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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)

#121

Post by ZeroGravitas »

MangoCoffee wrote: post #55
kennysoona wrote: post #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 e…

Who is going to replace US? China? Its economy is on the decline with deflation, debts, real estates problem...etc. Europe? Japan?

A bunch of Network states run by libertarians with blackjack and bitcoin.

https://www.thenerdreich.com/trumps-weird-freedom-cities-and...

Wonder how long they'd last if Greenland, Panama and Gaza are up for grabs by non-network states though.

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

#122

Post by anonymousiam »

arp242 wrote: post #102
queuebert wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We fought a literal civil war and bounced back. We've had multiple presidents assassinated but still had continuity of power. I doubt the U.S. is going anywhere anytime soon except maybe down a couple slots on the world's largest economies lists, and that's soley due to population growth. Some of us who are optimistic believe that the uniqueness of the U.S. lies in its favorable environment for innovation (e.g. YC),…

How do you invent your way out of authoritarian leadership and a sizeable chunk of the population cheering that on? And there's more dystopian sci-fi than there is hopeful sci-fi. This is not a technical problem; it's a societal/social one.

Which recent US administration was NOT authoritarian?

https://ballotpedia.org/Joe_Biden%27s_executive_orders_and_a...

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

#123

Post by kennysoona »

Gormo wrote: post #118
kennysoona wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulation works fine - you can observe it working fine in every other first world country directly mitigating and resolving many of the problems still present in the US.

I'm afraid I can't observe any of that. All I can see is superficial appearances -- I can't see behind-the-scenes corruption or measure superior alternatives that were suppressed in favor of locking in a marginally mitigated version of the status quo ante. I can, however, see the some of the unintended consequences of regulatory interventions in other countries. For example, Germany's ban on nuclear power made them d…

> I'm afraid I can't observe any of that. All I can see is superficial appearances

This sounds like you are observing much of that, and then dismissing the results as superficial appearances.

Dismissing regulation here would be like dismissing a comparison of a correlation between laws against murder and a low murder rate and a correlation between no laws against murder and a high murder rate.

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

#124

Post by vlan0 »

Gormo wrote: post #117
vlan0 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's a vague slogan, not a meaningful strategy to accomplish anything of consequence. Of course. The vast majority of America needs "sound bites" of info. Wish this wasn't the case. But it's worked for decades. >Money is just a tool. The resources and incentives that the money is being spent on already exist, and it's being used to further ambitions and goals that were always present. Getting "money out of politic…

> Super PACs/Citizens United....this is what he's targeting. And this is part of the problem. Citizens United was a bog standard first amendment ruling that has been targeted by an aggressive misinformation campaign by a faction that wants the unprecedented power to censor political discourse, and people are eating up the misinformation. > While his policies are a big part of his platform, what really resonates with…

>But again, his "commitment" is in the form of talk. The reality of the policy positions he does advance is to set us up for the exact opposite of all of those things. I don't know whether he's a well-intentioned fool or a deceptive manipulator, but either way, the consequences are the same. He's just a mirror image of Trump, using vague emotional appeals to win power, then horribly misusing that power.

I hear what you are saying. But again, his policies have had measurable benefits to his constituents in Vermont. With a track record going back decades. I understand you might not have first hand experience with this as I did. But to discredit years of his work saying it's all talk is a little tongue in cheek.

At the end of the day I think we both know it'll always be an attempt to pick the "least evil."

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

#125

Post by nabla9 »

queuebert wrote: post #74
kennysoona wrote: post #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 e…

We fought a literal civil war and bounced back. We've had multiple presidents assassinated but still had continuity of power. I doubt the U.S. is going anywhere anytime soon except maybe down a couple slots on the world's largest economies lists, and that's soley due to population growth. Some of us who are optimistic believe that the uniqueness of the U.S. lies in its favorable environment for innovation (e.g. YC),…

Continuity of power and government is not what people think it is.

