PDA

View Full Version : Sagan Saw it Coming


donquixote99
01-25-2017, 09:38 PM
This is what Carl Sagan wrote in 1995:

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-blog/carl-sagan-sort-of-predicted-the-rise-of-donald-trump-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/uploads/2016/03/297696932315d2f8aa7293de24837b4d.jpg

BlueStreak
01-29-2017, 10:10 AM
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.

ebacon
02-04-2017, 10:02 PM
Tonight I am noodling on another slippery slope: shepherds. Instead of starting a new thread I am drawn to Sagan's gravity of thought. He hit on an event horizon.

Who is your local shepherd?

That question popped into my mind while talking with friends. We were discussing the value of hard work and it seemed that we agreed that hard work is good. At that moment I recalled a conversation with my uncle in Germany. He told me that his local shepherd is retiring and his son did not want the job. To me that was a normal conversation. Sheep maintain the grass in large areas around the village. They bleat and wear bell collars and are cute to look at. The shepherd is a nomadic character that lives in a trailer. I never knew him as well as my uncle does, but the notion of sheep around town along with their bells and their shephard are normal to me. I understood the value of the job and why his son did not want it. The mental equation was balanced.

Now, living in the U.S. , I could not even recall the word shepherd. I had to Google it. I struggled and used the phrase "sheep herder". How does an adult lose grasp of the concept of a shepherd? Then it hit me. Jesus was a shepherd. While living in the U.S. I lost my memory of animals and simple work. The word shepherd means nothing to me here so I forgot it.

The value of shepherding is deep enough to warrant an article in itself. Imagine the difference in noise levels between sheep and lawn mowers. Imagine the difference in lawn treatments between sheep grazing and chemical alternatives. Imagine the difference of smells between sheep and engines. Those are just the benefits that reach the senses. Shepherds bring benefits to society at large as well. Adam Smith describes the benefits of shepherds mental and physical faculties in his book "Wealth of Nations". That section deserves at least as much thought as the value of the invisible hand.

donquixote99
02-04-2017, 10:17 PM
It's interesting that Smith discussed shepherds. He also wrote a book called 'The theory of Moral Sentiments' which I sometimes think I should read...

Consciousness of losing a word like 'shepherd' is outside my experience, but the limits and vagaries of my meat computer are becoming more obvious....

ebacon
04-02-2017, 08:50 PM
It's interesting that Smith discussed shepherds. He also wrote a book called 'The theory of Moral Sentiments' which I sometimes think I should read...

Consciousness of losing a word like 'shepherd' is outside my experience, but the limits and vagaries of my meat computer are becoming more obvious....

You hit me with "consciousness of losing a word".

Tonight I am reflecting on how long all of us have chatted on this forum and all the hairs that we tried to split. It is a wonderful dance.

Political tension started in my mind around the time I finished law school and read Seven Storey Mountain. Since then I have tried to distill fights to their essence. I think that my courage grew when I was in law school and tried to explain the value of interest rates to my professor. She did not understand me and I did not understand the law. We were professionals talking past each other.

How far has technology taken us since the beer summit or the kitchen debate, really? Whenever I noodle on a problem the solution seems to drill down to quietly talking to someone. It drills down to quiet.

An echo rings of a clergyman seeking the quiet of the countryside. He wrote that perhaps the church must admit some guilt for want of sprawl. His honesty is my conscious memory of quiet.

donquixote99
04-02-2017, 10:33 PM
Peace is quiet.

nailer
04-03-2017, 08:27 AM
Superstition and the darkness it generates always has and will be with us. It's part and parcel of the human condition.

TheOtherWash
04-03-2017, 09:52 AM
the trick is to see this same-old , same-old (ref: Nixon, MacCarthy, Hoover...) in a new INTERNET lit stage....

donquixote99
04-03-2017, 10:17 AM
The old information order culture (news editor mediated) had evolved to a functional if imperfect level. The new one hasn't evolved much yet, and has given opportunity to dishonest manipulators. Genies don't go back into bottles very well, though.

(I assume J. Edgar was the Hoover you had in mind for that list.)

BlueStreak
04-04-2017, 08:21 AM
Superstition and the darkness it generates always has and will be with us. It's part and parcel of the human condition.

As will religion. To my mind, the two are one and the same.

donquixote99
04-04-2017, 02:41 PM
A more recent writer than Sagan weighs in:

What's true? What's false? In case you haven't noticed, the world has pretty much given up on the old Enlightenment idea of piecing together the truth based on observed data. Reality is too complicated and scary for that. Instead, it's way easier to ignore all data that doesn't fit your preconceptions and believe all data that does. I believe what I believe, and you believe what you believe, and we'll agree to disagree. It's liberal tolerance meets dark ages denialism. It's very hip right now."

