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Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America (1995)

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Re: Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America (1995)

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they are completely irrelevant. I certainly hold in much higher esteem, people who have long lasting marriages, compared to people who keep switching partners. At the same time, people are complex and nobody is without flaws.

From the outside we can see longe marriages as cute, but that is only that. Better switch partners and seek hapinness than to live in a bad marriage. People change and so should relationships if the people in it don't find them suitable. My views, which, again, all this discussion is not relevant to article.

That's such a reductionist view of marriage, but it's completely in sync with the modern fleeting pleasure seeker mentality, coupled with the end game of commoditisation. Don't like your car? Change it. Don't like your wife ? Change it

> People change and so should relationships if the people in it don't find them suitable.

If that's your starting point why even marry ?

Re: Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America (1995)

#32
post #18

From a geopolitical perspective, the real concern isn’t just whether America is in decline, but whether we are witnessing a broader cycle of decline across Western civilization, or even globally. While competition between nations is important, it isn’t enough on its own. What we truly need is a world where the average person has more viable options, economically, politically, and technologically. If our current syste…

I personally believe that we do have unprecedented number of tools in our disposal to be successful, compared to any other time in our history. The problem is somewhere else.

Re: Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America (1995)

#33
post #30

Americans may not think of themselves as an “empire,” but much of the world does. The average age of empires, according to a specialist on the subject, the late Sir John Bagot Glubb, is 250 years. After that, empires always die, often slowly but overwhelmingly from overreaching in the search for power. the US is 249 years old.

So time to retrench and look inwardly instead of projecting power?

Maybe instead of meddling in international affairs via cover NGOs, let those people work out their own problems like we did in our early republic. We don't have to be captain save-a-hoe for the world.

Re: Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America (1995)

#34

Broken Clock is right twice a day. A civilization declines? If I didn't read history, I'd be shocked. Isnt America still number 1 in GDP and the only regional hedgemon? "I predict that America will decline." Someone write an article, I will be correct at some point. And on the comments about superstition... religion is at an all-time low... So, I suppose that isnt perfectly correct.

Sarcasm/Irony/Nonsense:

Religion's gonna have a come-back once all those Jesuses crawl out from their Mom's basement and start their TikTok Channels for of and by advertisement, sry, I mean people, the people.

Opinion/POV:

America will decline as much as our species will decline, which is not at all, because all we'll do is change which is what America is doing right now.

I always found Tyler Cowen and Paul Graham "yucky", even words like 'obnoxious' felt like giving them too much credit for who they are, which is an opinion I derived from some of their writing and which is how I came to the liminal conclusion that they are exactly that kind of people who want back-doors into teen minds for the sake of an economy that rewards crowd control for the sake of propagating ALL markets, whatever trash-tv ethics they were build on; from punched drugs and cosmetics that destroy the kids' skin so that they have to continue to buy products to alleviate or hide the damage all the way to TV shows and live events that skew their sense of reality and social (and sexual) exploration to the point where "anything goes, just give in, let it happen, let it be, it is what it is" become the foundations of their virtues, much hidden in the subtext of "content" spanning a decade that tries "to warn" while it's actual "substance" works in harmony with the many things that fuck with teen minds and more than enough adolescents and grown ups.

But I recently came to understand that, and I think one of them even phrased it in some way himself, they (et al) are dead serious about 'leading' (to whom it applies) and steering the attention of those who pay attention via bad example and the worst versions of how they can make the economy work. It might be worse but they don't want to ruin or eliminate chances, they just really want to keep it all as open as possible to whomever is capable of doing what must be done to do better.

So whether America will decline or not, and whether our species will, is a matter of people getting the fuck up and going into merciless competition (with representatives, their interest groups, the legislative, executive, judicial branches) using the so obviously better ways that exist to change - not disrupt, evolve, really - the many industries that need to evolve. It's implicit, really, that if people stick to the wrong teachings, then things will break down. Evolution is slow burn, much like that turtle vs that Greek dude and can often seem like its 'plateauing' but in the bodies and brains of the living happens a lot that is subject to the innate mechanisms of an interconnected system. This is why the OODA [0] loop - observe, orient, decide, act - must be actively taught and emphasized and practiced in school, in games, and it should be made one of the key themes for interns in any industry.

It is the old guards fault that the world is what it is, and it will be all our fault if we fail to enable all the youngest generations to properly apply what they observe while they orient themselves in the free and in the professional world. Change isn't hard, but the people demanding and implementing it must be hard, so I believe the whole "it's declining" theme is an implicit challenge that emerged from the simple fact, that the old guard was annoyed to have raised such weak and systems-serving rather than systems-improving offspring, both theirs and that of all the other people.

A lot of what I just wrote is, to me, why some many PhD holders and Ivy league kids appear so disappointing.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

Re: Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America (1995)

#35
Carl Sagan may very well be correct, however he didn't make predictions about when such an event might occur, and his predictions were aimed at avoiding it occurring at all.

I've seen this article appear several times in two distinct time periods, one was after Trump was elected the first time, and the second is now.

Why is it popular now? Because people opposed to the present political party want to portray it as a decent into darkness and superstition. It's being used as a tool and it's hyperbole.

Don't fall for the trap, things in the US at least appear to be improving tremendously in just a matter of weeks. Border security is improving, cutting off trafficking and drugs. Middle East peace is advancing. Ukraine might be settled. Significant waste is being cut from government spending etc.

Re: Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America (1995)

#36
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bernie said it best. Get money out of politics. Full stop.

Honestly, I don’t see how that is compatible with a capitalist society. Money is power and politics is the exercise of power.

The answer is regulation.

Re: Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America (1995)

#37
post #18

From a geopolitical perspective, the real concern isn’t just whether America is in decline, but whether we are witnessing a broader cycle of decline across Western civilization, or even globally. While competition between nations is important, it isn’t enough on its own. What we truly need is a world where the average person has more viable options, economically, politically, and technologically. If our current syste…

We also still have all of these undemocratic, authoritarian regimes in the world. Hopefully Earth will move beyond that one day.

Re: Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America (1995)

#38
post #18

From a geopolitical perspective, the real concern isn’t just whether America is in decline, but whether we are witnessing a broader cycle of decline across Western civilization, or even globally. While competition between nations is important, it isn’t enough on its own. What we truly need is a world where the average person has more viable options, economically, politically, and technologically. If our current syste…

> The focus should be on creating new pathways for individual prosperity rather than just shifting power between competing states.

I'd argue that the focus should be on creating prosperous communities, of mutual benefit to their individual members. But maybe that's just a "pathway" to individual prosperity.

Re: Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America (1995)

#39
I think the only people denying the decline of the US are the same people that think the US can be as powerful and respected as it was in the 50s, i.e. not the most well informed crowd.

It really is crazy to see the way the US is going. I remember reading every time in history an emerging superpower was replacing a declining power, the declining power got antsy and shot first, leading to them getting whooped by the emerging superpower, cementing them as a superpower. I wonder if that will happen with the US.

Re: Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America (1995)

#40
post #33
post #30

Americans may not think of themselves as an “empire,” but much of the world does. The average age of empires, according to a specialist on the subject, the late Sir John Bagot Glubb, is 250 years. After that, empires always die, often slowly but overwhelmingly from overreaching in the search for power. the US is 249 years old.

So time to retrench and look inwardly instead of projecting power? Maybe instead of meddling in international affairs via cover NGOs, let those people work out their own problems like we did in our early republic. We don't have to be captain save-a-hoe for the world.

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