A Tribute to Mario Marchetti

I was working in MIT Media Lab Europe in 2001, as a Principle Research Scientist, when I met Mario Marchetti for the first time. Media Lab Europe was a collaboration between the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of technology and the Irish Government, to establish a state of the art research center as the anchor tenant in the newly established Digital Hub in the Liberties area of Dublin. The Digital Hub itself was part of a larger Integrated Area Plan designed to bring innovation and enterprise to the Liberties area, where in the past the area had not got the public investment it deserved.

The mandate for Media Lab Europe was to invent innovative technologies to enable and empower people generally. I had the wild idea (I did not think it was wild at the time!) that the lab should support a Computer Clubhouse on its campus, to enable young people in the area to access the same kind of amazing technological tools that we had in the lab, and that volunteer mentors in the lab would teach the young members how to use those tools. The aim was to create confidence and curiosity in the young members whilst giving them real technical skills useful in the Digital Age.

To be fair to the lab, the management supported the endeavour (and actually committed floor space to the entity), with the caveat that it had to be run by another organisation, and that its on going sustainability was not the labs concern.

Intel agreed to fund the Clubhouse for three years but I needed help finding an organisation to run it.

Enter the ‘Hairy One’. (I will explain this later).

I had some limited experience in Youth services (from my rather unorthodox past) and approached the City of Dublin Youth Services (CDYSB) for help.

And it was here that I met the ‘Hairy One’, Mario Marchetti.

So began a wonderful journey which would very quickly become a fantastic friendship.

In our very first meeting Mario eyed me up with that wise and considered stare that was truly unique and, whilst stroking his beard, asked me one key question:

‘The initiative sounds great. Why are you doing this? Please assure me that this is not one big publicity stunt because the people in the area have been let down far too often’

(Or words to that effect)

I was caught off guard. My answer went something like this:

‘If the Computer Clubhouse makes a difference to one young person, who otherwise would not get the opportunities it offers, I would be happy’

And that was it. He gave me a hug! This big, burly man, dressed in biker leathers gave me a blooming hug. It transformed the conversation.

Those hugs were to be the signature opening and closing of all interactions we had going forward.

Mario identified SWICN (the South West Inner City Network) as the organisation that should run the Clubhouse. He setup the meetings with the key people. We arranged a lease. He helped design the governance structure and he provided the full youth services portfolio of CDYSB to support the project. This included mentoring courses, child protection courses, basic counselling skills etc. He even arranged for CDYSB to have a permanent presence in the Clubhouse for the first couple of years, all of which proved crucial for its success.

There were bumpy moments. There was a trip to Boston with the team to ‘learn’ how to run a Computer Clubhouse (the team collectively had decades of youth experience between them!). There was mis-understandings, mistakes made, personality challenges - all typical problems when a new innovative initiative is in its early stages. And through it all the ‘Hairy One’ was there to steer us through the storms.

In that time I came to have the highest respect for Mario.. No problem was ever insurmountable. He brought a calm assured presence to everything. He never lost his cool (I did regularly). He brought vast experience and wisdom to the project when and where it was needed most.

I fondly remember one story where we both had to go to the management of Media Lab Europe to formally reject their notion of only allowing one floor of the temporary building to the Computer Clubhouse.

Just before the meeting, Mario educated me in a relaxation technique that involved some breathing exercises and a half lotus sitting position. I was enjoying the exercise so much that I was still in the half lotus position humming the word ‘om’ when the management came in for the meeting.

We still won our case (eventually)!

Media Lab Europe closed its doors early 2005.

Not many people know this (my family and very close friends do) but I experienced an extremely challenging episode in my life near the end and shortly after the close of Media Lab Europe. I took a very idealistic stand against some really powerful people (and quite honestly extremely nasty and ruthless people) and paid the price. I was held to blame, either side of the Atlantic, for the labs failure when nothing could be further from the truth. The brilliant group of researchers that I had the privilege to work with and lead, were one of the most successful groups in Media Lab Europe. Ideas, inventions and companies have all spun out of that immensely talented bunch of people and I still consider it one of the most stimulating times in my life despite the awful politics.

Whilst I was in the depths, Mario become my unofficial counselor. He would meet me regularly, help me in those relaxation exercises and remind me constantly to look after myself because I was no use to anyone if I was ill. I would get texts at all hours in the night that ranged from funny jokes, to insightful quotes and always the offer to meet up, hug and chat any time I needed it...

He was just a brilliant friend when I needed friendship most.

This is the first time I have put this truth out in the public.

