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Loading... Pale Blue Dot : A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994)by Carl Sagan
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Science books always run the risk of being outdated as new knowledge is gained. Pale Blue Dot was published back in the mid-1990's, which makes it ancient for the genre. As it turns out, not as much of the book was outdated as I feared. But the real reason I wanted to read it was because [a:Carl Sagan|10538|Carl Sagan|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1394121255p2/10538.jpg] is the prose poet nonpareil for science. His soaring, thoughtful turns of phrase are rarely matched by other science popularizers. There is a series of videos on You Tube, weaving Sagan's voice and writing (much of it from Pale Blue Dot) with images and wonderful music (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF17F07CFC3208E29). While reading this book, I could hear Carl's voice distinctly. If you choose to read or re-read PBD, I encourage you to watch those videos first. Your reading will be the richer for it. I honestly cannot think of too many people who have earned my respect more than Carl Sagan. Since I was a child I have clung to his writing and lecturing. The man just made sense. Pale Blue Dot is so relevant to us, not only as humans but as custodians of a lonely little planet amongst the outer dark. I am biased to this work as I am of all his work. With that being said Pale Blue Dot is an easy read that will weigh heavy on your spirit. Well written and thoughtful. This is our place. “The Universe is created for us! We’re at the center! Everything pays homage to us!”—and concluding that our pretensions are amusing, our aspirations pathetic, that this must be the planet of the idiots. Xenophanes understood the arrogance of this perspective: The Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; the Thracians say theirs have blue eyes and red hair … Yes, and if oxen and horses or lions had hands, and could paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of the godslike horses, and oxen like oxen … After showing how arrogant and stupid humanity has been Sagan still makes the plea that we somehow save ourselves, by going out into space. That way our entire species future isn't tied to a fragile planet that we ourselves might destroy through our misuse of technology or through war. I think we are closer now to the destruction that Sagan feared even more so then in 1994, I'm afraid we don't have enough time left to colonize the planets, asteroids, and comets like he proposed. Steven Hawking repeated the plea in 2008. Personally I think, our efforts should be two fold, first try to get some human presence off of earth as quickly as possible, secondly try to develop as sophisticated an AI as possible, and send that off planet, as a hedge that even if humanity is completely destroyed we would have left something behind. no reviews | add a review
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"Fascinating . . . memorable . . . revealing . . . perhaps the best of Carl Sagan's books."--The Washington Post Book World (front page review) In Cosmos, the late astronomer Carl Sagan cast his gaze over the magnificent mystery of the Universe and made it accessible to millions of people around the world. Now in this stunning sequel, Carl Sagan completes his revolutionary journey through space and time. Future generations will look back on our epoch as the time when the human race finally broke into a radically new frontier--space. In Pale Blue Dot, Sagan traces the spellbinding history of our launch into the cosmos and assesses the future that looms before us as we move out into our own solar system and on to distant galaxies beyond. The exploration and eventual settlement of other worlds is neither a fantasy nor luxury, insists Sagan, but rather a necessary condition for the survival of the human race. "Takes readers far beyond Cosmos . . . Sagan sees humanity's future in the stars."--Chicago Tribune No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)919.904History and Geography Geography and Travel Geography of and travel in Australasia, Pacific Ocean islands, Atlantic Ocean islands, Arctic islands, Antarctica and on extraterrestrial worlds Extraterrestrial regionsLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions,
ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every
king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there -- on a
mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely
distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there
is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.” Since global warming has become the clear and present danger of the day, the former has become ominous indeed. ( )