Carl Sagan - Cosmos

[Dimentio]

What are your opinions on the ideas and values espoused by Carl Sagan in the brilliant Cosmos series?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBDpKYJcUms

[Lynx]

From what I recall, I enjoyed the series. There wasn't a lot of politics - Sagan preferred societies that embraced science, like the inhabitants of the Isle of Samos in ancient Greece.

[Valeofruin]

Lol if there ever is 1 thing that can unify all marxists... leninists, maoists, trots, jucheists, whatever.. that thing is Ironically enough.. the most stereotypical petty bourgeois intelligentsia imaginable.. Carl Sagan...

[Dimentio]

Lol if there ever is 1 thing that can unify all marxists... leninists, maoists, trots, jucheists, whatever.. that thing is Ironically enough.. the most stereotypical petty bourgeois intelligentsia imaginable.. Carl Sagan...

Sadly, I think the appreciation of such a "look" is rather scant within the progressive currents today. Since the 1970's, it feels like the left has raged more against science than for it.

[Klaatu]

Since the 1970's, it feels like the left has raged more against science than for it.

Don't you mean the right? Global warming denial, creation science, tax cuts for the wealthy (very unscientific economics) etc

[Dimentio]

Don't you mean the right? Global warming denial, creation science, tax cuts for the wealthy (very unscientific economics) etc

Yes, but the left is also partially guilty. For example in terms of academic postmodernism and denunciation of natural sciences which some left-wing academics have routinely engaged in.

[smellincoffee]

Sagan was a Humanist, as am I. He believed in using science to help humanity, and spoke against religious and political ideologies that try tyrannizing us to authority. That makes him an all-right fellow in my book. I owe to him my restored love for science, as I read his books when escaping a religious cult.

[Klaatu]

Sagan was a Humanist, as am I. He believed in using science to help humanity, and spoke against religious and political ideologies that try tyrannizing us to authority. That makes him an all-right fellow in my book. I owe to him my restored love for science, as I read his books when escaping a religious cult.

These religious cults are a sham, aren't they. I'll bet most of them only exist
for the profits they can generate. This is why I have not ever automatically
associated religion with God (if he exists) as most of these preachers just
want to count their money. If you really want a good example of someone
who is for real, consider monks in a monastery. They vow poverty. They are
the true Communists. And I have great respect for them. They are good men.