Carl Sagan's 1995 prediction of America's future is worryingly accurate

Astrophysicist, Dr Carl Sagan, made a scarily accurate prediction of what America looks like today, making us wonder if he had access to a time machine.

Sagan, who is best known for passionately sharing complex scientific views, also enjoyed sharing his insights into humanity.

And in his book from 1995 it seems as if he were already aware of what the world would be like today, foretelling the rise of big tech, misinformation and news snippets.

In a passage from The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, that is frequently shared on social media, Sagan highlighted that the search for truth would constantly be undermined by superstition and pseudoscience – or what we now deem ‘fake news’.

It sets out his pessimistic view of where the US might go if it loses the appreciation of rational thinking, reason and open-mindedness.

And it looks like we might already be there.

In the text he wrote: “Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. 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 in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

“The dumbing 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.” 

Dr Sagan, who sadly died in December 1996, was an American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist and astrobiologist. He regularly wrote and spoke on these topics to help educate the masses.

Sagan helped assemble to first physical messages sent into space and he’s best known for his scientific contributions in his research into extra-terrestrial life as well as the discovery into the high temperatures on the surface of the planet Venus.

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