Mother of Gold

View of Puerto Maldonado from my hostel

The character archetype of the OId Prospector holds a beloved position in the imaginations of U.S. film nerds and comedy fans: from Stinky Pete in Toy Story to Gus Chuggins on SNL to the authentic frontier gibberish of Gabby Johnson in Blazing Saddles. In each case, he’s an eccentric gold miner in the 19th century “Wild West” that spends his days living rough, panning streams in the mountains on a quest for those sacred shiny nuggets while spouting gibberish to disinterested marmots. This charmingly apt metaphor for the desperation of the classic American dream -- a comically bedraggled man in tattered rags being oddly obsessed with riches to the point of madness and misery --  is one I appreciate so much that I have a tattoo of one on my leg, complete with a banner extolling the obvious virtue of such “hornswoggle.” However, what this stereotype misses is the fact that gold mining had some very negative effects on human well-being as well as the environment.

For example, the famed 1848 California gold rush caused a huge wave of migration for fortune-seeking men, many of whom were presumably eager for a better life that would not come, and this influx tore apart the landscape and polluted rivers. The altered demographics that resulted from this overwhelmingly male migration diminished the political influence of the formerly majority Mexican population at that time, as well as set the stage for prostitution and sex trafficking.

Many of these same themes were apparent during my most recent trip to the Madre de Dios region of Peru, an area of Amazonia noted for a recent uptick in both population and artisanal gold mining. As recently as 2012, the population of the regional capital, Puerto Maldonado was less than half of what it is estimated currently, and during my Earth Expeditions field course held at CECCOT we were fortunate to hear firsthand local perspectives on these changes. 

For a little background, small-scale mining of gold along the Madre de Dios River and its many tributaries -- as in many other regions of the world where it is practiced -- is a physically perilous (and in most cases illegal) activity for the miners. It is also one which has many public health, environmental, and social problems associated with it. First, the process uses mercury amalgam to bind with the gold ore. Mercury is a toxic metal that pollutes the water and soil, as well as bioaccummulates up the food chain, reaching dangerous levels in the fish that people eat from anywhere downstream of mining operations. Furthermore, when it is burned off at the markets in town, the vapors are powerful neurological toxins.

It was interesting to me that during our discussions, it was stated by one local individual that people there were generally not very concerned about the elevated levels of mercury in their community above what is considered safe by the World Health Organization. It was then further suggested -- I think correctly -- that the issue was not a genuine apathy about the serious health risks, but more a case of not being informed adequately about this issue affecting their communities. In addition, I suspect also some level of mistrust of meddlesome outsiders (both national and international) is a factor in discounting these omnipresent hazards.

We also learned from the Peruvians, both local and non-local, who attended this discussion, that many regional politicians and people in general support the miners. To me, this made sense for several reasons. Previously I had learned something of the cultural gulf between the seat of government in coastal Lima and the much less urban Amazon regions. It seemed to me that heavy-handing militaristic raids and/or gasoline quotas to combat the problem might win more people to the side of the miners. In a region where so much of the economy is linked to this activity, even those who do not mine gold themselves know someone among the tens of thousands who do.

While our long discussion of the very complex problem hadn’t really touched on potential solutions, our course theme of community-based conservation suggested that topdown enforcement actions are not usually the most effective strategies. There was a sense, though, that some believed such drastic actions might be necessary in this case. However, the small-scale nature of these operations just means that they will pop up again somewhere else. The most serious crackdowns in the region previously had been followed the next year by increases in mining activity. This was seemingly out of defiance, but perhaps it was also due to the realization that such intense efforts by the national government were unlikely to be maintained.

I had traveled by boat several hours up the Madre de Dios River in 2014, 2016, and again in 2019. This year the sheer number of mining operations we passed was staggering. As miners move in, so do roads and settlements. Access is opened up to previously remote locations for all kinds of development, farming, logging, and hunting. Apart from the pollution of water and riparian soils, these are the activities that challenge wildlife and ecosystems, and they will not likely be reduced even with legalization and regulation. 

As I walked the streets of Puerto Maldonado on this trip, I also saw evidence of the social costs associated with this boom in gold mining. There was a march of demonstrators against child labor and sex trafficking, and I took a pamphlet from them that explained how to recognize these victims shrouded in the lurid corners of a boomtown economy.

These social ills were alluded to in our group discussion of gold mining as well. Someone had mentioned that the influx of people to the region had changed the town, making it less safe in some ways. Several of our hosts had lived in Puerto Maldonado all of their lives, as did their parents and their parent’s parents before them. They felt that some of the people arriving there were not as invested in the community, and had come from the mountains or other places where they did not learn to live sustainably within a rainforest ecosystem. 

