Ruminations on diamonds and Vulcan logic

Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies

Some people have asked me to express my views on the evolving crisis in Gaza. It is dominating the news and the barbarous behaviour being captured on social media reflects very poorly on humanity. Nothing justifies this level of depravity. I am embarrassed to be human. Although we are geographically distant from Gaza here in South Africa, similar to the global pattern, sides are drawn, and people engage in heated exchanges based on surface-level narratives. Fights are breaking out in school playgrounds between Jewish and Muslim children.

I confess to only having quite a superficial understanding of the very complex situation in Gaza having devoted my limited mind to unimportant things like the energy transition and the deeply complex situation in South Africa. I will need to ruminate on Gaza a lot more before I can say anything more sensible.

In an earlier blog, I revealed that both of my grandmothers were abducted to a Vulcan mother ship orbiting Mars and were impregnated by Vulcans. For those of you who have been living behind a rock Vulcans are a powerful alien race who are noted for their attempt to live by logic and reason with as little interference from emotion as possible. I am part of a Vulcan master plan to introduce more logic and reason into humanity. You find many half-breed Vulcans lurking in engineering departments. We are known for an extreme intuition regarding all things electrical and mechanical but utter social ineptitude.

The gargantuan Vulcan mother ship has been orbiting Mars for centuries attempting, with very limited success, to make humans more rational and logical. For those of you who suspect a hole in the plot and ask why our powerful telescopes and Mars probes have not observed this enormous ship I direct you to Romulan cloaking technology.

About once a month, in the dead of night, I am abducted to the mother ship where we feast on plumeek broth, jumbo mollusc and Romulan ale. There we discuss the slow progress of the Vulcan mission to make humans more logical.

There are many things that the Vulcans cannot understand about humans and one of them is our fascination with gem diamonds. Try as I may I have had very limited success explaining this to my Vulcan family because I don’t understand it myself. I blame my Vulcan ancestry. Industrial diamonds are understood, but gem diamonds?

The initial explanation centred around the fact that diamonds are rare on earth and their value is driven by scarcity and beauty. This sliver of logic was just enough to exasperate my Vulcan family. They pointed out that diamonds are extremely common and cheap in the universe. Some humans, who consider themselves sophisticated, ridicule primitive tribes who place great value on shiny glass beads. They too can be quite beautiful. Vulcans are too logical and polite to ridicule humans for their fascination with diamonds but did point out that our fascination with diamonds and glass beads is a related and curious human anomaly.

One night, after too much Romulan ale, a plan was hatched. Vulcan technology to make gem-quality synthetic diamonds would be shared with humans. You see, the Vulcans, have many, non-trinket, uses for clear diamonds such as lenses. The idea was to make diamonds cheap and plentiful so we wouldn’t need to mine them, and you could buy them at your local glass bead shop by the bucket load. They would also be ethical and environmentally friendly because they do not involve the environmental and social issues associated with diamond mining, including human rights concerns and ecosystem disruption. Although synthetic gem diamonds can be produced at a lower cost than natural diamonds and their cost is decreasing rapidly we remain fascinated by diamonds. No self-respecting bride will settle for anything less than an expensive diamond. For those brave young men out there try a glass bead and see where that gets you.

Needless to say, my Vulcan family are more exasperated than ever. The recent events in Ukraine and Gaza and the diamond experience have led them to start hatching a cunning plan for a peaceful takeover of Earth. Progress is too slow. They are busy making large quantities of glass beads, apologies diamonds, so that they can offer untold riches to humanity in exchange for control of the earth.

Imagine how meaningful your life could be, and how your neighbours would admire you if next to your sock drawer you could have a diamond drawer. This would be ample compensation for having to attend compulsory Vulcan logic classes.

I want to express my gratitude for all the ideas and comments received. I genuinely appreciate them, and please continue to share your thoughts.

Regards

Bruce