Its a small parting gift to my friend, the ‘Hairy One’.


The clubhouse survived the collapse of Media Lab Europe. And it was in no small measure due to Mario. He championed the project within CDYSB. He convinced the powers there to support it as an innovative project going forward. Little pockets of funding kept flowing in. We found some private funding and some brilliant staff and slowly the Clubhouse began to find its own two feet.

Storm clouds were looming. Public funds were tightening. The youth sector was one of the first public services to really feel the pinch as the financial collapse beckoned.

And in that time Mario kept the Clubhouse visible and valuable to key stakeholders so that it survived. He did it for long enough to allow more long-term public and private funds to ensure its work continued.

All the while our friendship grew.

We would meet for coffee, hug, share life stories, laugh insanely at some daft situation either of us had found ourselves in (and there were many!) hug again and then go our separate ways.

He called me the ‘Clever One’ and I called him the ‘Hairy One’. You might think he was offering me a compliment. He wasn’t. We both knew that our intelligence is not measured by the number of degrees you have to your name. True intelligence, in both our minds, is measured by our ability to manage our emotions and in particular our emotional responses to people and their plight. By this measure he was far more intelligent than I was and so him calling me the ‘Clever One’ was really him asking the question:

 ‘You think you are clever eh?’

I called him the the ‘Hairy One’ because he was. Certainly relative to me. There was no ambiguity there.

In the last few years ago he introduced me to a place called the Sanctuary. This was a project very close to his heart. The Sanctuary is a physical space in the north of Dublin, supported by Focus point, for people to express and deal with emotional turmoil and find inner stillness.

It gives you a real insight into the inner workings of Mario. He really cared about peoples suffering. He genuinely wanted to help. He was constantly on the side of those with no voice and never shy to challenge the structures that created injustice.

He has left us to soon and I am truly devastated. Over the last year we promised one another that we would meet up for the usual session, bookmarked with those trademark hugs, but it never happened. I was in the process of moving my family to Tasmania and I got swamped. I regret not having that meeting and I hope this tribute goes some small way to addressing that.

My dear friend the Hairy One, I hope you are in a good place (stroking your beard with that unique thoughtful look of yours). You left us so unexpectedly, and to soon, but let it be known that you are fondly remembered by us all. We will not forget your wonderful spirit, gentle presence and compassionate nature. You are sorely missed.

It is so true that the quiet, peaceful path makers leave the most tears behind when they depart because suddenly the light is less bright, the path is that little bit harder to traverse and the calm consoling presence we took so much for granted is gone in a whisper.

You were one of those souls Mario. I will truly miss you.

Gary

19/2/15

The Science of why abortion is wrong

I wrote this article in response to an article written in the Irish Times by Emer O’Toole on the 27/7/15 outlining the scientific evidence supporting abortion. The argument amounted to this:

‘The foetus is not sentient and does not feel pain so that is justification enough to kill it’

I am a scientist. I have a PhD in Biomedical Engineering with a specific expertise in Neuroscience. The above argument appalls me for a number of reasons. Firstly, there is a huge amount of scientific evidence to dispute the above (see http://www.doctorsonfetalpain.com/). Secondly, the argument is devoid of any kind of understanding of the consequences of deliberately killing a human being. Thirdly and most importantly the argument suggests that main stream abortion is ‘progress’.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I want to present the argument as to why abortion is fundamentally wrong based on science. This argument is not based on whether abortion is morally right or wrong. That is an argument that has divided people into two camps deeply entrenched. Pro-choice versus pro-life.

I want to state up front that I am not a member of either camp. The argument below will support views on both sides to some degree. I am just a concerned citizen and think a different perspective is required to demonstrate why abortion is wrong.

I am also going to argue why abortion is wrong even in the first trimester (12 weeks) of pregnancy post implantation (essentially the embryonic phase). Most liberal abortion regimes allow abortion to happen much later than this. Given that we know that a baby can survive outside the womb from 20 weeks onwards should really speak for itself. The fact that it doesn’t is a terrible reflection on how far humanity has regressed in the last 43 years.

The argument starts with what we understand to be the beginning of life for a human being. This is a contentious issue. The Catholic Church for example, has taken the view that life begins at conception and it is understandable why they took this perspective. You have to define a starting point and the obvious place to start would seem to be conception.

