In the Original Series of Star Trek there is an episode called “The Devil in the Dark”. The Enterprise is called to help with a problem on a mining planet. For some time there have been mysterious deaths and damages to the mining equipment. The crew arrives to find a creature lurking around in the caves (spitting extraordinarily corrosive acid to make new caves really fast) and killing the mining personnel. First they realize that this creature is actually a life form very different from their own – life based on silicon. Second, they manage to communicate with the creature by using Vulcan mind meld and then learn that the creature is the only living representative of this highly intelligent race and the reason why she killed was to protect the eggs of the next generation of their race (that the miners were breaking). And then, they made a treaty with the creature – the creatures make the caves and the miners collect the minerals. Continue reading
Category: Human society
This list can be found here: http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses
I also copied it here just in case for some reason the Open Culture site is taken down or anything like that. All credits for creating this list goes to Open Culture, LLC.
The list of courses:
Free online courses from the world’s leading universities. This collection includes over 400 free courses in the liberal arts and sciences. Download these audio & video courses straight to your computer or mp3 player. Continue reading
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A really interesting new documentary based on Margaret Atwood’s bestselling book Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, offers a fascinating look at debt as a mental construct and traces how it influences relationships, societies, governing structures and the fate of the planet.
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This is a blog of a Star Trek fan. Actually a fan of all good science fiction.
Of course good is a relative term, what I mean by “good science fiction” is mostly films, series and books that portrait a future (or alternative) society that has somehow been able to survive and overcome the difficulties we are currently facing as a species on planet Earth. In other words, a positive scenario future.
In this blog I try to find connections between some of the mind-blowing and inspiring sci-fi concepts (worlds, technologies, societies etc) and things happening in the real world – in science, culture, everyday news and so on.
The whole blog (or Log, for that matter) is divided into 5 sections:
- Science – I try to notice and find scientific achievements and discoveries, that are taking us (or could be taking us) towards that positive scenario future. It’s cool technology, physics, biology, gene technology and more.
- Philosophy – life is more than just the building blocks of the universe, more than just the biological mechanisms that make us tick. I believe that life is the Universe’s way of understanding and researching itself and I am here to give my part in that everlasting exploration.
- Human society – every technology or scientific advance can be used both to make the society better and for the worse. I try to find models, experiments, ideas that could be used to move towards a societal structure that could help human beings be the best they can be.
- Ship’s Library – the internet is filled with cool stuff, I make a subjective selection from that stuff to form an interesting ecosystem of ideas and inspiration, that connects all of the first three subjects of this blog. That means books, documentaries, inspiring videos, graphs etc.
- Star Trek – all things Spock, Kirk, McCoy and the rest of the Star Trek universe. Just because I like it.
I love that you’ve managed to read as far as this and hope you’ll enjoy the rest of the blog even more!
Live long and prosper! Spock out.
Spock's Log 