Perhaps this region is experiencing another version of the Wild West, where people are drawn in great numbers to seek their glittery fortune, but in doing so they also drastically change the landscape and the culture wherever they stake their claims.

Hope for the future: Forest School at CECCOT

Boyd, S. (2013). Who's to blame for Peru's gold mining troubles? The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/whos-to-blame-for-perus-gold-mining-troubles

Catanoso, J. (2019). Gov't takedown of illegal gold mining in Peru shows promise, but at a cost. Mongabay. Retrieved from https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/govt-takedown-of-illegal-gold-mining-in-peru-shows-promise-but-at-a-cost/

Esdaile, L. J., & Chalker, J. M. (2018). The Mercury Problem in Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining. Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany), 24(27), 6905–6916. doi:10.1002/chem.201704840

Taking Heart in Honduras

"You may have no value in your pockets, but always have value in your words." This was one of the moral lessons Carlos took from his father, who had once hung his son by his thumbs for 12 hours for stealing a nickel.

I met Carlos at the main bus terminal in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, in 2011. He had just been deported from a U.S. detention center in Chandler, Arizona, after his 5th attempt to return to the country where he had once successfully stayed for 2 years and 11 months. We spoke for more than an hour as we waited for our connections. He was trying to return to his home in a small village of 500-600 people in Departmento de Colón, where he'd see his kids after two and a half months apart.

The time Carlos spent away from his family was not easy. When he was captured by U.S. Border Patrol, he had already been in the Sonoran desert for 6 days. His attempt to re-enter the U.S. was ultimately thwarted by his inability to leave a bleeding woman alone in the desert after she had been raped. He estimated that he carried her around 10 kilometers before a Border Patrol helicopter found them.

The risks of hopping freight trains are serious for desperate migrants.
Photo: public domain

He told me that he had almost no clothes at the time because he had been robbed earlier in Mexico. That leg of his journey seemed to me the most traumatic, as he reported seeing stabbings and rapes on the trains as he traversed that country. It should be noted that this is not train travel as the average U.S. person might imagine it. Those traveling on "La Bestia" or the "Train of Death," for example, are essentially hopping freight trains heading north, and are subjected to not just the dangers and mutilations inherent to this activity, but also to muggings, rapes, murders, and kidnappings by gangs and other criminal elements preying upon the migrants.

His eyes glowed like campfires in a brutal wilderness. He had literally nothing and suffered so much, yet remained defiantly alive without an embittered soul. 

Carlos had been given the few clothes that he had by some nuns, which presumably helped him to endure the grueling 19 days he spent in the mountains before crossing into the United States. He told me that, once in the U.S., he encountered several bodies in the desert. This fact he relayed in a grave yet oddly casual manner, a mixture peculiar to someone who had seen the worst of human potential. Unbelievably, though, this man of perhaps 40 years or more, hadn't become hollowed by his experiences. His eyes glowed like campfires in a brutal wilderness. He had literally nothing and suffered so much, yet remained defiantly alive without an embittered soul.

This lack of animosity became evident when he told me how "friendly" and "kind" Border Patrol agents had been to him, and even more so when -- penniless and still a long way from home -- he displayed no special vitriol for the Honduran government either, even though they offered no assistance for people in his situation. Carlos told me that Honduran culture in general openly disrespects black people, but that Garifunas¹ like him do not get mad at the other Hondurans, "because they do not know any better." To further illustrate his point, he mentioned an unsettling fact about where we were sitting: "they kill each other; 40 people a week here." Indeed, San Pedro Sula was the murder capital of the world at the time, but despite the poverty and racism he and his people have endured, the worst he would say was: "we call them chicken brains." To me, this seemed like a term of pity more than one of anger or hatred.

From then on we talked about Garifuna culture, which he told me values hospitality, honesty, and travel. He recommended a book by Nancy Gonzalez for me to understand more of their culture. He could not recall the name of it, but I later found out it was an academic tome entitled: "Sojourners of the Caribbean: Ethnogenesis and Ethnohistory of the Garifuna." With a due sense of shame, I admit I have not yet delved into this volume.

The experience of meeting Carlos was a poignant one for me. He was a complicated man who loved his family and would go to extreme measures to support them. For a time in the U.S. that meant working as a welder and drug courier in Philadelphia. He would have stayed there longer, remaining apart from the family that he was supporting, if he hadn't decided to return home when his mother-in-law had gotten sick. He was someone who bore the scars of personal and systemic abuse, but still radiated an unlikely positivity. He lived a life mired in the distractions and anxieties of poverty but nevertheless was calm, worldly, and wise.