I would argue that life does not begin at conception but rather at implantation. This is where an entity called a blastocyst buries itself in the uterine wall and begins cell dividing to a blueprint defined by the chromosomes in the fertilised egg. It takes place about a week after conception. Let me explain:

At conception the sperm and egg unite in one of the fallopian tubes to form a one-celled entity called a zygote (sometimes there is more than one zygote). Each zygote has 46 chromosomes - 23 from the mother and 23 from the father. These chromosomes will help determine the biological makeup of the baby. Everything from eye colour to personality traits is contained in this chromosome mix. Soon after fertilization, the zygote travels down the fallopian tube toward the uterus. At the same time, it will begin dividing rapidly to form a cluster of cells resembling a tiny raspberry. By the time it reaches the uterus, the rapidly dividing ball of cells - now known as a blastocyst - has separated into two sections. The inner group of cells will become the embryo. The outer group of cells will become the membranes that nourish and protect it. On contact with the uterus, it will burrow into the uterine wall for nourishment. This process is called implantation. The entire process takes about a week.

In my opinion all interventions to avoid implantation are morally justified in that first week as this is the way the body manages pregnancy naturally. If the blastocyst does not implant itself in the uterine wall then the pregnancy will not take place. If the blastocyst implants itself outside the uterine wall (an ectopic pregnancy) then medical intervention is necessary to save the mothers life. Either way, life can only begin if the blastocyst implants itself correctly in the uterine wall.

However, once implanted, the blastocyst draws nutrients from the uterus and cell division based on the human blueprint begins. At the same time the hormone human Chorionic Gonadotropin (better known as hCG) is produced in the developing placenta and pregnancy begins. The production of this hormone essentially allows the placenta feed the growing embyro.

The detection of hCG is one of the most common ways to detect pregnancy. It can be detected about 11 days after conception by a blood test.

At this point a unique person is being created. Because of the vastness of the genetic combination possibilities, this particular blueprint and mix of genes has likely never happened before and is likely to never happen again.

(The blastocyst can also divide and create identical twins before implantation. This is another reason why implantation is the obvious place to define life. Up to that point it is unclear whether the pregnancy will result in a single or a multiple birth).

Once implantation takes place a human being enters what is known as the embryonic phase (every human being alive has been through this phase). This is essentially the point in development where different organs like the baby's brain, spinal cord, heart and other systems begin to form.

The embryo is now made of three layers. The top layer - the ectoderm - will give rise to the baby's outermost layer of skin, central and peripheral nervous systems, eyes, inner ear, and many connective tissues. The baby's heart and a primitive circulatory system will form in the middle layer of cells - the mesoderm. This layer of cells will also serve as the foundation for the baby's bones, muscles, kidneys and much of the reproductive system. The inner layer of cells - the endoderm - will become a simple tube lined with mucous membranes. The baby's lungs, intestines and bladder will develop here.

By the end of the first week, the baby is likely to be about the size of the tip of a pen.

The heart starts beating somewhere between 18 and 25 days after conception. It takes this amount of time for the circulatory system to be a closed loop and at just 28 days the neural tube along the baby's back is closing and the heart is pumping blood. Basic facial features will begin to appear, including passageways that will make up the inner ear and arches that will contribute to the jaw. The baby's body begins to take on a C-shaped curvature. Small buds will soon become arms and legs. Electrical brainwaves have been recorded at 43 days on an EEG. If the absence of a brainwave indicates death then the presence of brain wave activity indicates life. It is still feasible that brainwaves could be discovered earlier as more sensitive recording instruments become available. The brain and all body systems are present by 8 weeks and functioning a month later.

At this stage in your development you would be a couple of centimeters long. There is also no disputing the fact that you are alive.

If you were a marsupial at this point (a young Kangaroo for example), that tiny kidney bean sized entity would make its own way to the mothers pouch to be nourished outside the womb. Marsupials evolved this way because there were less predators in their environment and the mother needed to be mobile during pregnancy to manage looking for water, forest fires etc...

Nobody argues that the tiny entity in the pouch is not an infant marsupial at this point, despite its size and extreme dependence on the mother. And yet people argue that a human being at the same stage of development is not a human being.

Humans evolved as placenta based mammals. We evolved this way to protect our young. This brings me to the key point of the argument.

Mammals are considered the most evolved of all of life on Earth. We are called mammals because our young require to be nurtured through the secretion of milk through the mothers mammary glands. Implicit in the mammal world is that our young are not born viable (they cannot survive on their own). They depend on the nurturing of the mother in order to be able to survive. Human children require huge lengths of time before they are considered able to look after themselves.

Nurturing our children is an intrinsic and essential part of how we have evolved.

