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by wcfrobert 19 days ago
This is so accurate wtf!?

- "United States is a service and information economy": Finance, real estate, insurance, SaaS.

- "Nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away": here's a video from Smarter everyday on how atrophied manufacturing has become in the US: [I Tried to Make Something in America](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZTGwcHQfLY)

- "Technological power in the hands of very few": AWS, Google Cloud, Azure.

- "People have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority [...] unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true": Fun house mirror of Twitter/X. Attention economy. Algorithm that maximizes engagement. AI Slop. Deepfakes. War in Iran.

- "our critical faculties in decline": NYT Article [Why U.S. Test Scores Are in a Generation-Long Decline](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/upshot/test-scores-school...)

- "the 30-second sound bites now down to 10 seconds or less": TikTok, Instagram reels

- "credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition": RFK Jr, Tate, Fuentes, conspiracies, Qanon, Vaccine hesitancy.

1 comments

Because all this is mere extrapolation of trends seen in the 90s and before. Sagan was no psychic (or alone in predicting these things), he just knew where to look.