma eggs. Rodents, not known to be picky about their food, eat the cat poop and complete the cycle. Humans who come into contact with infected cat feces (say through gardening or cleaning a litter box) can also become hosts by unwittingly ingesting eggs they have accidentally transferred to their food. Another source of infection for humans has been found to be commercially available food, particularly under-cooked meat or fish that has somehow been tainted with Toxoplasma eggs.

Now for the really interesting part. Rats and mice that are infected with Toxoplasma lose their fear of cats and even become sexually attracted to cat urine (see Berdoy, Webster, & Macdonald, 2000).  This, of course, is very bad for the rodents but very good for Toxoplasma because only in the intestines of cats or other intermediary hosts can the microbes produce eggs.  "Toxoplasma manipulates the brain of the rat so as to increase the probability that its otherwise uncertain transfer to the cat’s intestines actually takes place" (Kramer & Bressan, 2015).  The mechanism for this seems to be an increase of the neuroactive chemical dopamine, which in humans is known to be associated with recklessness and sensation-seeking behavior and greater susceptibility to schizophrenia.  This may also be a cause of higher workplace and traffic accidents among infected humans.  Aside from the neurological effects on behavior, Toxoplasma doesn't usually pose serious physical problems for its host unless the victim's immune system is weakened.  Humans with other health problems, young children, and elderly are at risk and in infants neurological damage can be quite severe.  For this reason pregnant women (who can be infected but asymptomatic) are often advised to avoid contact with cats in order to prevent passing Toxoplasma eggs to their offspring.

Conclusion

Besides Toxoplasma there are a number of other microbes that often colonize the brain, and there are several non-microbial life forms that also influence behavior and cognition. The bottom line for me is that "knowing thyself" requires assessing the contribution 100's of trillions of other organisms to our sense of who we are.  The old adage, "we are not alone," applies not only to things that are external to us but also to things that are deeply embedded within our bodies. Perhaps, as Kramer & Bressan put it: "It is time to change the very concept we have of ourselves and to realize that one human individual is neither just human nor just one individual. "
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Sources & Resources
Kramer, P., & Bressan, P. (2015). Perspectives on Psychological Science, Vol. 10(4) 464–481
You're Surrounded by a Cloud of Bacteria as Unique as a Fingerprint: Washington Post, 9/22/15
CDC - Toxoplasmosis - Epidemiology & Risk Factors 
CDC -Toxoplasma gondii Infection in the United States
Berdoy M., Webster, J. P. and Macdonald, D. W. (2000) Fatal attraction in rats infected with Toxoplasma gondi. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B, 267, 1591-1594
Is There Another Human Being Living Inside You?:  BBC.com, 9/18/15 

The Allure of Undoing Reality -- "If Only," "Coulda," "Woulda," "Shoulda"

Humans have a number of "interesting" qualities, some of which seem to be unique in the animal kingdom.  One of these is quite odd and puzzling when you first think about it:  We love to undo reality.  Given almost any event or state of affairs we are very likely to imagine alternatives to it --  a cognitive process called "counterfactual thinking."

As an example, consider the all-too-frequent news story of a gunman who mows down innocent people.  Take your pick of several recent actual cases of this, say the June shootings of 9 people in a Charleston, S.C. church (NPR, 7/10/15).  The facts of this tragedy are clear: a gunman with self-admitted racist motives opened fire after sitting through the church service and 9 people are dead.  At first news stories focused on the scope and details of what happened, then turned to analyses of the implications and possible causes, and finally to counterfactual assessments of how this terrible event could have turned out differently.  "If only" racism wasn't so prevalent.  Or, "if only" the background check of the alleged gunman wasn't flawed, it "shoulda" prevented him from buying a weapon.  Or, "if only" tighter security measures at the church had been in place (e.g., metal detectors, arming the pastor with his own gun), they "coulda" barred him from entering or at least reduced the number of people he killed.  Any or all of these imagined factors might have undone the reality of 9 dead people.

Events in our own lives are also often the focus of counterfactual thinking.  Negative events seem particularly likely to engage our cognitive efforts to imagine alternatives to reality.  An accident, a mistake, an illness, or other bad incident inevitably leads to assessments of counterfactual factors that might have led to a more positive state of reality.  What could we have done differently?...what should we have done?...if only we would have done X then the bad thing could have been prevented or perhaps something positive would have happened instead.  Of course, counterfactuals may include factors over which we have no control -- genetic predisposition, undetectable environmental hazards, unexpected behavior of other people, etc. and their plausibility has the benefit of absolving us of responsibility for the event.  However, these alternatives are often discounted because they imply that we may not be able to control what happens to us -- a very uncomfortable idea for most of us to entertain (even if true).