I left my conversation with Carlos feeling sad about global inequities, but also cheered by the durability and essential beauty of the human spirit. I will forever be amazed and inspired by those who have every reason to hate, but refuse to be consumed by the flames of fury.

On the bus again

1. People of African and Amerindian ancestry who live primarily in the Caribbean and Central America.

Yoga Brain: When Self Improvement Becomes Self Absorption

I love yoga. It is an extremely healthy physical practice with potential for much more. Even some strains of the New Thought spirituality and mind-cure hokum often associated with it has a degree of therapeutic value. My quarrels with the general state of a lot of commercial yoga (not an indictment of all yoga everywhere by everyone) is more than the just usual complaint of crass consumerist (z)enlightenment perverting centuries of deep tradition. In reality, there has never been a unified, monolithic concept of a yoga practice or philosophy. So, fair enough if you want to re-imagine it within a capitalist framework, replete with all the gear, outfits, and memberships that entails. Enjoy the community and health benefits that come with that journey. Just don't pretend you connecting with some kind of pure and ancient spiritual tradition, and don't act like your deep breaths and toned lats are going to make you a better person. Self-improvement involves more than mastering an arm balance and saying "auuummmm."

Yoga as Retreat

What I see as the major failing of the modern yogic practice is its almost complete detachment from the outside world. This would be fine if it were simply a gym routine, which for many it is, but it also has this vague spiritualism attached to it that alludes to a much grander journey of self-development that promises to make the world a better place. If more people had some kind of meditative practice like yoga, many will argue, they too might be more "centered" and patient, engaging others with less anger, bitterness, and violence. Hard to quibble too much with that ideal. The problem is that this "centering" process often become stunted by the endlessly narcissistic "self-discovery" of the new age yoga cultist.They get so caught up in improving their practice and achieving self-acceptance (not inherently bad things), that they fail to look outside the microcosm of their own body and Instagram feeds.

Perpetual self-improvement is important to prevent mental, physical, and moral stagnation, but it cannot be done only in the safe space of a middle-class yoga retreat. It requires us to think and act in our daily lives with others and the environment in mind. A butterfly pinned in a museum case may indeed be beautiful, but it does not serve it's bigger role as a pollinator. Similarly, if your practice does not compel you to engage with the world in a positive way beyond the mat, you may be missing out on one of the best ways to improve your self. 

Alignments

Years ago, I became certified to teach yoga while I was traveling in Peru. One thing that appealed to me about the  strain of yoga I was taught was a very broad philosophy of alignment. We not only worked on perfecting our postures, but on seeing them as metaphors for congruence with larger systems as well: how we align our actions with our principles and our goals, how these goals and principles align with a healthy and just society, and how a healthy and just society can function in agreement with (not opposition to) the natural world.

When I came home to Cleveland, Ohio, I met a local yoga teacher who similarly inspired students to think of their practice as something to carry outside the classroom. It was presented as something that can fundamentally alter the way you engage with others, and change how you reflect on those engagements. You might push yourself physically, but there also exists other challenges for a practice billed as a panacea for self-improvement. It may be productive to also think about your lifestyle and how you treat others and the environment. Have you uncovered habits in the way you move, think, and behave that you can make more personally, socially, and ecologically healthy? This is important, especially if you want to ascribe any significance to your practice beyond physical health and the aesthetics of a contorted body.

To be clear, a basic physical practice is fine. That is a valid choice, and unlike some purists, I do see value in this path. In many ways, it is more honest. It also improves personal fitness and confidence, and even has a health interpersonal aspect to it that jogging alone does not have. However, most people who love yoga also celebrate its mind-body-soul connections. It is widely held to be something than just stretching and twisting. For this reason, it behooves everyone to ask whether they are achieving "mindfulness" with their practice, or just pursuing vanity and navel-gazing solipsism with a patina of appropriated Sanskrit.

In its loftier iterations, yoga invites practitioners to think of their connections to the sociopolitical and environmental frameworks within which they have constructed their identities and values. The "union" of the individual with larger concepts has the potential to lift people off first wrung of self-love, and to motivate adherents toward a more fruitful accounting of their overall human ecology. Compassion for the self is essential, but to simply end there is a veritable tragedy for personal development.

Questions for Yogis

What changes have come from the compassion, mindfulness, and empathy that you have learned? Where has your patience and training led you? Have you taken steps to lower your carbon footprint, challenged deep-rooted ideas about how our economy works, considered the implications of your diet and lifestyle, reduced waste and consumption, and/or fought for the sake of those with less privilege? My big disappointment with modern yoga is that it often lets people enjoying bourgeois benefits feel completely wonderful about doing nothing of use to others or the planet.

