Carl Sagan had “the most accurate prediction” of the current state of America

Carl Sagan had a bone-chilling prediction about America in 1995. A passage from his book, The Demon-Haunted World, is now trending online a day after Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration.

TikTok user Em Curry (@em_curr) called this “the scariest, but most brilliant and accurate prediction about America.” The paragraph Em Curry mentioned was from the first chapter of Sagan’s book. The paragraph reads, “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or my grandchildren’s time—when we’re a service and information economy; when nearly all key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of the very few, and no one representing public interest can even grasp the issues…” Though dire, this is just one half of the problem.

Curry continued, “When the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and religiously 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.”

Sagan’s eerie prediction of America was in the context of explaining why he chose a career in science. This dystopian view of America is possible only when Americans choose pseudoscience over critical thinking — when they can no longer distinguish between fact and fiction.

Living in Sagan’s future

Em Curry, who narrated the passage, looked bamboozled after she finished reading. She frustratedly said, “We have got to get our sh** together.” The future Sagan feared did come, and it did so gradually. Sagan’s solution is to encourage people — even laymen — to embrace the scientific method and critical thinking. It seems simple enough, but the problem is obviously complex.

We live in a world where people believe that politicians can “control” the weather, and information on health and science is actively distorted for political gain. Literacy rates are dropping, and the working class is struggling to access college education. The unfortunate reality is that while many lament the state of America, not everyone is equipped with the tools to combat the deluge of misinformation they’re fed online every day.