Counterfactual thinking has been the focus of a good deal of research and theory in social psychology over the past thirty years, beginning with the insightful work of Kahneman & Tversky (1982).  The result is a fairly complete understanding of the nature of the phenomenon -- why we tend to undo reality, the circumstances that govern the likelihood we will do so, the determinants of the kinds of factors we select as the most plausible counterfactual alternatives, the cognitive and emotional impact of counterfactual thinking, the nature of individual differences in extent and style of counterfactual thought, etc.  In order to avoid having you engage in counterfactual thinking along the lines of "if only I hadn't clicked on the link to this blog, I could be doing something way more fun, like sorting my socks," let me just cut to the chase and give you a few highlights of what these efforts have produced.  For more thorough reviews, see the references at the end.

• Undoing reality has emotional consequences.  As you probably noticed from the examples above, counterfactual thinking nearly always is associated with emotions in two ways.  First, the actual event or state of reality likely provokes positive or negative feelings.  Mass shootings of unarmed people is abhorrent to us. Personal accidents, failures to achieve goals, mistakes we make, losses of loved ones, illness,  and economic misfortunes engender fear, sadness and despondency. Second, the counterfactuals and the alternative reality they generate also evoke emotions, for instance when we imagine that there was something we could have done to prevent something bad from happening we feel regret, shame, or anger.  One way of alleviating negative emotions is to engage in what is called "downward" counterfactual thinking -- considering ways things could have been even worse -- "at least"  the plumbing leak didn't damage our new sofa, or "at least" the car still runs after I smashed it into that wall...."
• Emotional consequences aren't always rational.   Our tendency to take mental short-cuts when we think about events sometimes leads to emotional reactions that rely less on logic or facts than on things like the ease with which certain alternatives to reality come to mind rather than others, based on their recent salience, mutability, or personal relevance.  For instance, losing the lottery with a ticket that is just one number off provokes a much stronger emotion than losing with a ticket that has no matching numbers, even though the probabilities of the two losing numbers are exactly the same.  It is much easier to imagine that "if only" just one number had been different we would have won than to imagine all the numbers having been different.  Likewise, having a costly car accident the day after we forgot to renew the insurance is likely to make us feel worse than if the accident happened a month later, even though in both cases the payment error results in the same financial outcome.
• Undoing reality is a good thing (usually).  Given the fantastical nature of counterfactual thinking and the angst it can produce, it may seem  puzzling why we spend so much time doing it.  The answer comes from decades of research that points to the indisputably functional nature of  undoing reality and the emotional response that results (see Epstude & Roese, 2008).  By considering alternative ways an event (particularly a negative one) might have occurred, along with factors that might have prevented it or produced a more positive outcome, we can adapt future behavior to be more effective or to avoid repeating past mistakes. The regret and remorse associated with considering counterfactuals, though uncomfortable, may motivate changes in behavior that are more adaptive in the long run.  Indeed, it could be argued that the human tendency for counterfactual cognitive activity is an evolutionary consequence of having nervous systems that aren't programmed with predominately instinctual behaviors -- it is the necessary mechanism by which we adapt and change to new environmental demands.
• But not always.  Like any powerful adaptive tool, counterfactual thinking can be misused or can be applied in ways that lead to personal or social difficulties.  In particular we have to be able to distinguish between counterfactual factors that are realistically controllable and those that are not, otherwise we might become engulfed in feelings of guilt, shame or remorse when it really isn't justified.  Likewise, we can blame others for not foreseeing or controlling things that they in truth could not have.

I guess the bottom line here is that human nature seems to involve considerable cognitive activity that entails imagining states other than those have actually occurred -- undoing reality is something that makes us (uniquely) human.  Though there is ample scientific evidence that this characteristic is adaptive in an evolutionary sense, it might still be questioned whether focusing too much cognitive effort on alternatives to events distracts us from fully experiencing and appreciating the present.  As with other human tendencies, it might be beneficial at times to control and limit our inclinations, natural though they may be.
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Some Source References:

Counterfactual thinking - Wikipedia

What might have been:  The social psychology of counterfactual thinking. Neal J. Roese & James M. Olson (eds.) Psychology Press, 2014, 2nd edition.

Epstude, K.; Roese, N. J. (2008). "The functional theory of counterfactual thinking". Personality and Social Psychology Review 12 (2): 168–192.

Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1982). "The simulation heuristic". In Kahneman, D. P. Slovic, and Tversky, A. (eds.). Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, pp. 201-208. New York: Cambridge University Press.

"Geezer Grease:" My Missed Opportunity to Make Bazillions

“It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life 

appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone.”

― Andy Rooney

One of my least favorite parts of advancing into Geezerhood has been nature's insistence on making me pay for past indiscretions in the way I mistreated my body.  For instance, in younger years it was quite the thing for those of us with white skin to deliberately burn it and try to turn it into the ideal "tan."   We applied "sun tan lotion" not "sun screen" or "sun block" because the hope was that it would promote quicker, darker tanning not prevent it.  SPF 4 was about the highest I recall using. Plus, I grew up in Colorado, where sunny skies, low humidity and high elevations guaranteed a massive dose of UV rays.