To be fair, many yoga practitioners do make big structural changes in their life, expanding their self-concept and pushing the frontiers of empathy. Furthermore, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being happy (or even surprised) with your physical progress and achievements along the way. Document them with as many pics of you on the beach doing vrschikasana as you like. It is undeniably impressive and beautiful. But if I were your yoga teacher, I might ask you to go home and scroll through your social media feeds while counting the proportion of your photos that are just yourself, maybe even taken by yourself. What does this say about you: your motivations, your focus, your life experience? Is it saying something you like? Has your practice made you more or less in tune with -- and concerned about -- the world around you? Are you bending over backwards for yourself, or for something bigger?

Imago Of Man

The most pernicious strains of adulthood are those which rob a person of their sense of wonder, and yet most of us accept this kind of mental affliction as a fact of life: just part of growing up. People will occasionally grumble wistfully about it, as if finding wonder in this world is no longer fathomable, a long lost luxury reserved for only the most young and naïve. It had since been beaten out of them after years of workplace deadlines, household chores, and countless cookie-cutter conversations.

From time to time, a ray of reverence will pierce the carapace of even the most jaded and broken creatures. Sometimes it is just a tingle of awe reflected from a toddler's unmitigated glee as we watch them encounter everyday creation. But other times it is a direct revelation that stops them us in our tracks as we re-discover one of the many daily mysteries unraveling beyond the grasp of our comprehension. Too often, though, we step back from this perplexity into the safety of knowing, and we label this retreat as 'maturity.' Possibilities are contained, wily imaginations tamed.

"We grow to be proud of our world-weariness and misanthropy, mistaking this for insight."

During the first instar of adulthood, normal operating procedure is to project what we think we know about people and how the world works onto both people and the world in general. Many times these expectations are measured timidly to the minimum standard in an effort to thwart disappointment. Over time, our embittered sensibilities forge a kind of vanity from this cynicism. We grow to be proud of our world-weariness and misanthropy, mistaking this for insight.

At some point along this path to maturity, I came to see the grown-up state of "disillusionment" as something of a misnomer. It began to feel much more like conceding to a contrary process of grasping at the comfort of easy answers, even if they were bad ones. It felt more like illusionment, as the world drifted out from under our feet. Better to have a dismal understanding than to face the chaos of not knowing.

"For the sake of consistency, we learn to spell our names correctly every time. For a sense of safety, we have slain all the dragons."

When I was young, I was a weird kid. All kids are weird kids, I know, a fact which accounts for a large measure of why we love them. Some of these little weirdos don't calibrate to the culture around them as quickly as others. Scripts must be memorized; experiences get pinned to narratives like captured specimens. No child starts out with notions about anything at all, let alone how to fit the many marvels around them into neatly labeled boxes. It takes time to rein in the oddness of being, to dull yourself to marvels and mysteries. For the sake of consistency, we learn to spell our names correctly every time. For a sense of safety, we have slain all the dragons.

As I advanced beyond my own larval stage, I could only see the things that I now knew. The more orderly the world became, the less distracted I was by all the noise around the edges. This is contrary to what artists, visionaries, and iconoclasts experience. They see things in non-normative ways, noticing details and mining insights from outside the sociolinguistic frameworks that guide our perceptions. They are fringe-folk. Disruptors. Galileos and Picassos.

"The phrases of poets that have resonate most with me are those that make small semantic dents in my psyche, evoking larger things I don't understand, allowing access to the senseless undercurrents of existence."

But most of us stay tuned to the mundane expectations that cloud our peripheral vision. Our ability to predict events, project the truth about others, and to constrain ourselves leads to comfort, ego, and boredom. Since that first moult, my own eyes have set to record the world of things that fit neatly inside of words, and yet they crave more. The phrases of poets that have resonate most with me are those that make small semantic dents in my psyche, evoking larger things I don't understand, allowing access to the senseless undercurrents of existence.

My first adulthood is still very much with me. This stage in humans is known to last for decades. Many of us never fully achieve the second adulthood, a special time when the sense of wonder creeps back in, when all known systems of thought are realized as inadequate containers... when you can gaze upon something that you have seen a thousand, maybe a million times before, and cannot recognize it any longer. It is the return of magic and monsters to that space between the rhythmic pulse of employee time clocks and rote conversations, a gentle unmooring of identity from grounded discourse. 

Some experience this newfound maturity as a crisis of faith, and paddle themselves back to safe harbors where the standard models account for all that needs to be accounted for. Others, though, give in to the great relativity glimpsed now and then through compound eyes, able to sense unutterable Truths flickering as composite images in low resolution. For these individuals, the fear of not knowing gives way to the fear of false knowledge, and humility erodes the protective shell of constructivism. 

