The US is a very young nation. Older nations and ancient civilisations can teach us reams about the growing pains of societies. Sagan and others were not inventing things they just predicted what has happened to others. Atwood said she only used examples that already happened in history.
I've bought a bunch of clothes, new TV, phone, furniture before he took office. Hopefully won't need much more in the next 4 years. I'll be buying local and mom and pop as much as possible. I will go to Costco still, because I like their business model.
I seriously wonder if I will be around to see America democracy again. We have been sold to the highest bidder which will profoundly change what American stood for & will set us back decades. I’m so sad for many of us. Our parents, grandparents fought the N*zis & here they are in the WH.
Sagan's wisdom about the peril to our "little blue dot" is also prophetic. "Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves." Ch. 48 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BJYGHZCM
Fucking terrifying darkness!!! But light travels faster although bent in the fabric of time and space by the gravity of reality, it always reaches us! That is hope as define by Physics!
Spot on we probably reached this state at least 10 years ago. It's all just a flood of information and very little of it is factual. There is a passage in the Pali Canon where the Buddha praises Sariputta for questioning what the Buddha taught. We need to be more like the Buddha and Sariputta. 🤔
While recognizing the apt poignancy of Sagan’s quote, I couldn’t help but laugh at him lamenting the popularity of Dumb and Dumber and Beavis in Butthead at the end of the highlighted section
And I hate to say it, because I am also guilty of it, but the memes we share on social media are equivalent to the 10-second sound bites. We need fewer one-liners and more thoughtful, deep and meaningful conversation.
“Dumb and Dumber” and “Beavis and Butthead” were subversive comedy masterpieces written and performed by funny people at the top of their games, but other than that it’s a spot on analysis.
George Carlin, Rod Serling, Carl Sagan, George Orwell, so many prophets who were right about our futures. I think they hoped we would listen to their predictions, but sadly we did not.
Carl Sagan warned us that the dumbing down of America is apparent in the celebration of ignorance. MAGAts are a perfect example of that celebration. Sagan was right.
The erosion of critical thinking in the face of a critical mass of misinformation and obfuscation, stealth capture of resources and reduction of social services.
Systematic economic exploitation and deprivation of minorities in the colonialist spirit.
Brings us to exactly where it's at now.
The advent of social media in the last 20 years have given us access to all the knowledge we have but it also has given every nut a platform to spew their hate and disinformation.
Attention Economy. Worth exploring and understanding. From my sophomoric perspective the concept explains and is exemplified by Trump, his cronies, and the state of our "union". Now, I really should log off and focus my attention on the more tangible.
He was but he blamed the wrong things. He blamed Beavis and Butthead rather than the Billionaires who have turned society into a wealth transfer system from the many poor to obscenely wealthy few.
Some of our “crystal clutchers” are also some of our most informed & engaged citizens.
Some of our atheists & agnostics are members of the disengaged non-voter plurality that silently granted this fascist goon another 4 years in office because “‘They’ are all the same”.
Jackson Browne wrote a song, in the 70s, about raging fires and floods. Love that song. "Locked inside your houses, there's no time to save you now."
He was ahead of his time.
He was an analyst of the highest order. It was through his training the patterns could so easily be seen. Now, with knowledge he attempted to turn and share with the world what he knew. It is up to us. To decide what we will do with this information... I will not go gently into the good night.
America supported Franco, Mussolini and Hitler
Used the mafia and the military to suppress its own working class
Manufactures Wars, coups and dictatorships globally
Wow. It is as if he wrote this yesterday about today. But the seeds of our folly today were planted long before Sagan wrote this piece. If he was not a prophet; he certainly understood the biblical warning that we reap what we have sown.
I still love Beavis and Butt-head, very much.
Sagan never got to see another of Mike Judge's masterpieces, Idiocracy.
You see, B&B was never meant to be role models, but rather, satire of what we are becoming. Idiocracy is evident of that. All of that aside, Sagan was absolutely spot on.
Yup Carl Sagan knew there were camera whores in the science world & political world back then, too. He maybe even suspected some them had third reich leanings, or full on nazi leanins. BUT WHEN does America learn to not give 🇺🇸's money via form of Corporate Welfare to nazis like Elon.crazy.eyes? #smh
I have seen this coming for the last 40 years, the dumbing down of America. They are more engaged with what is on a reality show then what really effects them personally.
