Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

You are supposed to say “ouch”

For reasons I may or may not get around to writing about I have had some considerable amount of experience with various sorts of pain lately. So I found this NYT article by Austin Frakt, If ‘Pain Is an Opinion,’ There Are Ways to Change Your Mind particularly interesting. It seems, for example, that I was a captive of a common ‘naïve’ fallacy:

One thing we tend to believe about pain, but is wrong, is that it always stems from a single, fixable source. Another is that pain is communicated from that source to our brains by “pain nerves.” That’s so wrong it’s called “the naïve view” by neuroscientists.

In truth, pain is in our brain. Or as the author and University of California, San Diego, neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran put it, “Pain is an opinion.” We feel it because of how our brain interprets input transmitted to it from all our senses, not necessarily because of the inherent properties of the input itself. There are no nerves dedicated to sensing and transmitting pain.

But I’m not taking up the trumpet (read the article).

The enticing ad ran on the bottom right of page A9 of today’s New York Times.

Welcome to Kuiper Belt Mining Corp. We are global leaders in sustainable asteroid mining initiatives, committed to replenishing our planet’s natural mineral resources. We work with governments and private enterprise to bring the wealth of the Solar System back to Earth. If you have always dreamt of seeing Jupiter and Mars you will be excited to become a part of the KBMC Asteroid Mining Recruitment Program set in the heart of the Kuiper Belt – the largest asteroid belt ever discovered. While no prior experience is necessary, we are seeking candidates with a post-grad or equivalent in astrophysics, geophysics or engineering, or two years private or commercial flying experience. If you are able to leave Earth for up to 2,000 days and can start August 2084, then we would like to invite you to apply to join our team today.

Sadly, I fear the Kuiper Belt Mining Corp. is mainly a ploy to sell the themed merchandise linked to from their page, since I doubt a lot of people alive today will be in shape to go asteroid mining in 2084 — some 64 years from now.  (Cf. the MIT Technology Review’s story six months ago, How the asteroid-mining bubble burst.)

Pity.