"A second adulthood refuses to yield wonder and growth to the demands of gravity and cohesion. It is here that we strive to shed the tyranny of singular selfhood and embrace the endless cycle of becoming... whether as an individual or as a species."

This relapse into the freedom of unknown possibilities is not regressive, and not a second childhood. Likewise, as beauty shines through cracks in reality, the playfulness of the growing-up is not an embrace of human ignorance. Wisdom retains importance as a way to vanquish darkness and bind societies, but it is mutable and can be revised. The wont for mastery gets replaced with a desire to transcend the fearful need for control. A second adulthood refuses to yield wonder and growth to the demands of gravity and cohesion. It is here that we strive to shed the tyranny of singular selfhood and embrace the endless cycle of becoming... whether as an individual or as a species.

The world stays new only when we squint through the lumpy cortices of evolution, rubbing from our eyes the jaded gaze of expectation. Eventually, the metamorphosis of consciousness creates a self so large it becomes meaningless, its quantum filaments standing in unity upon the membrane of the universe, fluttering in awe above a welcoming abyss.

This is how I see myself, anyway. Your results may vary.

An Idiot's Guide to Idiocracy

Everyone loves to lament the spiraling stupidity of our species. It is a universal pastime that unites even the most disparate ideologues. This, in part, accounts for the perennial claim that the 2006 B-movie Idiocracy is “the only comedy that became a documentary.” I am also guilty of palming my forehead and referencing this satirical ode to our cultural nosedive, but I've come to think of it differently lately. Could it be that we use the central conceit of this film to justify our own conceited decisions about middle-class procreation?

First, let me me say that I do not intend to cast anyone, educated or non-educated, rich or poor, as a villain. In fact, my argument is that Idiocracy-type classist thinking does that exact thing.

The central tenet of the burgeoning Idiocracy is that educated, financially-solvent people have stopped procreating because they are pathologically responsible in making their life decisions, while the ignorant masses are mindlessly mating with wild abandon. This culminates eventually in a nation teaming with their slack-jawed spawn who watch “Ow My Balls” on TV and elect a pro wrestler as president. However, instead of thinking of this problem as related to unequal access to education and opportunity, it seems the majority of viewers and film referencers respond with puffed-up feelings of a patriotic duty to spread their good genes to counteract the rising tide of stupidity. Apart from any intent by the filmmakers, it has become a rallying cry for a procreational arms race, and a justification for a vain middle-class to ignore issues of over-population and ecological stress, to say nothing of socieconomic privilege. Rather than see a mutual responsibility in shaping the values and opportunities of future generations, regardless of whose womb they emerged from, they see a simple-minded mandate to increase output of their own progeny to counter the swelling masses of idiots.

If we accept that less access to education, healthcare, family planning, and economic opportunity does relate to higher birth rates (as is implied by demographic transition models of development, as well as the effect of female empowerment on fertility rates), then we have already complicated this facile notion that “idiocy” is in-born. Instead, it can be understood as culturally constructed and enforced. A child born to backseat breeding bumpkins, if given the same nurturing environment as his or her upper-class counterparts, has an equal likelihood of contributing to the cause of human development.

Rather than have young professionals patting themselves on their backs and pregnant bellies, we should maybe work towards a shared responsibility for all children: even those not featuring our oh-so-precious genetic imprint. While I think it is laudable, responsible, and even selfless to forgo your own fecundity, I do have plenty of criticism for non-reproducing citizens who feel no duty to support future generations. Just as the short-sighted views of many breeding humans often hones their narrow focus on the somehow “noble” chore of raising their own children, to self-congratulate and wash your hands of humanity's fate just because you didn't reproduce is equally problematic.

Despite having no MiniMes roaming the streets, that does not mean that I shouldn't support public schools with my taxes, advocate for access to affordable child care, and push for other measures that do not benefit me directly. That's because – apart from just being plainly ethical – this is how we prevent the Idiocracy from happening. It is not by looking down upon the 'stupid' breeders or trying to out-breed them with our superior seed, but by realizing that their children are the future of humanity, and we should give them every opportunity to thrive. 

We know that the environment a person grows up in greatly shapes who they become. So why not focus on creating better contexts for human development? This means removing barriers to social and economic justice and equality. As we accomplish this, it will continue to lower crime and birthrates while also enabling more great minds flourish and contribute to the arts and sciences. Our best hope as a species is not adding to the problem of over-population with vain justifications of our genetic supremacy, but rather realizing that all of our fates are intertwined. In doing so, we might get further by collectively shedding the facile notion that “some people shouldn't breed.”

