Everything he has said in that page has manifested in present day America and yes.... unfortunately is in the phase of decline (no matter what silly Drumpf does or constantly tries to do) the golden era of where America leads in the world is over.
We discussed this move during Econ with Dr. " Buzz" Johnson At BSU in the mid 1970's... It was clear that the manufacturing economy wasn't as profitable and the investment economy, so all the money supporting manufacturing was moved to investment...
We also naively thought the internet would democratize knowledge and yet now, we have the opportunity to learn as no one before and people chose to believe in the dumbest conspiracies
Carl was a frequent guest at our home. Yes he did talk that slurry way in conversation too. My dad explained it as his brain moving faster than he could speak it.
My dad was into the occult, and honestly, Carl was MORE into that than space stuff! Long talks, the fireplace hot and plenty of booze!
The funny thing is I can read this and point out how it can be applied to pretty much everyone in the US right now, not just the demographic you're attempting to smear.
I love his science book Cosmos (1980) and the PBS series that went with it. I was really young when my dad bought it on VHS and I was transfixed watching it. Didn't understand 75% of it, but still,
I am reading Demon haunted world because that’s where the quote’s from. I’m on page 26 after four hours reading! I have to keep looking things up! I love Sagan’s dad. I want to be Carl Sagan with his relaxed, engaging voice and his enormous learning in science and beyond! I feel my brain being fed!
I just read this book over the Summer, and I remember this section feeling so prescient. I marked that section because I knew I'd be coming back to it.
This last month has reminded me how important it is to be working for a better world, which starts by working to better ourselves.
Sagan is right but couldn't have foreseen that this would be a worldwide issue or that many people from STEM fields would mock Humanities as useless. For example, the programmer incels that work for Elon: Probably great in their field but with awful ethics.
The text must be included in the ALT text for this image to be accessible to everyone, including blind people and people with low-vision here on Bluesky.
I'm just sitting here patiently waiting for enough traditional Republicans to forget about saving their political careers, join Democrats, and send US Marshals in to arrest Trump, Musk, and Trumps entire cabinet. Try them all for treason and hand down the appropriate sentence.
While doing the dishes the other night, my husband and I were riffing on the America of the future when all knowledge has vanished—and we had a little vignette where they come across a copy of ‘Cosmos’ and end up turning it into a religion.
Hum? All of this isn't new, the same groups (uber wealthy) manipulate the ignorant masses. Our founding fathers warned us all then about the NEED for free speech. These guys are the same type of ass's thinking they know whats better for everyone. That would be to serve them. What do we say?
Carl Sagan was spot on. In 1987, the US Congress tried to codify the Fairness Doctrine, through the Fairness in Broadcasting Act. The Fairness in Broadcasting Act 1987, S742. “Fairness in Broadcasting Act of 1987 – Expresses the findings of the Congress that the Fairness Doctrine: (1) fairly
reflects the statutory obligations of broadcasters; (2) received statutory approval from the Congress in 1959; and (3) reasonably balances first amendment rights. Amends the Communications Act of 1934 to require broadcast licensees to provide a reasonable opportunity
for the discussion of conflicting views on issues of public importance. Requires enforcement and application of such requirement to be consistent with the rules and policies of the Federal Communications Commission in effect on January 1, 1987. Ronald Reagan vetoed the
Fairness in Broadcasting Act as a breach of the 1st Amendment promise pursuant to “Freedom of Speech”.
Reagan’s veto of S742, The Fairness in Broadcasting Act 1987, June 23, 1987. “I am returning herewith without my approval S. 742, the “Fairness in Broadcasting Act
of 1987,” which would codify the so-called “fairness doctrine’ This doctrine, which has evolved through the decisional process of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), requires Federal officials to supervise the editorial practices of broadcasters in an
effort to ensure that they provide coverage of controversial issues and a reasonable opportunity for the airing of contrasting viewpoints on those issues. This type of content-based regulation by the Federal Government is, in my judgment, antagonistic to the
There is a complete & utter disconnect in that movement:They support leaders who graduated from Yale, the Wharton School, etc.,(who take advantage of their ignorance) while calling Democrats elitists. The argument must be made continuously how the very people they support are taking them for a ride.
