Political Forums

Political Forums (http://www.politicalchat.org/index.php)
-   History (http://www.politicalchat.org/forumdisplay.php?f=40)
-   -   Sagan Saw it Coming (http://www.politicalchat.org/showthread.php?t=11391)

donquixote99 01-25-2017 09:38 PM

Sagan Saw it Coming
 
This is what Carl Sagan wrote in 1995:

Quote:

Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. 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 key 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.
link: http://www.iflscience.com/editors-bl...-20-years-ago/

The problem is what people believe and do when technological society leaves them behind.

Oerets 01-26-2017 04:47 AM

It is easy to disbelieve the facts when they tell a hard truth.



Barney

ebacon 01-28-2017 10:56 PM

Timely thread.

Tonight I am noodling on a popular photo. The one with a child in the back seat of a car and heroin-addled parents up front.

My noodling started with Slippery Slope: Self Medication.

Somewhere in that picture is a story that goes from innocence to adulthood.

donquixote99 01-29-2017 08:30 AM

Trump is heroin? We needed a just say no campaign?

68custom 01-29-2017 08:38 AM

if Trump were a opiate he would be Methadone or Suboxone one that keeps you strung out but does not create euphoria!

donquixote99 01-29-2017 08:54 AM

I don't know. Those who mainline Trump at the rallies seem euphoric a lot...

Trumpies are druggies! I think this metaphor might have legs!

http://citizenanalyst.net/wp-content...de24837b4d.jpg

BlueStreak 01-29-2017 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ebacon (Post 345858)
Timely thread.

Tonight I am noodling on a popular photo. The one with a child in the back seat of a car and heroin-addled parents up front.

My noodling started with Slippery Slope: Self Medication.

Somewhere in that picture is a story that goes from innocence to adulthood.

That picture was taken in my hometown. Wonderful place, Ohios Mahoning Valley..... Speaking of deindustrialized cities that have slipped into the darkness. Oh, BTW......They went for Trump.

Dondilion 01-29-2017 10:16 AM

Superstition and crystal balls have been a part of the upper echelon and a characteristic of Science is uncertainty.

donquixote99 01-29-2017 10:37 AM

The scientific method, by recognizing uncertainly as a never-disappearing characteristic of knowledge, succeeds like nothing else in driving it far to the right of the decimal point.

Dondilion 01-29-2017 12:25 PM

Sagan was probably reflecting on the Reagans.


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 09:21 AM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.6
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.