The government can continue even if the US stops being a democracy, citizens lose their basic rights (like they did Jim Crows era), or have a civil war without continuity of government breaking.

The US can smoothly slide into Hungary, then Singapore (parliamentary republics only in the name), or more crash into South American Banana Rebublic with some key blues states working, while large parts of the country are effectively lawless or authoritarian.

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

#126

Post by vlan0 »

Gormo wrote: post #117
vlan0 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's a vague slogan, not a meaningful strategy to accomplish anything of consequence. Of course. The vast majority of America needs "sound bites" of info. Wish this wasn't the case. But it's worked for decades. >Money is just a tool. The resources and incentives that the money is being spent on already exist, and it's being used to further ambitions and goals that were always present. Getting "money out of politic…

> Super PACs/Citizens United....this is what he's targeting. And this is part of the problem. Citizens United was a bog standard first amendment ruling that has been targeted by an aggressive misinformation campaign by a faction that wants the unprecedented power to censor political discourse, and people are eating up the misinformation. > While his policies are a big part of his platform, what really resonates with…

I want to thank you for the discourse. This is a refreshing conversation on a very nuanced topic. I don't often encounter folks that can hold these opposing thoughts. Understanding how grey the world is.

Cheers!

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

#127

Post by jimkleiber »

bilbo0s wrote: post #119
jimkleiber wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please check the link and read some of the articles. They have many many quotes from the founders on voting and deliberating in secrecy, even for the creation of the Constitution itself.

So they considered it, and then left it out of the Constitution. I wonder why? /s I'll concede, in the US, just as in everyplace else, we have a long list of issues with which we need to deal. However, things like public debate and freedom of speech are not present on that list. I, personally, would go one step further, and caution everyone to carefully consider the possible motives of anyone calling for the eliminat…

He's not calling for eliminating public debate. He's calling for eliminating lobbyists by making them stay in the lobby and not be privy to committee meetings and committee votes, not final votes.

Some interesting articles about how previously citizen votes were public and how it led to intimidation, and the push for secret ballots for citizens.

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

#128

Post by gopkarthik »

culanuchachamim wrote: post #113

-Sagan’s 1995 predictions are now being heralded as prophetic. As Director of Public Radio International’s Science Friday, Charles Bergquist tweeted, “Carl Sagan had either a time machine or a crystal ball.” Prophetic, time machine, crystal call. That's exactly the lenguage of darkness and superstition...

They acknowledge the irony in the very next sentence:

"Matt Novak cautions against falling back into superstitious thinking in our praise of Demon Haunted World. After all, he says, “the ‘accuracy’ of predictions is often a Rorschach test” and “some of Sagan’s concerns” in other parts of the book “sound rather quaint.”"

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

#129

Post by FrustratedMonky »

kristianc wrote: post #41
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #24

wow "when the United States is a service and information economy; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues"

On the other hand, people losing the ability to think critically, being concerned at power being concentrated amongst the few and thinking the next generation is more ignorant are perennial concerns since forever.

Yes. Example, late state Roman Republic, power concentration into a few Generals with armies. This lead to a dictatorship.

But this time, current time, with technology, it seems different.

Even though you could make same arguments that the printing press had similar effects and criticisms. Hence this is just another cycle of technology change. But really, does seem different in scale this time around.

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

#130

Post by StefanBatory »

ben_w wrote: post #81
StefanBatory wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU will still stand strong, but... as a regional power. I don't buy that we will decline totally; but we'll be like Indonesia or Nigeria. Strong regional powers, but no power projection.

Perhaps. I like living in the EU, I like its (current) values, so I would like this to be the case. But the world changes, and that change leads to political pressure. Even putting aside any possible radical technological shift (AKA "the singularity"), in 50 years from now, the EU may exist as is, or have disintegrated, or may have properly unified into a single polity much as the USA is today — and if the latter, it…

Me too. Me too...
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