That means unselfishly caring about more than just your own kid(s), and it also means the childless need to acknowledge their social responsibilities too. Just because you didn't buy into the “children are the meaning of life” mantra often desperately repeated ad naseum by sleep-deprived parents, doesn't mean you get to withdraw from society. Much like myopic moms and self-indulgent dads, if your horizon of concern ends with your own genetic legacy – whether propagated or not -- you're likely something far worse than an idiot.

Mass[achusetts] Effect - PAX East 2015

My first ever gaming conference!

Just before the Penny Arcade Expo in Boston, I had hunkered down for an all-night binge of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, desperate for even a tiny scrap of true gamer cred. Sure, I have tangled with some indie faves like Papers Please and Braid, watched completely spellbound as my girlfriend blasted her way through the complex universe of Mass Effect, cut my teeth on the brilliant and hilarious Katamari and Portal games, and spent many hours honing my Mario Kart skills to a level proudly approaching adequate, but I still hardly consider myself gaming literate. In contrast to true gamers, I am a dabbling neophyte studiously parsing insider jargon and laboriously piecing together canonical references, all the while awkwardly fumbling along with an octogenarian's dexterity and a toddler's depth of experience. Nevertheless, I jumped at the opportunity to travel for the first time to a major U.S. city -- during the annual reenactment of the Boston Massacre no less -- for this renowned gaming conference that boasts more than 50,000 attendees, many of whom indulged in painstakingly hand-crafted cosplay that included everything from terrifying armored robots to a fascinating array of multi-ethnic and gender-inclusive Links, a character freshly near and dear to my heart. 

Expo floor (Photo by Janice Hsu)

In fact, one thing I loved about the conference in general was its spirit of unabashed fun and non-ironic geekdom, which extended far from the endless glow of LCD screens and the sea of tabletop gamers on the expo floor... flooding the streets, restaurants, and public transit systems of Boston with a startling array of action heroes, psychos, and cyborgs. The conference also included a classic arcade, about 20 NASA control centers worth of PC gaming stations, a console gaming area, a diversity lounge, and high-quality musical acts specializing in interpretations of beloved game soundtracks. The latter included a classical guitar duo (Super Guitar Bros) and the Triforce Quartet, who as you may have guessed, are a traditional string ensemble. What you may not have guessed, though, is how virtuosic and beautiful the arrangements were. Who knew I would one day get chills from a rousing medley of Metroid scores?

L to R: Nathan, Lori, Jeff, me, Janice, Ben G.

What perhaps impressed me most, though, were the many panel discussions featuring game developers, academics, critics, voice actors, and other industry professionals. It was here that – despite already understanding video games as art forms with narrative complexity, didactic capacity, and social relevance – I started to get a much better sense of how game mechanics, character-building, and design aesthetics are used to thoughtful engage with a wide range of issues.

Tempers flare on the expo floor.

The first thought-provoking panel I attended was actually about artificial intelligence and robotics. At one point, philosopher John Searle's notion of biological naturalism was addressed, suggesting that the brain's “wetware” was necessary for true sentience. This then led to questions about the nature of human consciousness and whether the mind is basically just an information-processing mechanism that can be replicated by AI. To me, Searle's assertions refuting the latter seem to unnecessarily mystify the brain by claiming it alone is uniquely capable of eliciting the experience of cognizance... by unknown means, of course. But then again, I am judging his arguments from a half a panel discussion that I attended at a video game conference.

Janice & Oculus Rift (virtual reality). Incredible!

Another issue that came up in the Q&A dealt with the ethical treatment of transhuman intelligence and how that might also make us re-think our ethics regarding other forms of nonhuman sentience (i.e. animals). Could the shifting relationship between humans and AI lead us to reconsider how we relate to other species? Also, could robots suffer like other animals can suffer?

So many kinds of great.

Or perhaps a better question is: will they make us suffer? Naturally, recent dire warnings by Stephen Hawking about the future of self-replicating AI were brought up, but the panel – which included actual researchers in the field of robotics – respectfully dismissed these concerns on the basis that the current state of robotics is quite far from achieving the singularity... even given Moore's Law. However, I think that essentially saying “don't worry, we aren't there yet” sidesteps the question, leaving us blindly pursuing technology without considering its ramifications and trying to mitigate ill consequences. If you argue that Hawking is being prematurely alarmist, that doesn't actually refute his claims. It simply implies that we should hold off a bit longer before totally shitting our pants.

