The power of stories

I am listening to "the black swan" where the power of narratives and their persistence in humanity's memory are mentioned quite a few times. This reminds me how much the means of delivering thoughts through stories are emphasized by both David Snowden and Igal Hamish. Then I suddenly realize that most of the ideas in this blog would have been immensely easier to explain and understand if the story of how I thought of them would be included.

From now on I'll try to add the story of origin to any new idea.

The idea of using lasers and reflective objects to see behind corners, for example, came to me when I was looking for my car in the parking lot. I looked at the tall turned off street light that was towering the cars. Then I wished I had its perspective, and I thought : "what if I could bounce a laser off of it to see from there?".


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Location:אהרונוביץ',Tel Aviv District,Israel

The Prime Directive solution to the Fermi Paradox

This is not an original idea, the Prime Directive solution to the Fermi Paradox can be noted as the Zoo hypothesis. I'm just emphasizing what I think is the best reason for setting the Prime Directive.

Fermi Paradox

How come we've never been contacted by aliens? The universe is so big and old, that statistically, some civilization must have already developed the ability of star-travel.

Prime Directive

Never interfere with younger civilizations (from star trek).

The best reason for setting the Prime Directive

As far as I know, any contact between an advanced civilization and a native one in human history has always been disastrous to the native civilization (see: Chronology of colonialism).

The prospected visitors to earth have probably experienced these types of contacts within their planet before achieving interstellar travel. Hence, came to the conclusion that contacting less advanced civilizations can only hurt them.

Therefore, they set a rule (a "prime directive") to never contact less advanced civilizations.

Using lasers and reflective objects to gain urban warfare advantage

Imagine a handheld device with an advanced laser imaging system. Multiple lasers will be shot form the device to a reflective object. The object will reflect the laser to an enemy which would not be see-able regularly because of no direct vision angle.

I presume that most surfaces are reflective in some way or another or we would not see them, the trick is to have a strong or "smart" enough laser to visualize the second reflected object.

Also, some of the light waves of the laser are reflected and some are diverted, it's a matter of reading the ones that got diverted and than reflected back.

Not sure this is optically possible...