Well, those years of exposure have now resulted in many nasty little pre-cancerous thingies on my forehead that require special treatments and regular visits to my dermatologist, whom I have on speed dial. I've undergone exotic-sounding procedures in an attempt to stave off worse developments, like "liquid nitrogen thermal destruction," "microdermal abrasion" and "photodynamic therapy," and I have an arsenal of lotions and potions that I apply daily.  And of course I don't set foot out of the house without SPF 50 and my broad-brimmed dufus hat (aka "Geezerware").*

My childhood solar epidermal abuse has also led to skin that is irritatingly delicate and prone to injury.  The most irksome form of this for me is that my forearms bruise so easily that often I can't recall the source.  And when I am aware of the cause, I have watched helplessly as bruising from even the smallest bump or scratch spreads like purple watercolor on wet paper and develops into a hideous, leprosy-like discoloration that lasts 10 days, minimum.  Unlike the precancerous thingies, the bruising and bleeding aren't life-threatening, but they do a real number on my vanity because they symbolically shout "OLD MAN WALKING HERE!!!!"  Along with "age spots" these bruises are almost guaranteed to get you the senior discount at your local retailer without even asking.

I've quizzed my dermatologist repeatedly to see if there is any preventative treatment for my susceptibility to bruising, and barring that some ameliorative cream, pill, or injection. The answer is always "No," delivered with a sympathetic but somewhat patronizing smile (she's a young'n, after all).  Indeed, the current scientific consensus seems to be that this condition is a common aspect of normal aging (assuming more serious causes have been ruled out) that comes from losing some of the protective fatty layer in the skin that protects the blood vessels -- we literally become "thin-skinned" as we get older -- and my dermatologist argues that this process is accelerated by sun exposure -- those who abused their skin when young are likely to be even more susceptible to losing the fatty layer.  Although there are many pseudoscientific-homeopathic-biodynamic-synergistic-astromagnetic-universallifeforceallaroundus remedies available for sale, there is very little hard evidence they do much except bleed your wallet**

The authoritative Mayo Clinic puts it this way:

"Most bruises form when small blood vessels (capillaries) near the skin's surface are broken by the impact of a blow or injury — often on the arms or legs. When this happens, blood leaks out of the vessels and initially appears as a black-and-blue mark... As you get older, your skin also becomes thinner and loses some of the protective fatty layer that helps cushion your blood vessels from injury." [my emphasis]

And to make this even more depressing, the Mayo Clinic says that

 "Once a bruise has formed...not much can be done to treat it. Most bruises eventually disappear as your body reabsorbs the blood — although healing might take longer as you age [my emphasis]. It might help to elevate the affected area and apply ice. If the sight of a bruise bothers you, cover it with clothing or makeup."

Thanks, doc. I should put ice packs on my bruises and walk around with my arms held in the air, while wearing a long-sleeved shirt in Hawai'i?  That's all you got?  If we can send rockets to distant comets and develop nanobots that can deliver drugs to specific tissues in the body, surely we can come up with something better than that.

I was recently discussing this with some fellow geezers (well, one was a soon-to-be geezer still in denial).  We had just been hiking and had the cuts and bruises to prove it.  Over much-needed beer we engaged in some "competitive complaining" (see my blog "Geezer Olympics") about bruising and other skin problems but then started talking more productively about possible preventive measures.  Of course much of what came out was "alchological," meaning it makes much more sense when you are under the influence of alcohol. So have a couple of shots before reading on.

In particular, we concluded that what the world's geezers need most is a special transparent cream that contains (a) nanoparticles that form a thin, flexible, protective shield on the skin, maybe like the new kinds of body armor that rely on nano technology (see Discovery, 4/2/13),  (b) a highly concentrated antioxidant of some kind (c) super sun block of at least SPF 100,  (d) a broad spectrum antibiotic just in case (a) doesn't work completely, and (e) moisturizers and various beautification agents (why not?).  Of course, for vanity's sake this wonder-cream would be completely invisible on the skin.  Lather up with it before your morning coffee and voila!  No more bruises!

We could market this stuff and make bazillions!!! ("How about another beer?")  A name. We need a name for our product.  Something that our intended market would immediately identify with and rush out to buy.  I've got it!  How about "GEEZER GREASE?" 

The next day the practicality of our idea seemed to have faded considerably. Still, it was a very appealing notion even if a bit fantastical.  The name in particular had a nice ring to it.  Then, just for the heck of it I Googled "geezer grease," not really expecting any results.

Wrong.

Mill Creek Catalog

Turns out someone has beaten us to the name and is already using it for a skin balm. Their grease doesn't have any nanoparticles, but it does include an interesting ingredient we hadn't thought of ---- Cannabis.  Yup, a pot-infused ointment to "cure" your skin troubles (or at least make it so you don't care as much).  The product is sold at a couple of outlets, including Mill Creek Natural Foods  and Green Stop Cannibis.  Mill Creek is especially enticing in their description: "When you need serious natural skin care for dry, itchy or chapped hands, feet, elbows, or to help with minor scratches, excellent on small cuts. This rich blend will feel so smooth and soothing...just a tiny amount is all you need. Hand blended with extra virgin olive oil, cannabis, calendula blossoms, comfrey root, goldenseal, vitamin E, rosehips & beeswax." [my emphasis].