Consider what happens in the reptile world (a crocodile for example). They are considered a more primitive life form than mammals and predate them in evolutionary terms by hundreds of millions of years. Reptiles lay eggs. For most reptiles the young break out of their eggs as viable entities and it is up to them to work out how to survive. There are lots of eggs laid and lots of casualties in this process. Generally, the strongest, cleverest or the luckiest survive the early stages of the reptilian world.

Mammals evolved so that maximum protection could be given to their offspring. They did this because brain development in mammals is more sophisticated than in other species. There is more to mammals than just the reptilian instincts of survival. Communication capability , emotional development, manual dexterity and overall intelligence are higher in mammals than other species. Development of these capabilities requires nurturing, lots of care and lots of time.

There are extraordinary examples in the animal kingdom of mammalian mothers going to extreme lengths to protect their young. They even put their own lives at risk.

Humans are at the top of the mammal world and that is how we are supposed to be.

Instead we have become the ultimate predators of our own young.

Lets look at some statistics. Since the Roe Wade court case in 1972, when the legal system in the USA opened up the floodgates to abortion on demand, over 1.3 billion abortions have been performed globally. That is the population of China. Over twice the population of Europe and over 4 times the population of the USA. And this mass killing of our young has taken place in a single lifetime. Despite numerous wars at global scale, diseases that have wiped out millions and natural disasters down  throughout the ages there has been no greater impact on the human population than abortion. 

The entire population of the world was under 1.3 billion in 1850, 165 years ago.

And in that 1.3 billion deaths who have we killed? The next Usain Bolt? The next Mozart? The person who cures cancer? The person who solves the problem of being able to freeze an implanted embyro so abortion is consigned to history?

I repeat - we have become the ultimate predators of our own young.

What have we done? We have created societies where it is so difficult to bring a child into the world (taking responsibility for their life and development) that we think it is a human right to kill that child before they leave the womb to avoid facing that responsibility. Our societies have got so focused on individual rights and freedoms that bringing children into the world is now a complete inconvenience. And yet we have a dramatically increasing aging population that is not producing enough children to sustain itself. How ironic is that?

In pure evolutionary terms (which has served us well over the last 3.5 billion years) one of the single most important aspects of any species is how they manage and produce the next generation. We have decided that the present generation matters so much that we abort the next generation at a whim.

Think of people like Leonardo Da Vinci and Ludwig Van Beethoven. Exceptional people who changed the world by their individuality and brilliance. Both came into the world unwanted, neglected and abused. Both would more than likely have been aborted today. Both left the world with an eternal legacy of genius.

With that all said lets be clear what abortion is. The sanitised version tells us it is merely the termination of an unwanted pregnancy. This kind of language is designed to hide the truth (like the words ‘collateral damage’ when innocents are killed during a drone attack).

Abortion is the deliberate killing of human life when it is at its most vulnerable stage of development.

At this point in our development we are utterly powerless and voiceless. We rely entirely on others to look after our well-being and to speak up for us when our fragile existence is in difficulty. Those voices are diminishing and really need to be heard.

Science has a profoundly positive role to play in this regard.

Science tells is that we have evolved as mammals. Science tells us that we did this to protect our young. Science tells is how we care for our young is how we evolve as a species.

Science has also given us the tools and techniques to kill our young through abortion. Science has enabled us to build the most horrendous, destructive weapons to kill people through nuclear, chemical and biological understanding.

Science enables these terrible capabilities.

It should never be used as a justification for the horror they can inflict.

Epilogue

I am shortly going to leave this island. I have to emigrate with my family and I do it with a heavy heart. Ireland despite its flaws is a wonderful place to have a family. We are the envy of Europe in terms of the high proportion of young people we have living here. We have the highest birth rate in Europe.

Coincidentally we are one of the last places on Earth trying to protect our unborn. 

There are very few aspects of life that Ireland can claim to take global leadership on.

This is one of them. Protect our children at all stages in their development. Irish society will benefit hugely from this and by extension so will the world.

When I walk out of my house at night with my children it gives me joy to see other mums and dads bring their children out too. In my housing estate we are surrounded by Polish, Indian, Chinese, Russian, English and Irish children amongst others. The parents talk and get to know one another. The children play and get to know one another. Everyone is laughing and having fun. That is what children do. They bring us together. They remind us of innocence, joy, curiosity and the privilege of being alive. They make life worth living no matter what circumstances you find yourself in.

We are defined as a species by how we treat children. That is how we have evolved. That is why society and humanity needs children. That is why they should be treasured.

That is why abortion is wrong.

GMcD 20/8/15