Me and my video gaming mentor

The panel on atheism (and conversely, the representation of real and concocted religions) in games was equally compelling, featuring developers from such notorious game franchises as Bioshock and Fallout. Interestingly, although they approach game design as empiricists, creating fantastical game worlds often necessitates supernatural problem-solving options, which in turns requires a thoughtful and non-judgmental treatment of religion and religious characters. Furthermore, Bioshock creator Ken Levine noted that any ideology elevated to the level of dogma can be as problematic as religion, such as in the case of libertarian orthodoxy. A strange and wonderful theme seemed to emerge from the discussion that alluded not to just best practices in world-building for game developers and others who engage in the creative process, but really anyone engaging in everyday life: try to understand rather than judge others, whether they be repulsive villains or god-fearing bible thumpers. The impulse to judge irons out compelling complexity by forcing everyone into a false and uninteresting polemic. As Levine mentioned, studying what faith versus faithlessness provides his characters leads to the realization that regardless, they are “both fucked in different ways.”

Starting the day properly with breakfast beers at The Friendly Toast

Empathy-building and the reduction of characters into clichéd types was a theme that came up in several discussions. For instance, one panel focused on the representation of transgendered individuals in games, as well as in the gaming community, and advocated for movement away from the typical stigmatization as villains or shallow punchlines. Another panel looked at the wider issue of diversity in sci-fi at large, asking why the universe tends to be so white and English. The tone here was optimistic about the direction games are beginning to take (although there is obviously a long way to go), with a new-found freedom within the industry to address touchy issues of sexism, ableism, racism, and colonialism. Game mechanics focused on conquest, authoritarianism, and gun-based problem-solving are being questioned, the notion of gender constructs as static is being cast aside, and all manner of culturally-biased assumptions and lazy speculations inherent to sci-fi tropes are being deconstructed in fascinating ways. Perhaps the biggest challenge is not only to think beyond the boundaries of culture and the prevailing zeitgeist (in order to better see these things), but to also hit that sweet spot where the narrative can be provocative and the world-building wondrous, while at the same time characters are relatable and the universe is comprehensible to the gamer.

Society is not ready.

This question of relatability was also explored in a panel on romance in games, which talked about offering alternatives to the usual "new love" and adolescent romance. Why not acknowledge that the gaming audience is definitely not all 14 year-old boys, and so you can provide richer and more diverse experiences with mature forms of love and complex relationships that would interest married and older gamers? The idea is that there exists many ways to create meaning and attachment to narrative, and that there has been overwhelming focus on falling in love, with less emphasis on the problems and rewards that come as you continue to be in love. Also, the grand romance narrative, in both life and in games, does not always work out, and there is also a push to get beyond the narcissism of game characters existing just for the game player. As one panelist noted, the “insert approval tokens for sex” mindset is hollow, dull, and sends the wrong message.

Using games as a teaching tool, whether overtly or as a secondary function, was a topic discussed on a history panel. Games offer a different kind of engagement than other creative products by putting decision-making in the hands of players, and when they are designed thoughtfully and accurately, they can be incredibly effective as a learning tool. In playing games based on historical events or periods, users learn firsthand the intended and unintended consequences of their choices, which can reverberate throughout many dimensions of gameplay: politics, religion, economics, etc. This affords a better understanding of history and why events unfolded as they did, as well as how things could have happened differently, undermining the perceived inevitability of history. Ultimately, formal students and casual gamers alike begin to see interrelationships among diverse game elements that correspond with real world concerns, and they themselves start to connect with history in a more visceral way. An example given was Dog Eat Dog, which is a game about occupation and colonialism in the Pacific islands, but also Assassin's Creed is a mainstream game franchise known for its attention to historical detail. 

Soda Drinker Pro: The most advanced soda drinking simulator in the world.

Another aspect discussed was bias in game mechanics, such as the classic example of leaving Native Americans out of Oregon Trail. More generally, they highlighted the need for more games to offer diversity in winning conditions: dealing with informal power and not just military domination. Having a game developer, a history professor, and the manager for digital and online learning at the Guggenheim Museum on the panel led to some really interesting synergies in how each discipline could benefit the others. Also, I think it was important when they made the point that games ARE historical texts that can be (and are) analyzed in the same was as any other media.

Amazing Cosplay (Photo by Lori Hansen)

In the end, the biggest thing I took away from PAX was not really a single epiphany or experience, but rather a scaling up of my respect for games as creative works with unique strengths and the potential to reach enormous audiences. My respect was also greatly bolstered for the gaming community in general, which displayed a level of discourse and reflection that belied much of the recent negative press regarding the “Gamergate” controversy. While I have heard women in the gaming community tell me of their firsthand experiences with sexist attitudes, it was heartening to see so much of that bullshit being addressed head-on, and with a high visibility of all the various gaming demographics that don't neatly fit the widely-held stereotype of a typical gamer.