Well, we missed our opportunity to make bazillions of dollars by ourselves, but maybe we could join forces with the cannabis company and come up with a new product that combines both sets of ingredients.  We could call it "Super Geezer Whoopee Grease."

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*My apologies to those of you who (a) look good in broad-brimmed hats, (b) think you do, and (c) those who don't but aren't vain like me and feel sun protection is more important than looking good.  I, however, am vain and know I look like a dufus in most hats, particularly those with a broad brim.

**There are a few products that may have some small degree of protective or ameliorative effects but have mainly anecdotal evidence or inconsistent scientific support.  Retinol, proven to stimulate collagen production and reduce fine face wrinkle might work on forearms by improving the supportive structure of the skin.  Alpha-hydroxy compounds which promote exfoliation and new skin growth on the face may also work on arms, but this has never been shown scientifically.  Arnica, a substance derived from aloe, has weak and inconsistent data supporting its efficacy in speeding healing of bruises.  Oh, and a method sure to work is the use of forearm guards, or chaps --a real geezer fashion statement.
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Other Offerings in the Geezerhood Series:
Geezer Olympics: Competitive Complaining
Geezerhood Can Suck
Taste Buds Are Wasted On The Young!
Don't Go To Your 50th High School Reunion!
Decision Making in Geezerhood
Why Is That Geezer Smiling?
Jogging the Memory of a Geezer
How to Compress Your Morbidity
Embracing Your Inner Geezer
So, What Do You DO All Day??
The Power of Negative Thinking

Dying to Know Why We Die?

One Way That Chip Credit Cards Aren't More Secure

Within three days of arriving in "Country X" fraudulent charges began appearing on our credit card account from vendors elsewhere in the country.  (I'm withholding the name of our destination because I don't want you to think there is something uniquely dastardly about people there -- this was just as likely to have happened in any large city in the U.S.)

We were particularly frustrated because this was the maiden foreign voyage of our new Barclay chip-and-pin credit card that my wife and I obtained after a trip to Europe to last year, where our antiquated and grossly insecure swipe-and-sign card had proven to be a major pain in the butt -- see my blog, American Travelers Abroad: The Chips Are Down. As soon as we noticed the fraudulent charges we naturally notified the company, whose solution was to cancel the card immediately.  They assured us that we wouldn't be liable for the fraudulent charges and that they would send a new card immediately.  Oh, ok, that's grea.... Wait -- we were thousands of miles from our home and since we were traveling for the next month we were moving targets for any attempt to deliver a card somewhere else.  Bottom line is that we had to go without that bright shiny, chip card for the rest of the trip.  We fortunately had a couple of fall-backs -- the old swipe and sign card we had replaced because it was inconvenient and insecure, and an ATM card.

So what had happened?  We racked our brains to try to figure out how this supposedly more secure card could have so easily become the plaything of nefarious ne'er-do-wells.  We had used the card a number of times after starting the trip, but it never left our sight because this country, being somewhat more advanced than the U.S. in these matters, follows the practice of bringing a point-of-sale-device to you and inserting your card into the machine right in your presence.  And since these were chip transactions, they were much less susceptible to some fancy electronic hack of the payment system. Hmmm....

It then occurred to us that the Barclay fraud department agent we had spoken to said that the transactions had been "manually" entered, the same way your credit card details are entered when you make a phone order or a mail order for merchandise.  These are called "card-not-present" transactions.  The proper security procedures in these cases is for the merchant to ask for information that (supposedly) only someone in possession of the card could supply -- namely the expiration date of the card and the CVV ("Card Validation Value").  The CVV is that three digit number printed on the back of your card, or in the case of American Express, the four digit number on the front.

Gee, how in the world could some criminal get our expiration date and CVV?

How about by looking?  All a clerk has to do is glance at your card during a card-present transaction to obtain this information.  It's then a matter of having sophisticated cronies who can charge merchandise by phone or mail order and then have it delivered to some temporary pick-up point.  Or perhaps the merchants supplying the illicit goods or services might be in on the scheme. If they're lucky the victim won't notice the transactions on their card statement, something more likely in the case of travelers who make a number of foreign charges that are hard to recognize as fraudulent ones, especially if currency conversion makes the amounts unfamiliar.  If the charges are reported as fraudulent, as in our case, all that happens is that the merchant is forced to reverse them.  Note there is no real victim if the merchant was in on it -- the credit card company isn't out anything, nor is the merchant, nor is the customer.  Seems to me like a good way to reward bad behavior.

Note that this is a potential problem regardless of  whether you have a chip card or not.  All currently issued credit cards are susceptible because they all have CVV's and expiration dates on them.

