Hey, Wisecrack.
So, over the years, you guys know it’s been
our mission to use the lens of philosophy,
literature, and the humanities to achieve
a greater appreciation of art and hopefully
to enrich people’s lives.
But today, we're doing something a little
different — this is Ground Zero of science
content on Wisecrack.
And for that, I decided to bring on someone
who’s a lot smarter than I am, when it comes
to science: Helen.
Hey, guys.
So, today we are starting with a Wisecrack
favorite, to see if we can connect some of
the philosophical themes that we talk about
with existing research in neuroscience, biology,
and psychology.
So, today we’re starting with One Punch
Man.
I also want to give a quick shout out to Brilliant.org
for sponsoring this video.
Thank you, guys.
So, anyway, gonna give it over to Helen.
Wait, so… do- is it “Hey, Wisecrack.
Helen, here?”
So, it would be, “Hey, Wisecrack.
Helen, here.”
You gotta go — it’s 1-2-3, up-down.
“Hey, Wisecrack…
Helen, here?”
There we go.
Now, say it faster.
Hey Wisecrack, Helen here, and today we’re
putting the baldest badass in the universe
under the microscope.
In One Punch Man, our protagonist Saitama
is a salaryman-turned-hero who possesses no
special powers apart from the strength he’s
gained through his “intense” training
regimen.
“100 push-ups!
100 sit-ups!
And 100 squats!
Then, a 10 kilometer run!
DO IT EVERY SINGLE DAY!”
And now he can defeat every enemy with a single
punch.
Sounds cool, right?
Well, this lack of challenge leaves Saitama
bored, detached, and unfulfilled.
“Not again.
All it took was one punch!”
Dreaming of becoming the best at anything
is pretty much “Being Human 101,” but
does Saitama’s dilemma reflect our growing
scientific understanding of how humans can
live a satisfying life?
Welcome to this special Wisecrack Edition
on The Science of One Punch Man.
And as always, spoilers ahead.
With no real challenge, Saitama loses his
enthusiasm for battle, much to the irritation
of his rivals.
He blows them off, — "Then prepare to witness
the true power of the mighty-” “Aw man,
I got dirt in my ‘special pants place.’”
“Hey, are you even listening?”
— insults them, — “What a letdown.
I was pretty excited to see the battle suits
I’d been hearing about, but the design is
pretty lame.
All the do is give you superhuman strength.”
— and occasionally has the audacity to yawn
during a fight.
Doesn’t really seem like Saitama is enjoying
himself.
As we’ve mentioned before, philosophers
like Masahiro Morioka have argued that challenge
is a necessary component of a meaningful life,
and that as our lives become more efficient,
and therefore less challenging, we risk our
mental health.
“We will continue to riot until food, clothing,
and shelter are provided free of charge to
those who do not work.”
“Sounds pretty boring.”
Turns out this isn’t just philosophical
grandstanding: science suggests there’s
a biological basis for the idea that challenging
ourselves is good for us, and it’s not just
our mental health that’s at stake if we
always take it easy.
Neuroscientist Dr. Mark Mattson argues that
the pervasiveness of what he calls “unchallenging
lifestyles” prevents us from activating
adaptive stress responses, a series of changes
that take place at the cellular level when
an organism is exposed to danger.
Here’s how it works: let’s say you’re
walking down the alley, when you encounter
a giant kelp-encrusted monster.
Your brain activates your “sympathetic”
nervous system - or the part of the nervous
system that activates the fight or flight
response - by sending out a molecule from
the hypothalamus, an almond-shaped area toward
the center of the brain.
This molecule tells the pituitary gland to
send out another molecule, which sets off
a series of reactions in the adrenal glands
above the kidney, that ultimately lead to
the release of a substance called cortisol,
aka the “stress hormone.”
Its nickname comes from the fact that its
the main hormone involved in the stress response,
and while there’s always a certain baseline
amount circulating through the bloodstream,
those levels increase when your fight-or-flight
response turns up.
That extra cortisol prompts your body to do
things things like break down sugar to give
you energy and numb the pain response so you’ll
be more likely to fight through an injury.
