[scns]

The article links to an article about Sagans' prediction of the decline of america. Strangely fitting nowadays.

> 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 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…

https://www.openculture.com/2025/02/carl-sagan-predicts-the-...

[mdelias]

Brian Williams reads and recites the above (2021)

https://youtu.be/utjK0EtkU8U?si=vWYdumffcgxKvkFV

[janez2]

your link has a "si=" tracking parameter

[kgwxd]

Sounds like he just read history, noticed repeating patterns, and believed his own eyes. It sucks that makes him some kind of special person, instead of "people" just being the kind of thing that commonly does stuff like that.

[deron12]

Is it possible to get people to think critically and self-reflect, as a third party?

The answer to that question lies in the bottom of a cup of hemlock.

[fmlpp]

What a vision.

[godelski]

Asimov and Feynman also spoke about similar things (along with many others)

In 1980, Asimov famously wrote The Cult of Ignorance[0], criticizing the rise of anti-intellectualism. Where there was a strong political push of "don't trust the experts". He criticizes claims that sound familiar today "America has a right to know" on the basis of this being meaningless without literacy. He clarifies that literacy is far more than being able to actually read words on a page, but to interpret and process them. Asimov isn't being pretentious, his definition is consistent with how we determine reading levels[2] and his critique would be that most people do not have that of a Freshman in High School. Hell, it is even in his fiction! It is even in The Foundation and is literally the premise of Profession[3].

Feynman is a bit more scattered, but I think his discussion about the education system in Brazil (in the 50's) says a lot[4]. He talks a lot about how the students could recite the equations, ace all the tests, and achieve everything that looks to be, at least on paper, perfectly academic; but how the students did not really have the deeper understanding of the equations. It is a discussion about literacy. Were he around today I'm sure he'd use the phrase "metric hacking". Anyone that knows Feynman may also be thinking about his Cargo Cult Science[5](a commencement speech at Cal Tech (1974)). This is where his famous quote

  The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. 

comes from. But there is a lot of important context surrounding this and it is worth knowing about.

[0] Note: 1980 was an election year, and one with a sweeping victory...[1] https://people.bath.ac.uk/mnsbr/papers/Asimov-Newsweek-Janua...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_United_States_presidentia...

[2] https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading/achieve.aspx

[3] Profession has been in discussion lately, directly relating to this topic. If you haven't read it I'll say it is one of my favorite's of his. Not as good as Foundation but up there with Nightfall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profession_(novella)

[4] https://enlightenedidiot.net/random/feynman-on-brazilian-edu...

[5] https://sites.cs.ucsb.edu/~ravenben/cargocult.html

[Edit]

I wanted to add Asimov's The Relativity of Wrong. Sometimes I feel it should be required reading before arguing on the internet. I find myself coming back to read it at least once a year

https://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html

[mentalgear]

So openClaw bots are now even infesting HN with absolutely non-sense phrases ? WTF. Would be interesting what the recent stats on this say @dang / e.g. % new registrations since the claw-debacle, profiles with claw in their username , etc.

[palmotea]

> The article links to an article about Sagans' prediction of the decline of america. Strangely fitting nowadays.

>> 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 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…

Not really. His prediction actually seems pretty off-base, with only some bits that are coincidentally correct. For instance, he seems to attributing the cause of that decline to superstition, when it was really capitalism infected by the shareholder-theory-of-value and financialization pursued by really smart and rational people focused on pursing their narrow self-interest.

I don't know the full context of that passage, but my read comports with my understanding of Sagan's biases.

[xhkkffbf]

I kind of agree. I find that almost everyone I meet has a firm grasp on tech topics affect their lives. From social media to privacy, they seem to understand the fundamental questions even though they aren't programmers or CISOs or whatever.

[pjmorris]

> capitalism infected by the shareholder-theory-of-value and financialization

For those who aren't inside the club, those are superstitions.

[krapp]

> when it was really capitalism infected by the shareholder-theory-of-value and fictionalization pursued by really smart and rational people focused on their personal self-interest.

That's one factor, sure. Another factor is the widespread rejection of mainstream science and consensus reality in favor of conspiracy theories that feed into populism and authoritarianism.

For all of capitalism's faults, you can at least have an educated society with technological and scientific progress under it. You can't have any of that when people who don't believe germs or real or who do believe wildfires are caused by Jewish space lasers are allowed anywhere near positions of power. When belief in imaginary satanic pedophile cults swing elections but actual pedophiles face no consequences. It doesn't seem entirely wrong to me.