Am I being overly paranoid (in addition to my many other personality quirks)?   Not according to a number of sources, including the highly respected internet security firm, AVG which gives this explicit advice about the CVV:

"...when purchasing an item or service in person, you should never provide the details of your CVV...Handing over your CVV for purchases completed offline serves no purpose other than providing someone with the opportunity to steal the information. Because if they were to do this, they’d have everything they need to go ahead and make a bunch of fraudulent online [and offline] transactions – on you! 
...Don’t provide your CVV when processing a payment in person. It should never be required and if someone tells you otherwise, it’s a reason to be highly suspicious!  " (AVG article by Michael McKinnon, January 15, 2015)

Unfortunately, the wisdom of AVG stops short of telling you how, during an in-person transaction, you can prevent a clerk from seeing the CVV and expiration date.  If the transaction requires a signature, the clerk is perfectly justified in turning the card over and looking at the signature and even refusing the card if it hasn't been signed.  That CVV is right next to the signature on most cards and even easier to spot on Amex cards.  And even if a signature isn't required a little artful fumbling with the card can allow a quick glance at the code.  I'm not the only person to have made this observation and the security risk it entails -- see Henry Bagdasarian's paper on CVV and Identity Theft Awareness. In other words AVG's admonishment to never hand over your CVV information during in-person purchases is nearly impossible to follow.

My solution has been to black out the CVV's on all of my credit cards (I keep the numbers in a cloud-based secure service where I can access them if I need to).  I found, though, that the number is hard to obliterate completely because it is actually embossed into the card surface.  Still, the number can only be seen by tilting the card back and forth to catch the light just right, a rather obvious maneuver.  Another approach suggested by Bagdasarian is to tape a small piece of paper over the CVV. 

In my humble opinion, credit card companies are foolish (I had another word in mind) to put this important information right on the card.  It really should be treated like a pin, with the same level of secure handling. When I did research for this blog, I came across several references to developments that will make CVV theft more difficult in the future by using something called a "Dynamic CVV," essentially a code that changes for each transaction. (See articles by CNNMoney, Credit Card Reviews, and Money Nation).  Don't hold your breath, though.  The estimated cost of these cards to produce is about 10 times that of a chip card, which is in turn about 6 times more than an ordinary swipe and sign card.  And credit card companies are all about the bottom line -- it is generally cheaper for them to absorb fraud losses than to upgrade technology.

The current switchover to chip cards will be expensive -- about $8 billion for the card companies, and about $25 billion for merchants, according to CNNMoney analyst Jose Paglieri.  But as Paglieri and many others have pointed out, the new U.S.-style chip cards really aren't that much more secure if lost or stolen because they don't require a pin. So why isn't the U.S. joining the rest of the world in moving to chip-and-pin?  Paglieri suggests it is at least partly a matter of profit -- banks charge merchants more for each signature transaction than one involving a pin (currently only debit cards) and would lose huge amounts of revenue.  Retail merchant lobbyist Mallory Duncan has made this point very clear about the motives of credit card companies:  "They'd rather have fraud-prone signatures, because it potentially makes them more money than a secure PIN."

Of course, as my experience shows, even chip-and-pin cards are vulnerable to certain kinds of fraud, namely the CVV scam.  In the future we are probably not going to have cards at all and instead move toward something like ApplePay, which most analysts believe to be much more secure.  That reality is some ways off, however, and in the meantime we will remain vulnerable to preventable fraud.  The reassurance of banks that the customer isn't financially liable for fraudulent charges is bogus.  The hassle and inconvenience of dealing with a compromised credit card account can be major wastes of time and energy for the account owner.  Further, the $ billions in card fraud each year don't just vanish -- they are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices for goods and services.

Banker's Math wins again.

________________________________
Source Links

You're about to get a new credit card ... and it's an epic failure - CNNMoney, Mar. 25, 2015

Card Verification Code (CV) -- Identity-Theft-Awareness.Com)

Your Credit Card Security Code (CVV) – Is It Safe To Give Out? AVG.Com

Credit card of the future could stop fraud - CNNMoney, Mar. 26, 2015

Could Dynamic CVV Be the Card of the Future? - CreditCardReviews.com

This Morphing Credit Card Stops Fraud - Money Nation 

Driving With Aloha (But Not in Rome or LA)

During our travels over the past 40+ years my wife and I have had the "interesting" experience of driving in a number of different countries as well as in different parts of the U.S. and Canada.  Traveling by rented car gives you some unique insights into a culture and the everyday experiences of people as they go about their lives.  It also requires some careful observation of road etiquette and adapting to it in order to avoid getting killed -- or at least to avoid being deafened by other drivers' horns.

Merge Mayhem at Night

Take Italy for example.  We have visited there several times and it is one of our favorite travel destinations.  The very first time, however, included an intense introduction to Italian driving and a lesson in "Italian Merge Mayhem ."  After several days in Rome we picked up a rental car to head to the countryside.  We were smart enough to realize that driving in Rome wasn't a good idea and so our main objective was to get out of town as quickly as possible. However, this necessitated negotiating several intersections and roundabouts in which the main rule of the road was to forge ahead forcefully and with conviction (aka blind faith) that other drivers would yield to you, though not without playing a game of chicken first.  We learned after an hour or so that if we didn't follow this strategy we would be stuck in traffic for the rest of our lives.  If you want a visual illustration of the mayhem I'm referring to, take a look at this short video of a Rome intersection at night.