It also turns down the part of your immune
system that fights off viruses and certain
kinds of bacteria.
This isn’t a bad thing - the idea is to
push the energy you’d need to fight infection
to other, more important tasks that’ll help
you survive an immediate threat.
If this happens now and then, it works kind
of like endurance training: your body learns
how to respond to acute stress more efficiently.
But if it’s constant, you can wind up with
a botched immune system, as your body becomes
less sensitive to cortisol.
That can lead to chronic inflammation, because
there’s nothing stopping your immune system
from running on high,' which can lead to a
host of other health problems.
We might consider dominator of the universe,
Lord Boros, as an exaggerated metaphor for
this process.
“My species won the struggle for survival
amid the harsh environment of our home world.
We possess the ultimate in regenerative abilities.”
Being able to regrow entire limbs is a pretty
potent adaptive stress response, a la the
not-so-fictional starfish, a well-known limb
regenerator.
Yet, Boros also points out that the extreme
strength he exudes in battle is so taxing
that it actually shortens his life if he uses
it too often.
"Doing this places enormous stress on my body,
similar to anaerobic exercise.
As a result, it shortens my life."
The same problem humans run into when our
fight or flight response goes into overdrive
for too long.
Scientists like Dr. Mattson say humans are
evolutionarily adapted to deal with environmental
challenges.
And then not having them - mainly in the form
of not enough physical exertion or too little
exposure to the natural toxins found in plants
- can lead to the prolonged inflammatory states
that have been linked to everything from Alzheimer’s
to diabetes to cancer.
Inflamation causes changes in DNA, and since
DNA contains the “code” for creating all
the proteins in your body, wonky DNA can result
in misshapen proteins, those can go on to
screw up hormone regulation and encourage
out-of-control cell growth - in other words,
cancer.
From Dr. Mattson’s perspective, without
challenges, your body isn’t given opportunities
to strengthen its defenses - that is, improve
the adaptive stress response - so when something
starts to go wrong, it has a hard time fixing
it.
Outside of the physical effects a lack of
conflict introduces, a similar logic operates
psychologically.
While Saitama may not be getting diabetes,
he’s probably got some issued going on in
his brain parts.
Through the show, we can see how enduring
challenges can make you more mentally resilient.
Let’s take Genos.
He’s faced certain challenges that Saitama
hasn’t.
Based on what we know from the show, Saitama’s
had it pretty easy: He didn’t get into the
crime-fighting business to avenge the death
of his family or bring justice to the oppressed.
He just did it for fun.
"You're a fast one.
Who are you?"
"Just a guy who's a hero for fun."
On the other hand, Genos’s backstory is
much more traumatic.
He witnessed the destruction of his hometown
and the death of his family at the hands of
an out-of-control cyborg.
"We lived a peaceful and happy life together,
until that fateful day, when a crazy cyborg
went out of control and attacked our town."
His experience mirrors that of many other
characters in the genre: Guts from Berserk,
Eren from Attack on Titan, Naruto... a painful
childhood is a common denominator throughout
anime, manga, and comics in general.
How do those experiences shape the characters?
Well, it’s pretty complex - and often a
little f**ked up.
On one hand, their struggles often motivate
them, or at the very least seem to give them
the strength to withstand extremely difficult
circumstances.
Psychology backs this up: a growing body of
research suggests that some people who go
through adverse or traumatic experiences as
kids are in some ways more resilient than
those whose childhoods were relatively care
free.
For instance, some individuals who grow up
in high-stress environments develop unique
problem-solving skills and are better able
to deal with uncertainty than their peers
who had it easier.
Of course, that doesn’t change the fact
that there are loads of other issues associated
with having a rough childhood, like problems
with learning and memory and a propensity
for being emotionally reactive.
And there are caveats to the whole “what
doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” idea,
too: research on adults has indicated that
those who face a “medium” number of challenging
life events - like the death of a loved one
or financial difficulties - are better able
to cope with worry and stress than those who
deal with either an unusually low or unusually
high number of such experiences.
