1. The Devil's Advocate

Time Stamp: 5:09​

* 9sense Letters: The Dumbing Down of America* The Dumbing Down of America is not exactly a new realization. But over the past handful of years it has become an aggressive and even violent agenda.This pic floated around not long ago and it prompted me to pick up Carl Sagan's " The Demon-Haunted World." It also brought to my attention that Sagan had been shamefully missing from my bookshelf.In particular, the last sentence highlighted in this image is my personal peeve: not just ignorance, or even deliberate ignorance, but the "celebration of ignorance" which is now more than ever a plague on our so-called informed society.This bit starts off Chapter 2 "Science and Hope."* The Demon-Haunted World* by Ann Druyan and Carl Saganhttps://amzn.to/3mGYv9R* Published in 1995 by Penguin Random House LLC.* A prescient warning of a future we now inhabit, where fake news stories and Internet conspiracy theories play to a disaffected American populace* How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions.* Casting a wide net through history and culture, Sagan examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies of the past as witchcraft, faith healing, demons, and UFOs. And yet, disturbingly, in today’s so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning with stories of alien abduction, channeling past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms.* Sagan posits its the misunderstanding or ignorance of scientific thinking that is going to be the downfall, and reliance on pseudo science and superstition, but I disagree* It is the human condition that leans us into superstition and pseudo science belief. Our desire to have a grand mythology, or even in its absence our need for ritual and all the pseudo science trappings that go with it.* We need to elevate a few to feel connected to something elevated. This is inherent in what it means to be human. I would argue, critical thinking is a learned trait simply because it is an evolutionary trait. Not every member of a species evolves. Those who do, provide the genes for future critical thinkers, but that takes action in our world.* We have to stop treating everyone with kids gloves, and allow people to suffer the consequences of their actions. So they do not poison the gene pool. * We are creating the very future we are complaining about simply because it is in our nature to do so. And that is why it’s so easy to see the future.

2. Infernal Informant

Time Stamp: 26:39​

* Florida Woman Who Coughed on Cancer Patient amid COVID Pandemic Sentenced to 30 Days in Prison* https://people.com/crime/florida-woman-who-coughed-on-cancer-patient-amid-covid-sentenced-to-prison/* A Florida woman,