We want to contribute some source of spirituality to those who can foresee, he was just a brilliant, brilliant man, who could sort of calculate the outcome of our then trajectory.
That does seem like a pretty accurate description of what has happened. Too bad he also didn’t predict the mental illness of transgenders and how insane the left would become.
This quote has come up a lot in the last six months. Just like Marbury v. Madison, 1803 has come up a zillion times this weekend. It’s funny how we all coalesce about the same things.
How true. People have eagerly embraced all aspects of advanced technologies. It appears that they fail to realize only a few people have control over all of it. Once you allow others to hold all the information + systems you are just pawns in their game. I say beware but it is already too late.
A prescient as he was, I think even Carl would have been shocked by Qanon and MAGA. Somehow he only scratched the surface when he wrote about clutching crystals and horoscopes.
Reminds me of of Charlotte Iserbyt's book "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America," though better-written. Iserbyt worked in Reagan's Education Dept. and said dumbing down was deliberate. A gem from her book, then her politics (a little "different")... https://deliberatedumbingdown.com/ddd/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/DDDoA.pdf
Well, this makes me so sad that Mr Sagan saw this coming—and I suppose not enough of us were listening nor had a way to reverse the course. Superstition has taken over, at least in this country.
I was a senior in HS when he wrote this and somehow I look back at that time as schools being more functional and well rounded. And he thought that was already leaning towards garbage...oof.
If this nightmare ever ends and if our American federal government survives it, we should collectively DEMAND that the Fairness Doctrine be brought back.
Note that Sagan is very concerned about the outsourcing of America's manufacturing capabilities. He knew the damage of 'Reaganomics'. Today he'd see that Team Orange has no real intention (or idea) of bringing those jobs back.
“A celebration of ignorance” really sums it up. I wonder what take @gregolear.bsky.social has on Sagan. He’s written some pretty observant pieces & a compelling allegorical comparison re: https://gregolear.substack.com/p/sunday-pages-heart-of-darkness.
I don't know, I still feel the same way I did the last time I saw this... crystals and horoscopes are the LEAST of our problems right now. What's a bigger issue, stupidity or evil? (no, really, it's not a rhetorical question!)
Evil needs stupidity.
The same mental weakness that fosters 'belief' (in god, horoscopes or chem trails) allows people to believe in the glorious leader.
Even when he is an orange painted subhuman wallowing in his own shit.
Brains like those are indeed a rare breed. Everyone always describes them as forward thinking and a bit quirky or in some cases a bit mad. In actuality way ahead of everyone in predicting the technology curve and humans will to use those technologies in a weaponized fashion.
This reminds me of Asimov's essay "A Cult of Ignorance", where he writes "The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"
My prediction, is that within the next 4 years, the US will look like Russia did under Boris Yeltsin…from the 90’s…30 years ago…RUSSIA. Look at it, and tell me I’m wrong…
Yes, Sagan was eerily insightful at how science and technology could, and likely would, be used towards socially corrupt ends by those who fund and control it. His “Demon Haunted World” is a small book crammed with such spot-on insights and predictions.
It's like reading The Great Shark Hunt by Hunter S. Thompson, especially the pieces on Nixon. Nothing ever really changes, especially when it comes to the GOP.
"clutching their crystals" (smart phones)
See also: Babylonian hand idols, in Jaynes, 1977:
The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
I shit you not, about 15 years ago I had an idea for a TV comedy I entitled the Don of DC. It was about a mafia boss who got tired of paying off politicians and decided to just buy the govt & kick them all out. My comedy writer brain thought it was hilarious. Now... not so much.
I hesitate to like sad face comments, but I feel the same. Somewhere along the way, we as a society stopped valuing education and started glorifying ignorance.