Because they look at life as a story. It’s supposed to expose the bad guys and rally the good guys, and the stories they’ve been told has been full of pitfalls and lies. I mean, the Republican Party and their churches wouldn’t lie to them, right? It’s actually quite sad.
I read this book when it first came out, and it gave me chills because it was describing a history of time to come - you are not who you say, or even who you think you are.
Too few do - we are in that dark age now, heading into a darker future. America has always held experts and intellectuals in contempt, this is their chickens coming home to roast (roost).
Too many kids have never known anything different than so called Social Media that isn't very social and more a tool for ceo's of large corps to get richer selling people stuff they don't really need!
This is less impressive when you realize that NAFTA had already been signed into law by Bill Clinton, and economists had already predicted the outsourcing of factories as a result.
I remember reading chunks of this book aloud to my parents around the end of high school and being told not to listen to him, he was a liberal. That was 2012. Still have the book.
Even then, couldn't have seen it happening this fast.
I look back with a rose tint, but the late 80s/90s felt like a time of hope in darkness (Berlin Wall, Fall of the Iron Curtain, Good Friday Agreement, etc). I was still using a typewriter, for goodness sake.
Then came 9/11, Iraq War(s) and social media…and here we are.
I didn't take that part as him purely shitting on that so much as using it as a point that movies about being super smart or TV shows about the scientific method weren't exactly big sellers... Too bad he didn't get to see Idiocracy
So true now. I think in the next 10-20 years the states with the highest education will vote to secede the Union. All empires fall and we are unfortunately sliding that way.
Comments
O yes he was.....
Chapter 2. Science and Hope
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BJYGHZCM
I have read that para numerous times over the years
I try to imagine what he was seeing and thinking when he wrote this, what triggered this line of thinking
@archive.org
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan
And those that do are destined to be sidelined whilst everyone else repeats it.
What shall we expect then from countries without all of these?
OK: oil, natural ressources. Victimes.
#Sarcasm beware.
The erosion of critical thinking in the face of a critical mass of misinformation and obfuscation, stealth capture of resources and reduction of social services.
Systematic economic exploitation and deprivation of minorities in the colonialist spirit.
Brings us to exactly where it's at now.
Some of our atheists & agnostics are members of the disengaged non-voter plurality that silently granted this fascist goon another 4 years in office because “‘They’ are all the same”.
Otherwise no notes.
Sadly, a plurality of American’s did not vote. Their ranks are as culturally, politically, and religiously diverse as those who did vote.
Jackson Browne wrote a song, in the 70s, about raging fires and floods. Love that song. "Locked inside your houses, there's no time to save you now."
He was ahead of his time.
Used the mafia and the military to suppress its own working class
Manufactures Wars, coups and dictatorships globally
https://www.csis.org/analysis/united-states-broken-infrastructure-national-security-threat
Dear Amerikkka
Please take your troops home
Fix your domestic 🦆 ups
Stop 🦆ing up our planet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
Very sad...
Today being smart is considered a danger. To them.
Sagan never got to see another of Mike Judge's masterpieces, Idiocracy.
You see, B&B was never meant to be role models, but rather, satire of what we are becoming. Idiocracy is evident of that. All of that aside, Sagan was absolutely spot on.
and unfortunately, widely seen
It is watching doom descend with almost no defense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp-WiNXH6hI&t=2s
A little post-hoc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Work
Yet we ignore it.
Just like climate change.
Even then, couldn't have seen it happening this fast.
I look back with a rose tint, but the late 80s/90s felt like a time of hope in darkness (Berlin Wall, Fall of the Iron Curtain, Good Friday Agreement, etc). I was still using a typewriter, for goodness sake.
Then came 9/11, Iraq War(s) and social media…and here we are.
He would have hated Elon
laughing at the clowns in Dumb and Dumber is not the same as electing clowns who think they are geniuses.
Fascist theocracy…look at those fucking goons yucking it up.
https://youtu.be/fam5wRXcoQE?si=SG2jJvM5rocDjaC6