Other aspects of road etiquette in Italy include traffic signal behavior.  As recounted in the very helpful website Life in Italy, "Traffic lights are generally respected, though you will be expected to be quick off the starting line as soon as the lights change. Rules change when you get to Naples where stopping at traffic lights is an option rather than a rule. A general safety rule when driving late at night or early morning (and probably most other times as well), is to check the intersection for approaching traffic before moving on a green light. Some Italian drivers shoot through intersections when the light has already turned red for them, and sometimes they move forward before they get the green light."

Mama Mia!!

And of course there is proper behavior on the motorways, or autostrade, where extra care is required to arrive alive.  As Life in Italy puts it: "Expect cars to get too close and start flashing at you if you go too slow ( according to the Italian too slow) ... so keep to the right. The speed limit is approximately 80 miles (130 kilometers) per hour but some cars move a lot quicker than that. There are also quite a few drivers who don't observe the safety distance behind you, so again it is best to keep to the right and don't get nervous."  Right, don't get nervous.  Except maybe when you see trucks doing what is documented in this video taken along an Italian highway.  Life in Italy's overall advice matches our own experience very closely: "The rules of the road may seem at times to be open to interpretation ... keep your feet poised over both accelerator and brake - you never know which one will come in most useful."

Driving in different parts of the mainland U.S. poses similar challenges to follow local norms. In California, for example, be prepared for high-speed entrance ramps where any hesitation won't be tolerated by fellow drivers, and changing lanes and tailgating at 80 mph are SOP.  There are also the inevitable 12-lane traffic jams in which maneuvering to the proper exit lane involves a strategy similar to that in Italian Merge Mayhem.  If your are timid or hesitant you'll wind up in Mexico or Oregon before you can get off.

Visitors to Hawai'i sometimes find themselves puzzled over our peculiar driving habits, which are much different than locations on the mainland U.S., and rather different from anything described above. For one thing, we have very few multi-lane highways (mostly on Oahu and the "big" city of Honolulu).  Most of our roads here on my island have just two lanes and narrow shoulders bordered by very unforgiving lava rock.  Distances can be deceiving because travel takes far longer than many people assume -- tourists commonly look at a map and decide to drive completely around the island in a day, which invariably leads them to see most sights in a blur and to be totally exhausted at the end of the day.  Rule #1 here is sloowww downnnnn.  You're in one of the most unique places in the world -- take time to appreciate it.

In the relatively rare situations where merging is required, mainlanders naturally gear up for the battle to force themselves into the stream of traffic.  But something odd often happens:  other drivers make way for them and even gesture them to cut in front! This takes some real getting used to -- people yielding their right of way seemingly without any vehicular intimidation whatsoever.  Wow!

Similar behavior occurs when you are trying to enter a main thoroughfare from a side street.  As you watch a long string of cars coming toward you, it is very likely one of them will slow and allow you to turn in front of them, sometimes signalling you by flashing their headlights.  If you are turning right, quickly and gratefully accept this gift.  If you are turning left, however, be more cautious because the cars traveling in that direction may not be expecting you to suddenly cut in front of them.  It took me quite a while after moving here before I would accept the invitation to turn left, and even now I do so very selectively.

Hawaiian Shaka -- A Good Thing

In general there is a norm of yielding your right of way if you think it will help either a specific driver or it will ease everyone's predicament (for instance when there is a long line of cars waiting to turn onto the road you're on).  This is not necessarily pure altruism -- there is a general expectation that the favor is likely to be returned when you are the one in the difficult situation -- but it is part of a  general attitude here that it's nice to be nice. Helping another driver is often acknowledged with an uniquely Hawaiian hand gesture -- the "shaka, " which consists of the pinky and thumb being extended while the middle three fingers are tucked away.  Visitors may at first mistake this gesture for something rather more negative that they have observed coming from angry drivers elsewhere.  However, the shaka is definitely a good thing -- in this context it means "thanks" or "appreciate it."

Another expectation here is that you will start up quickly from a traffic light, or turn quickly if you are in a turn lane and the arrow comes on.  But people do this not because they're in a big rush and impatient to get somewhere, but rather because they don't want to hold up others.  There is one situation where you might encounter local drivers who are driving fast and are impatient with tourists for going too slow, and that is when they are commuting to or from work.  Lack of affordable housing in areas where jobs are concentrated forces many people to drive a fair distance to work.  Couple this with lots of rubber-necking tourists and very few multi-lane roads and you're bound to have some cranky locals at times.

Basically, the norms of driving in Hawai'i are extensions of the concept of "Aloha" or "Aloha Spirit."  This may sound like hype from a travel advertisement, but it really does characterize a good deal of everyday life here.  "Aloha" is a general concept of friendship, understanding, compassion, and solidarity -- expressed in driving through yielding and trying to help others.