"This sounds awful."

"We are more politically fanatical than ever before, more religiously zealous, more rigid in our thinking, less capable of empathy. The way we see the world is totalizing and unbreakable. We are completely avoiding the problems that diversity and worldwide communication imply. Thus, nobody cares about antique ideas like true or false.
From the novel The Nix by Nathan Hill

ebacon
04-08-2017, 11:36 PM
the trick is to see this same-old , same-old (ref: Nixon, MacCarthy, Hoover...) in a new INTERNET lit stage....

Interesting. There is a body of law regarding larceny by trick. Do kids still use the word trick? I dunno.

ebacon
04-08-2017, 11:52 PM
A more recent writer than Sagan weighs in:
...
From the novel The Nix by Nathan Hill

Philosophy is a difficult discussion. IMO the closest that America has come to it in the public arena is the phrase "buyer's remorse". That phrase is one that we can all relate to, but at the same time we are afraid to tell our bosses that we are OK with selling less or making less.

Stated differently, A is A, but few question what A is. It takes good discussion spaces for people to feel comfortable enough to talk about that. That is my story and I am sticking to it. :D

donquixote99
04-09-2017, 07:20 AM
Ohm Walsh speakers offer a 120 day money-back home trial. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose.

The problem with philosophy is no matter how well and deep you dig, the well remains, at the bottom, dry.

ebacon
04-19-2017, 09:09 PM
Ohm Walsh speakers offer a 120 day money-back home trial. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose.

The problem with philosophy is no matter how well and deep you dig, the well remains, at the bottom, dry.

I'm starting to feel you. For me philosophy is approaching microscopy of introspection. It takes a good bit of listening to begin to understand where your discussion partner is coming from. Perhaps that is why all of practical philosophy fits on a bookshelf. In the history of man there have only been about two dozen philosophers that were willing to read each other out.

The rest of us have memes. And bar stools. :D

ebacon
06-09-2017, 07:26 PM
Thread bump.

Like a fool I continue to try and split philosophical hairs. Today I had a funny thought.

When I grew up as a military brat my dad did a great job at teaching me to be a practical survivor. He taught me preventative maintenance, he taught me to be kind, he taught me to trust.

Lately, meaning the Fox News era, him and I seem to have grown apart. But why? What voices in our heads could politically divide a military father and his son?

My laugh moment came when I realized that we seem to be divided over who gets to save whom. My dad did a great job of raising me. He did so well that I got to do what he never did -- get a pilot's license.

After I got my pilot's license my dad refused to fly with me. Why? He said because he could not save me if we got in trouble aloft. That's heavy.

Anyhow thanks for reading this far. That thought made me wonder about how we challenge each other to grow and discover what we really want. Those that have been to the edge know what its like to be brave enough to ride in what they built. Right-sizing that bravery might be what a beautiful disaster feels like.

Peace

donquixote99
06-09-2017, 07:55 PM
I suspect the movie 'Sully' resonates with you. A beautiful disaster if there ever was one.

I don't think you are taught to be kind. You either are, or not. My mother was always kind, until she wasn't any more. Brain disease.

But I think you are taught to trust, which would include trusting your own kindness.

What one wants is crucial, as the Buddhists keep trying to tell us. (What we tell machines or people to want is likewise crucial, as science fiction tells us over and over. Get that one too wrong and we might not get a do-over.)

MrPots
06-09-2017, 09:09 PM
Thread bump.

Like a fool I continue to try and split philosophical hairs. Today I had a funny thought.

When I grew up as a military brat my dad did a great job at teaching me to be a practical survivor. He taught me preventative maintenance, he taught me to be kind, he taught me to trust.

Lately, meaning the Fox News era, him and I seem to have grown apart. But why? What voices in our heads could politically divide a military father and his son?

My laugh moment came when I realized that we seem to be divided over who gets to save whom. My dad did a great job of raising me. He did so well that I got to do what he never did -- get a pilot's license.

After I got my pilot's license my dad refused to fly with me. Why? He said because he could not save me if we got in trouble aloft. That's heavy.

Anyhow thanks for reading this far. That thought made me wonder about how we challenge each other to grow and discover what we really want. Those that have been to the edge know what its like to be brave enough to ride in what they built. Right-sizing that bravery might be what a beautiful disaster feels like.

Peace

A great post....thank you.

donquixote99
06-09-2017, 11:18 PM
Yes, that and others, I should say. I've thought things like "A is A, but few question what A is," but never with such clarity.