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Mark Haslett
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Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6059
Posted: 19 November 2019 at 1:59pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

"Even a genius of the level of Carl Sagan sometimes doesn't get it I guess, I
don't know if that's a comforting thought or not..." - re: Beavis and Butthead

**

I think we've witnessed satire and sarcasm move to the center of pop
culture and I think, somehow, this is a stage of development for society.

It comes as we move away from holding education as a shared national
value.

I love Beavis and Butthead. I love satire and sarcasm, but it used to be the
critical reflection of a staunchly upheld set of cultural norms. Especially
when MAD magazine broke through in the 50's.

But when the norms crumble, it seems, the satire remains. That's what
"memes" are for my kids today-- satire without context. "Family Guy" is
similar -- a show so removed from reality that it's a satire of a world that
doesn't exist. These reflect the strange place we're at as a culture.

Even if Sagan did "get" the joke of Beavis and Butthead, I think he'd still see
it as a troubling sign of where we were heading.
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Eric Sofer
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Joined: 31 January 2014
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Posts: 4789
Posted: 19 November 2019 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Dave K. - there are quite a number of dystopia stories set in the modern day. I'll cite the original "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (okay, they fixed it... barely) and Heinlein's "Farnham's Freehold." Harrison's "Make Room! Make Room!" (filmed as "Soylent Green.") And Rod Serling had a whole passel of 'em.

The tragedy is how close we are to some of them.
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Rodrigo castellanos
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Joined: 03 July 2012
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Posted: 19 November 2019 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

"Family Guy" I never really got, it seems to me as a TV show the characters of "Idiocracy" would watch and laugh while drinking their Brawndos.

"Beavis & Butt-Head" on the other hand, always had a secret intelligence behind its apparent stupidity. But you had to put some time and effort to get the joke, it's very subtle satire. Everything Mike Judge did afterwards including "Silicon Valley" now, proves he's super smart and he understands perfectly the times we live in.

Back to the Sagan page, I've never read the book (need to remedy this pronto) but that paragraph has fascinated me for years and it keeps getting new meanings as time goes by.

"Awesome technological powers are in the hands of the very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues"

Tell me that doesn't exactly describe the recent Facebook hearings in congress. Zuckerberg was 10 years old when Sagan wrote that!


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Mark Haslett
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Joined: 19 April 2004
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Posts: 6059
Posted: 20 November 2019 at 8:04pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

"Awesome technological powers are in the hands of the very few, and no
one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues"

Tell me that doesn't exactly describe the recent Facebook hearings in
congress. Zuckerberg was 10 years old when Sagan wrote that!

**

It does.
I'm afraid it describes the current situation regarding nearly every
technology that we are currently using.

How many relevant tech issues are well understood by people representing
the public interest today?
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John Mariani
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Joined: 28 June 2008
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 168
Posted: 21 November 2019 at 6:22am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

A while back, I was talking to some friends about the Flat Earth and the conspiracy to keep it secret.

I started to think about "Cui Bono" -- who benefits from the secret being kept?

I came to the unescapable conclusion -- it must be those swines who sell globes of the Earth ...
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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132133
Posted: 21 November 2019 at 9:14am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

A friend has a newish boyfriend who is a moon-landing denier, and I’m pretty sure he voted for Trump. I haven’t checked him on flat Earth idiocy. I can only take so much!!
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