Volcano photographer Marc Szeglat assures us that this man running up a visibly flowing stream of lava at Mount Etna "was very experienced and knew what he was doing." How do you get experienced at this skill? What kind of learning curve is involved?
Check out more amazing talents over at our Mad Skills blog
Comments (4)
Aside from the fact that shows such as Star Trek are filled with stupid or technologically inferior alien cultures, the implication that this trope should be stopped is kind of silly. Any alien species we are capable of making contact with in the foreseeable future would have to be far more intelligent than us in some way or another - that's not a trope, it's a fact of life which makes the story more relate-able.
Similar issues with things like evil aliens and explaining time travel - there are many, many counter examples and they are plausible or worth exploring, so it seems kind of silly to say they should be stopped altogether. That part of the joy of sci-fi.
I definitely agree that the brain power one needs to die though. It's too completely and obviously false to keep playing with. :)
Also deserving of a mention in the counter-example list is Small Soldiers. The "goodies" turn out to be very nasty humans indeed. Well, humanish.