I have to admit that there are times when "driving with aloha" is taken too far.  For example, sometimes local drivers will yield when it isn't really necessary and is even detrimental. This happens when natural breaks in the traffic flow or signals that control flow allow merging or turning and therefore make yielding superfluous, and may even slow traffic for everyone.  In these cases the unintended consequence of being nice is ironically negative.

Despite the occasional negative aspects of driving here in Hawai'i, I'll take a few instances of that over the horn-honking, finger flipping, every-driver-out-for-themselves driving I encounter elsewhere. 

Driving with aloha is definitely one of the reasons I like living here.
 ________________
More in My "Life in Hawai'i" Series

• What Do Snow Birds, Humpbacks, and Cruiseships Have in Common?

• Lessons from Hawai'i

• More Than You Ever Wanted To Know About Geckos

• "Lei"zy Horses and Hot Malasadas

• Tons of Fun: Humbacks in Hawai'i 

• 2.4+112+26.2 = ?

• Lava Love: Geezers Gone Wild!

• A "Pele" Merry Christmas

• The Curious Case of The Kona Coyote

• Cleaning Up Poop In Paradise

Why "Snow Crash?"

Even though I've now published 100+ editions of Snow Crash,  no one has ever asked me "why do you call your blog Snow Crash?"  This means that either (a) everybody already knows the referent of my title or (b) nobody really cares.

If the answer is (a) then I'm dismayed by the demented character of my readers.  If the answer is (b) then I'm pleased to bore you with an explanation you don't really want to hear.  Here goes.  Be advised this will be a bit convoluted and perhaps unnecessarily detailed, but I'll get to it eventually.

I'm a long-time fan of science fiction.  When I was still in grade school I talked my parents into letting me join the Science Fiction Book Club, which sent me selections every month by famous authors such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Frederik Pohl, and Robert Heinlein.  I devoured these books at a young age, thus warping my mind and leading to a life-long addiction.  During my working years my academic pursuits required keeping up with the literature in my field, often in the form of research articles in scientific journals.  This form of writing required very careful analytic attention and many cups of coffee to get through.  I had to forgo any enjoyable reading until summers lest it lure me away from my professional commitments -- then for a few months I plunged back into science fiction again.  Now that I am retired my reading includes several different genres, but although my addiction to science fiction has faded somewhat, I still have a great fondness for it.

In the late '80's and early 90's a sub-genre of science fiction appeared called Cyberpunk .  One of the prominent authors of this type was (and is) Neil Stephenson, who in 1992 published a book titled...wait for it...Snow Crash.  Cyberpunk was noted for its dark, dystopian view of the future and for the flawed nature of its leading characters.  The social decay depicted in these stories usually involved a concentration of power in the hands of a despicable and corrupt minority, as did the earlier works of George Orwell and Ayn Rand, but the character of cyperpunk despots was notably different.  In this view of the future private and sovereign corporations have for the most part replaced governments as centers of political, economic, and even military power. As critic David Brin has described it:

" ...a closer look [at cyberpunk authors] reveals that they nearly always portray future societies in which governments have become wimpy and pathetic ...[they]... do depict Orwellian accumulations of power in the next century, but nearly always clutched in the secretive hands of a wealthy or corporate elite.

In cyberpunk plots much of the action takes place online in "cyberspace" (in this context, a term often credited to cyberpunk author William Gibson), where the border between actual and virtual reality is blurry and porous. "A typical trope in such work is a direct connection between the human brain and computer systems. Cyberpunk depicts the world as a dark, sinister place with networked computers dominating every aspect of life" (Wikipedia).  The protagonists in these stories are criminals, outcasts, visionaries, dissenters and misfits who struggle against the social order but usually with limited success -- they are the "punk" component of cyberpunk.  Note, these works were published when the internet as we now know it was in its infancy.  Personal computers were rare until the late 1970's and the World Wide Web wasn't invented until 1991.  Also note that the cyberpunk themes are quite consistent with my generally anti-authoritarian personality and fondness for strangeness.

Now, back to the question of "Why Snow Crash?"  The term "Snow Crash" has at least a couple of meanings, one of which is tied directly to the cyberpunk plot of Stephenson's book and one of which is less directly related but is still relevant here. Stephenson once explained that "snow crash" was his term for describing the result of a system failure in the early Mac computer, a phenomenon fundamentally distinct from the failure of a Windows operating system:  "When everything went to hell and the CPU began spewing out random bits, the result, on a CLI [Windows] machine, was lines and lines of perfectly formed but random characters on the screen -- known to cognoscenti as 'going Cyrillic.' But to the MacOS, the screen was not a teletype, but a place to put graphics; the image on the screen was a bitmap, a literal rendering of the contents of a particular portion of the computer's memory. When the computer crashed and wrote gibberish into the bitmap, the result was something that looked vaguely like static on a broken television set--a 'snow crash'."(Stephenson, 1999, my emphasis).

