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Carl Sagan from 1995

Carl Sagan
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”

Beowulfsfriend 9 Nov 24
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4 comments

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2

Sadly accurate.

Zster Level 8 Nov 25, 2021
2

Yes! I agree with Carl Sagan. The man was wise beyond most folks comprehension. Matters of Science and social policy are tightly bound together. When a society turns away from science, and instead promotes superstition then one can expect a slow decline as we have seen in the past 40 years.

2

Yeah idiocracy come true

bobwjr Level 10 Nov 24, 2021
6

Wow…he had the prescience to predict the future pretty accurately!

I’ve given that idea some thought. Wheras one cannot fortell the future one can can get an idea of where it might go from looking at trends.

@JackPedigo Sagan wasn’t foretelling the future he was using the data available to him in 1995 to project forward and see what would happen if that same trajectory continued. It’s what all local and national governments should be adept at doing but sadly are not. We have the information but tend to sit on it until crisis point approaches and then we react to it…instead of using the information to act proactively to change course or take necessary steps to prevent harmful events occurring. If Sagan was prescient enough to predict what would be likely to happen, then why were others apparently blind to it? Or could others see it but preferred not to act on it because they were either making too much money, or it would have jeopardised their position of power to want to alter things.

@Marionville thank you. It’s another way of repeating my thoughts. Being involved with population demographics similar predictions were made as long as 30 year’s ago that are coming to fruition.

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