[Infowarrior] - Fwd: Carl Sagan in 1995

[Richard Forno]

> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> From: Rich Kulawiec <rsk at gsp.org>
> Subject: Carl Sagan in 1995
> Date: August 14, 2017 at 6:39:08 PM EDT
> To: Lauren Weinstein <lauren at vortex.com>, Richard Forno <rforno at infowarrior.org>, Dave Farber <dave at farber.net>
> 
> 
> 	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 decline, unable to distinguish between what
> 	feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing,
> 	back into superstition and darkness.  The dumb down of America
> 	is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the
> 	enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down
> 	to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming,
> 	credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition,
> 	but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
> 
> 		--- Carl Sagan, "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a
> 			Candle in the Dark", 1995
> 
> 
> ---rsk

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