alt Hacker News> 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.
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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.
> 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.
> capitalism infected by the shareholder-theory-of-value and financialization
For those who aren't inside the club, those are superstitions.