Love how you left out that he immediately starts ripping into Beavis and Butthead at the beginning of the next paragraph because he, just like every old person at the time, didn't get it.
Majority of people who will read this don’t have degrees and don’t work in fields where one is required
America is only going to get dumber until college gets cheaper and more useful. Which in turn will not happen because we can barely afford treasury interest payments, much less manufacturing jobs
Enough, take back America and put logic back into media and education Remove dumbed down MAGA'S by removing their birthright citizenship and deport with those they are most afraid of.
I have a fear of the USA and its 51st state, the terrorist state of Israel, ruling the world with a joined up iron fist, as is very close to being the reality now. I thought Putin was bad (still do). But Trump (Tusk) and Netanyahu are harbingers of the end of human civilisation on this planet.
Yes. People seem to be unaware that this nation, like all nations, is simply a commodity, part of the North American market. We don’t produce, we don’t even agree on what the nation is anymore.
It’s bad with two henchmen and their minions are using a chainsaw to let the tree fall against the house.
The reality is this didn’t just happen overnight. One issue the elected democrats chose not see was the propaganda machine AM radio in rural areas and television networks that promote racist ideology. I call it a parroting device. Repeat the same message, it’s going to be heard, even if it’s a lie.
This is the INTENT of CON-servatives.
&
Is the dumbing down of America.
It is in FACT the Orwellian effect
&
By that I mean if the population is ignorant
&
Uneducated,
That society becomes easily CONTROLLED.
&
This is happening RIGHT NOW!
The USA is
An OLIGARCHY🤑
Given power by
The IDIOCRACY🤪
Comments
Frank Zappa
https://www.change.org/Impeach_Donald_Trump_2025
He predicted us so well and we didn’t listen to him.
My dad was into the occult, and honestly, Carl was MORE into that than space stuff! Long talks, the fireplace hot and plenty of booze!
This last month has reminded me how important it is to be working for a better world, which starts by working to better ourselves.
Reagan’s veto of S742, The Fairness in Broadcasting Act 1987, June 23, 1987. “I am returning herewith without my approval S. 742, the “Fairness in Broadcasting Act
ROSS PEROT SAID IT THE BEST.
"ITLL BE LIKE A VACUUM"
OUR MFG's chased PROFITS over AMERIKANS.
NOW Amerikans want it all back?
MUCK YOU.
YOU ALLOWED IT:)
I swear to all creation these phones are the bane of our existence. Greatest things ever and the worst things ever at the same time.
... Oh.
... Nevermind.
https://deliberatedumbingdown.com/ddd/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/DDDoA.pdf
Noam Chomsky, Keeping the Rabble in Line, 1994.
We were warned again and again.
It's not prescient, it's just clear eyed observation - each generation more retarded than the last, and we are now further down the line from there.
but using the word precient too big of a word for most of the people here on x
DOT " MOST🌎
The same mental weakness that fosters 'belief' (in god, horoscopes or chem trails) allows people to believe in the glorious leader.
Even when he is an orange painted subhuman wallowing in his own shit.
We're there.
See also: Babylonian hand idols, in Jaynes, 1977:
The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
https://www.change.org/Impeach_Donald_Trump_2025
Trends are
"Made in America."
An actual stable genius.
Unlike the President who has an IQ lower than his age.
America is only going to get dumber until college gets cheaper and more useful. Which in turn will not happen because we can barely afford treasury interest payments, much less manufacturing jobs
It’s bad with two henchmen and their minions are using a chainsaw to let the tree fall against the house.
&
Is the dumbing down of America.
It is in FACT the Orwellian effect
&
By that I mean if the population is ignorant
&
Uneducated,
That society becomes easily CONTROLLED.
&
This is happening RIGHT NOW!
The USA is
An OLIGARCHY🤑
Given power by
The IDIOCRACY🤪
🆘🇺🇸
https://www.campustimes.org/2021/09/19/beavis-and-butthead-is-a-lot-deeper-than-you-think/