Lifestyle –
Carl Sagan Predictions
Are Coming True?
Are you familiar with the late Carl Sagan? Â If not, you should be!
Lifestyle
Aside from being a well-known and respected American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, and author, Carl Sagan was adept at predicting the future. In fact, prior to his death in 1996, he made several prognostications that eerily seem to be coming true today.
Carl Sagan warned about a time (in the future) when manufacturing jobs would slip away, when the average person would have virtually no control over their political lives, and when we would all cling to superstitions.  Now, plenty of people across social media platforms are beginning to question if he was talking about our current era.
Take a look at this passage from Sagan’s book Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, first published 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.
Sound familiar?
Carl Sagan went on to discuss in his book the dumbing down of America, and how the film Dumb and Dumber and the TV show Beavis and Butthead had encouraged an inferior society.
So, when you take a look at the current climate in America, including the election of a completely unqualified Reality TV star into the role of leader of the free world, you’ll realize that Sagan’s predictions aren’t necessarily farfetched.
Key manufacturing jobs have in fact fled the US for countries with more favorable environments. Google is indeed the most powerful technological company of all time (and they own more than just the majority of our technology). The recent actions of Donald Trump and his racist puppeteer, Steve “Breitbart” Bannon, has introduced a new way of governing (one that says to hell with the constitution or following the law). Â Americans in general and the media, in particular, are already being chastised for daring to question Donald Trump and the authority of his cronies.
Could it be that Carl Sagan was really onto something?
.
DJ:
"Could it be that Carl Sagan was really onto something?"
In light of all the information you've provided, I'd say absolutely. YES.
Btw- last Friday (Jan. 26) I heard other shocking news that confirmed for me that this nation has indeed taken a mighty wrong turn.
The Economist’ Just Downgraded the US From a ‘Full Democracy’ to a ‘Flawed Democracy’
Further- The Economist asserts that "the problem is a lot bigger than Donald Trump."
I agree. Our decline began quite some time ago. But there's NO doubt in my mind, Trump has certainly sped-up our decline by years.
Excerpts:
The U.S. is no longer a full democracy, according to the highly regarded Economist Intelligence Unit, which each year compiles a Democracy Index that “provides a snapshot of the state of democracy worldwide for 165 independent states and two territories.”
“The US, a standard-bearer of democracy for the world, has become a ‘flawed democracy,’ as popular confidence in the functioning of public institutions has declined,” explains the introduction to the freshly released Democracy Index.
That would be a troubling announcement in any week.
But coming in the first week of the presidency of Trump, a man who has claimed that election systems are “rigged,” who lies about supposed “voter fraud” and who attacks the media outlets who call him out for those lies, the announcement is all the more unsettling.
For those of us who have for many years worried about the vulnerable state of democracy in America, the news is even more troubling because the Democracy Index analysis reminds us that this is about a lot more than Donald Trump. [….]
– The Nation
Now check this. Just 2 days prior to learning about the downgrade, I had had a lengthily conversation with one of my cousins during which I shared with her my belief that Trump's rise to power confirmed for me that we are indeed a "flawed democracy."
Sadly, I was right.
The Economist Reader:
The Electoral College in the US performed as it was designed. It was designed to make sure a President was elected by the entire country and not by just a select group of people or a specific region of the country.
If you subtracted Hilary's margin of victory in just 5 counties across the entire country, she would have lost the popular vote by 500,000 votes.
Those 5 counties are 4 boroughs of New York City (Manhattan, Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn) and Los Angeles County. […]
The Economist Reader:
The problem with this reasoning is that the US Congress already is NOT proportional to population and gives less populated States far more power then they ought to have. Especially considering the huge influence of the Senate in the US, where all States are equal, meaning California has as much power as Wyoming in the Senate. And then the House is anything but proportional either.
On top of that you want the President to have a mandate not built on the majority of the citizens. Is this really democracy?
I thought the US was all about the majority not imposing on the minority and the minority not holding the majority to hostage. That latter is precisely the case in the US at the moment. […]