Oblivious in Bolivia - Santa Cruz

I departed Cleveland for Santa Cruz Bolivia at 5:30 Sunday morning with absolutely no sleep and a layer of dried sweat on my body from the last-minute hauling of most of my worldly possessions into storage at my dad's house. I was prepared to pity the person seated next to me on the plane, but luckily I never had anyone directly beside me.  In fact, after my layover in Panama, I had a luxurious row of three seats to lay across undisturbed by all but the most extreme turbulence.  Upon landing in Santa Cruz, I muddled my way through immigration with all the blank stares and awkward fumbling expected of smelly foreign hobo.  I was so relieved once I sped away at 120 kilometers per hour in a taxi bound for my hostel at 3:00am, conversing with the driver along the way in my broken Spanish aided by his broken English.  He was also 37 years old, but he had a wife and four children, and he made it clear, as only an exhausted airport cabbie in the middle of the night can, that he envied the single life.

Murals near the central plaza

The streets of Santa Cruz were absolutely empty and all the shops were shuttered.  It was hard for me to believe it when he said tomorrow traffic would be bumper to bumper.  I knocked on the hostel door with meek uncertainty, and he politely waited to make sure they let me in. A sleepy girl answered, rubbing her eyes and yawning.  I gave the driver a big smile and thumbs up, then she guided me through the darkness to a bunk bed where I briefly disturbed the slumber of a Frenchman, who quickly pulled a pillow over his face as the bare bulb above him bombarded his retinas.  The next morning I learned my roommate's name was Pierric, and he was a doctoral student of linguistics here to study the Chiquitano language.  He explained that the Chiquitano people are an indigenous ethnic group living mainly in Eastern Bolivia and parts of Brazil.  As we talked, somehow the conversation turned to "Obamacare," which I always find interesting because almost every European I have ever met simply cannot understand why this is such a contentious issue in the world's richest country.

Basilica Menor de San Lorenzo

I guess it needed to be said.  In the stairway of the bell tower.

Feeding pigeons in the plaza

The cabbie was right about traffic the next day as Santa Cruz sprung to life.  It was unusually cold and windy while I wandered through the city, marveling at the cars muscling their way through intersections, the right-of-way apparently given to drivers of superior boldness.  There are police, military, and security guards throughout the city, posted at every bank or government building.  I suppose it would have been a little disconcerting to walk by a man casually wielding a pistol-grip shotgun as I headed out for my morning coffee, but I became habituated to this kind of thing in Honduras and Guatemala.  The main difference here seems to be the lack of body searches before entering a bank.

I walked up to the Plaza 24 de Septiembre, a beautiful central park where pigeons outnumber humans by an unsettling margin.  The plaza is so named because it is the location and date of the province's first battle against Spanish rule in 1810.  On the south end of the plaza is the Basilica Menor de San Lorenzo, a large brick cathedral with beautiful wooden ceilings and an aura of holy reverence that kept me from nosing around too much.

Looking at the plaza from the Bell Tower

Behind the Cathedral

Political graffiti

Just outside the church in the plaza, I was surprised to see several tents and a sheet flapping in the wind bearing the name of the organization where I am going to volunteer.  I mustered my minimal Spanish skills and spoke at length with a pretty young woman at the table about what they were doing there.  After 30 minutes of furrowed brows, fumbling speech, confused smiles, and funny drawings, I finally understood that they were indigenous peoples protesting a highway that is to be build in their environmentally sensitive and protected area (Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Secure, TIPNIS).

Two blocks from my hostel.  Too perfect.

After I left her, I found a delicious vegetarian restaurant then later hung out at a cafe enjoying some excellent coffee and chocolate torta.  I found myself instantly enamored with Santa Cruz on just my first day, mainly because of the people I've met and the energy of the city.  Perhaps it is because of the season, but there is only a smattering of tourists, and almost all of them are French.  I am spending more time here than I anticipated because my bank froze my account after I withdrew some cash, even though I told them of my travel plans.  Luckily, a toll-free Skype call fixed everything, and I am slated to leave tomorrow morning for Parque Ambue Ari, although as I type this in my hostel hammock, I have no idea how I am going to get there.

This was outside a kindergarten

"Nature is not a commodity"

Poetic graffiti

I will miss the friendly people at Residencial Bolivar.  Apart from Simon the toucan who likes to sit on your shoulder, Celia and I practiced our language skills together for a couple hours and had a really fun time saying ridiculous things to each other.  She plays the piano and is going to college for music.  She also was shocked to learn that I was not 25 years old; it must be my youthful looks or perhaps my obvious immaturity.

Simon lives at Residencial Bolivar

Simon and me