Mike Griese
ShoqCarl Sagan called it over 30 years ago. And the saddest thing is that too many under 30 don’t even know what the fuck he was talking about. For the very reasons he was talking about. #WASF
Callisto@shoq Most interesting to me, what I'd forgotten of this quote, is how he centers a "manufacturing economy." Just touching real things. Changing the oil in my motorcycle (sorry, ain't lying in the dirt getting used oil on my eyebrows like you have to do with a car, and also sorry I know it's different from assembling it in a factory) connects me to reality and thus to science.
Another way Sagan's thinking stood out from stereotypical scientists'.
Wikinaut
lemgandi
Sterling@shoq
@briankrebs
Extremely sad.
Also sad that no one recognizes that this threatens our very existence.
What does the world need us for?
Data centers?
@briankrebs
Extremely sad.
Also sad that no one recognizes that this threatens our very existence.
What does the world need us for?
Data centers?
@shoq
@briankrebs
All started in the 80's and 90's when MBAs started running companies instead of people who had vision and knew how to make things.
Things made with quality and with pride.
Predicted (circa 935 BCE):
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
@shoq @briankrebs
The last 20 something years of my career my business card say "Manufacturing Engineer".
Foreign countries can steal drawings and reverse engineer.
What they can't do is replicate the "Know how".
In fact, they have no idea what it takes.
A design isn't even half the product.
You must review, test, and integrate in the real world.
You must do this with more than one prototype.
Then you must monitor production and feedback from field users.
You don't know a product until you've made hundreds of em.
Even then it's a constant struggle to monitor build and use.
<surprise>This is expensive </surprise>
<business case for AI>
The process is expensive, and that leads MBAs who have never built anything in their life to want to eliminate all the expense (read: engineers).
</business case for AI>
@shoq @briankrebs
Plus you need to control every part of the production....starting with source control.
Many hours writing, revising Source Control Drawings.
Plus you need to control every part of the production....starting with source control.
Many hours writing, revising Source Control Drawings.
@shoq @briankrebs
Foreign countries make deals with US companies to purchase products. Most want production (technology).
One such country came in and was asking about the processor that was used in a piece of equipment. When I told them it was a i286 they asked why we didn't use something more modern (a long time ago in a galaxy far away).
I told them that we have to re-qualify any changes that we make and that is an expensive process. They looked at me like I just dropped out of the sky....
They . just. don't. get. it.
Foreign countries make deals with US companies to purchase products. Most want production (technology).
One such country came in and was asking about the processor that was used in a piece of equipment. When I told them it was a i286 they asked why we didn't use something more modern (a long time ago in a galaxy far away).
I told them that we have to re-qualify any changes that we make and that is an expensive process. They looked at me like I just dropped out of the sky....
They . just. don't. get. it.
Infosec StuC@AG100pct @shoq @briankrebs This. Any organisation, country, company, whatever, that comes to believe that drinking the cool aid is more important than knowing how to manufacture it, is already on the losing side of Darwinian Selection.
David PIsaac Asimov said something similar about the "Cult of Ignorance" and anti-intellectualism in the US.
Indeed he did:
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
|
https://aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ASIMOV_1980_Cult_of_Ignorance.pdf
MegatronicThronBanks@shoq He mispredicted one thing - technology spreads laterally as it advances. The Russians, for example, just discovered what bringing Tanks to a Drone fight gets you. We're on a cusp where anyone is going to be able to do anything.
jackcole@shoq Perhaps someone elready posted this, but you can read Sagan's book for free online in many locations. Here is one:
https://dn721807.ca.archive.org/0/items/B-001-001-709/Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World.pdf
liberloebi 📖@jackcole Yes you can. And it is worth reading in any form. But I like to have it in a prominent location on my bookshelf, to remind me ever so often …
@liberloebi Paper is easier to read than pdf. And books are a more stable form of publication.
europlus 
@shoq better alt text would include:
Reminiscent of Carl Sagan's prescient fear/warning.
@airbagmoments.bsky.social
"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...
The dumbing down of American 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"
- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
punIssuer@shoq suggested #altText addendum:
“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...
The dumbing down of American 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”
—Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Patioboater@shoq He had the timeline right, too, which at the time I thought was ridiculously fast for that prediction.
John Crowden@shoq wow. So prescient.
DonCC
@iveyline
Carsten Rodin@shoq uh oh
Dormouse
The Sleight Doctor 🃏🍉@shoq Prescient indeed. From the same book:
"We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces."
-- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Byrnensorg🇮🇪🇺🇦🇵🇸🇬🇱🇩🇰@shoq Some people would point to Trump as one of the causes of the downfall, but many fail to grasp that he is merely a symptom of a wider disease, itself causing great harm. There always was a bigger game afoot.
Chris McCabe
@shoq I think this post sums it up rather well.https://mstdn.social/@Nigel_Purchase/115811987269566674