In the plot of Snow Crash Stephenson used the term to refer to something far more sinister and complex.  There it is the name of an ancient and very dangerous virus that can infect both computers and biological systems through certain linguistic patterns, brain activity, and computer code. Whoever can control this virus and its inoculating "vaccine" will effectively rule the world. And since in Stephenson's  cyberpunk vision of the future there are many greedy, power-hungry ne'er-do-wells who would love to capitalize on such a capability, this is definitely a bad thing.

So on the one hand my blog title suggests the content of my posts is simply gibberish, the result of my mind's operating system breaking down.  This meaning is likely the correct one, and it certainly has the appeal of portraying humility.

On the other hand, I'm certainly not adverse to taking over the world -- I've often said I could solve all the world's problems if people would just do things MY way. So just maybe my blogs contain a certain pattern of hidden linguistic code that is slowly turning your brain to mush, infecting all of your digital devices, and eventually making you a slave to my will.

Notice any odd symptoms lately?????

Haircuts From Hell

In the biblical story of Samson & Delilah, the Philistines managed to take away Samson's superhuman strength by having the beautiful Delilah coax him to reveal the secret of his power -- his hair.  They shaved his head while he was sleeping, gouged out his eyes and turned him into a slave.

Two of the lessons that can be learned from this tale are these: (1) Hair is really, really important and (2) a bad haircut can totally ruin your day.

Since Samson's times people have invested a great deal of  time, effort, and money in their hair.  There is little doubt that hair wields power -- perhaps not in terms of physical strength but in its influence on perceptions of attractiveness and the associated social benefits that can bring.  The effects of a bad haircut on self-esteem and self-confidence can be devastating, as they were for Samson, but a good one can dramatically improve our self perceptions.  The search for the perfect cut is a modern quest for the Holy Grail.  And for some of us just as elusive.

Hair is very big business. Americans spend about $20 billion per year on hair care (Small Business Development Center Network, 2014) and the global total is about $80 billion (Statistica, 2014). The average male in the U.S. spends $28 per haircut, and the average woman spends $44 (U.S. News & World Report, 2014).  My own haircuts currently cost $25 including tip. 

About 12 years ago I found a barber/stylist that comes as close to giving me the perfect haircut reliably as any I've encountered.  She was working in a local barber shop as one of several barbers.  This was a place where you don't make an appointment, you just show up.  If your favorite person is free, fine.  If not you can either wait your turn or take the next available barber.  She was new and didn't have many regular customers, so she was available one day when the guy I had been going to (with mixed results) was busy, so I decided to give her a shot.  I explained my unique problems and preferences which usually flummox barbers, even though they pretend to know just what to do to accommodate them.  Not only did she listen and understand, but she followed through with one of the best haircuts in a long time.

Naturally I sought her out the next time, but my hopes weren't terrifically high.  Experience has taught me that even the same barber often follows a good haircut with a "haircut from hell."  For example, before I moved here I went to a barber in Ohio for many years whose overall percentage was pretty good, but the quality varied a lot depending on how wrapped up he got in his hunting stories or his political tirades.  Lo and behold, the second haircut from my new barber was also good,  as were the next dozen or so.

When she moved to a beauty salon a few doors down from the barber shop I moved too.  Then that shop found new quarters a short distance away and again I followed.  Then she moved to a salon closer to where she lived but about 10 miles away for me.  Didn't matter, I made the monthly pilgrimage.  Then she went into business for herself and opened a hair salon with a partner that is located a bit closer to me but still 5 miles away.  I followed along.  I remain fiercely loyal and I just hope she doesn't retire soon and that when she does I won't have any hair left anyway.  Occasionally she messes up but the ratio of good cuts to bad is so high I don't mind.

My wife has not been so lucky.  In fact, in our 45+ years of marriage I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she has returned from a stylist happy with the result.  She always has such high hopes when she leaves for her appointment and they are almost always dashed.  I have learned to keep a low profile when she returns lest I get trapped into the husband's nightmare question, "how does it look?"

Much of the problem is that both of us have naturally curly hair.  Those of you who have straight hair often tell us you are envious and wish you had hair that was naturally curly.  No. Trust me, you don't.  What you don't realize is that our hair has a mind of its own that couldn't care less about things like symmetry or homogeneity.  In other words, it does whatever IT wants to do, even if that makes you look like a first class dufus.  For example, I have a wave in the front top area of my head that -- if cut improperly -- will rise up like a cobra searching for something to strike.  My wife's curls are tighter in some areas than others, sometimes giving her a hair profile that looks a bit like a potato that has been too long in a microwave.

These are challenges that very few barbers can handle effectively and consistently. To do so requires being something of a "hair whisperer,"  a person who can determine the nuances of curls and waves and project how they will react to a snip here and a snip there.  It also requires understanding that wavy/curly hair of varying lengths reacts dynamically to climatic conditions of humidity and heat by tightening and relaxing to varying degrees.  What looks like a good cut leaving the shop can easily become a scary mess the next day. You can see why I'm so dedicated to my current barber, who is all the more praiseworthy because she herself has straight hair.

Small children often cry when they are taken for their first haircut, and they are entirely justified.  They may be sensing the lesson of Samson and lifetime of "hair angst" that lies ahead.