Action Figure Daniel

Category: Viewing

The Epic of Gilgamesh

I was recently watching some old Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes and watched a highly acclaimed (though not particularly liked by me) episode called “Darmok”. In this episode, Darmok (the alien) is trying to teach Picard how to converse. Darmok’s people use stories to communicate everything which makes it very difficult for Picard to understand because the stories mean nothing to him. To overcome this, they tell each other cultural stories:

I used to hate this episode… then Picard mentioned Gilgamesh. Then I read several versions of The Epic of Gilgamesh. Then I decided that this episode was alright.

19 March 2013
Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel: What we learned from 5 million books (TED)

Aiden and Michel used data made available from the Google Books project to explore the changes in our published books and thus our culture over time.

What we learned from 5 million books (TED)

8 March 2013
Matthew Taylor: 21st century enlightenment

Science has helped us to realize that we are bad at guessing what will make us happy in the future, bad at knowing what made us happy in the past and, in general, bad at guessing how the world works. Taylor argues that modern enlightenment needs to focus more on fostering emphatic capacity and less on pursuing progress for the sake of progress.

RSA Animate – 21st century enlightenment
Matthew Taylor – 21st century enlightenment (RSA)

27 February 2013
Edward Tenner: Unintended consequences

Tenner discusses how unintended consequences have shaped and changed our lives over time.

Edward Tenner: Unintended consequences (TED)

22 February 2013
Roman Krznaric: The Power of Outrospection

Empathy can be a powerful driver in society as it expands our perspectives and enables us to better understand others.

RSA Animate – The Power of Outrospection
From The Six Habits of Highly Empathic People (RSA)

13 February 2013