It’s sort of like the Goldilocks principle:
optimal adaptation to stress is achieved from
having not too much exposure but not too little,
either.
In theory, Genos’s traumatic experiences
may have boosted his ability to handle the
emotional whiplash of hero work (though being
a cyborg definitely helps).
He fights to near death in battle and shows
up when others don’t, like when the S class
heroes are called in to hold off the meteor
that threatens to wipe out City Z.
Meanwhile, Saitama meanders through life.
He can’t even try to swat a mosquito without
losing it.
"Damn mosquitos."
Additionally, having something to strive for
- becoming as strong as his sensei — gives
Genos’s work meaning a stark contrast with
Saitama, who is already at the top of his
game.
"I'm the hero I'd always dreamed of becoming,
so what is this?
What's wrong with me?
Why does my heart feel so lifeless and empty?"
Would Saitama be more satisfied if he had
something more meaningful to work towards
than some BS superhero classification?
And what’s the purpose of having a purpose
anyway?
Is there some kind of biological benefit to
leading a meaningful life?
Back in 2008, a team of researchers published
a study on the Japanese concept of ikigai
- which roughly translates to “a reason
for being.”
In it, they asked 43,000 people a simple question:
Do you have ikigai in your life?
By the end of the seven-year-long study, roughly
95 percent of those who reported having a
sense of ikigai were still alive, compared
to only 83 percent of those who said they
did not.
Regardless of one’s socioeconomic status,
psychological factors, lifestyle or history
of illness, the increased mortality risk remained.
Most of those who died without a sense of
ikigai, did so as a result of heart disease,
mainly strokes.
For context: a link between heart disease
and a lack of purpose has shown up consistently
in other studies: a 2015 roundup of Japanese
and American research on the topic found reduced
heart disease in those who reported having
a sense of meaning in life.
Unlike the villians in the series, who often
have rather legitimate reasons for wanting
to destroy humanity, — "In order to wipe
out humanity and the evil civilization built
on her surface, the Earth in her infinite
wisdom has given birth to me!"
— Saitama is still unsure of his ikigai.
How do you even have purpose, when you’ve
achieved what people like Genos can only dream
of?
His aimless existence leaves him prone to
depression, irritability, and melancholy.
Boros has struggled to find his ikigai, too.
His purpose in life was to destroy one world
after the next, but after growing so strong
that he no longer had worthy adversaries,
he found himself bored and apathetic.
A seer told him he could a find the opponent
that would reignite his passion for battle,
so he’s been traveling for 20 years to find
one when he encounters Saitama.
In a sense, Saitama is Boros’s ikigai.
"Come, and give stimulation to my existence."
Scientists, for years, have postulated a relationship
between purpose, life satisfaction and resilience.
Back in 1946, Dr. Victor Frankl - a psychiatrist,
neurologist and Holocaust survivor - suggested
that the societal ills of “aggression, addiction,
and depression” stemmed from an “existential
vacuum,” or the idea that one’s life and
work lacked purpose.
In his book “Man’s Search for Meaning,”he
describes the psychological impact of daily
life in a Nazi concentration camp.
He notes that the prisoners who clung on to
a sense of purpose were the ones most likely
to survive, writing: “Life is never made
unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack
of meaning and purpose.”
Since then, we’ve seen over and over again
that having no sense of meaning in life is
associated with a higher risk of addiction,
anxiety and depression.
On the flip side, having a sense of purpose
is associated with lower incidence of these
issues.
If challenging oneself is key to finding purpose
in life, and having some sort of purpose is
necessary for optimal psychological, and perhaps
even physical health, then we can see why
having virtually no competition leaves Saitama
miserable.
Challenging ourselves can help us find that
meaning, and improves our well-being in other
ways too.
And in some cases, even the hardships we can’t
control can make us more resilient, which
suggests there might be a psychological benefit
to seeing them as an opportunity for growth.
So, will Saitama ever be presented with a
real challenge?
"I wonder if taking out this guy will count
as work?"
And if he does will it give him a much needed
sense of passion?
We’ll just have to wait until Season 2,
whenever that is, to find out.
