Carl Sagan Interview

Hello lovely viewers, welcome back to another episode of "The one man show", the show where we only have one out of everything, meaning one host, and only one interviewee, my name is Richard Primera and I'll be your host tonight on this pleasant journey... and without further ado, let me start by saying that we have a very interesting show prepared for all of you fans of the unknown and mysterious, since joining us tonight as our guest is non other than the almighty American astrophysicist, astronomer, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences, Mr Carl Sagan! Quite a polymath Carl, Welcome and thank you for joining us.

Carl: Thank you Richard, it's an honor to be here tonight, I'm a big fan of the show.

Richard: That is great to hear Carl, great to hear indeed. Well, as we speak I'm being flooded with questions from the audience through our social channels via twitter and facebook, and I asked the audience to ask questions specifically about Technology, Movies, and School, although your very well known for going random on your answers, are you ready for it?

Carl: I was born ready son.

Richard: Ok, let's begin. The first question comes from Suta Nita, She's from Maracaibo and she asks, "Will technology ever kill us?"

Carl: Well that is a very loaded question, We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology, but certainly I would love to start saying that Humans — who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals — have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and 'animals' is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them — without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us.

Richard: Okaaaaaaaaaaay, that had nothing to do with what was asked but, let's move along, next question is from Peren Cejo, Maracaibo as well and he asks "Do you think Schools are useful?"

Imagine, a room, awash in gasoline. And there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has 9,000 matches. The other has 7,000 matches. Each of them is concerned about who’s ahead, who’s stronger. Well, that's the kind of situation we are actually in. The amount of weapons that are available to the United States and the Soviet Union are so bloated, so grossly in excess of what's needed to dissuade the other that if it weren't so tragic, it would be laughable.

Richard: Ehh Carl, you're getting really off-topic here, just wanted to point that out.

Carl: I do whatever I want son.

Richard: Ok next question! "What are your thoughts on movies?"

Carl: I think movies are a great representation of what human creativity can accomplish, and it makes a heavy use of science on trying to achieve that, and talking about science, If you take a look at science in its everyday function, of course you find that scientists run the gamut of human emotions and personalities and character and so on. But there’s one thing that is really striking to the outsider, and that is the gauntlet of criticism that is considered acceptable or even desirable. The poor graduate student at his or her Ph.D. oral exam is subjected to a withering crossfire of questions that sometimes seem hostile or contemptuous; this from the professors who have the candidate’s future in their grasp. The students naturally are nervous; who wouldn’t be? True, they’ve prepared for it for years. But they understand that at that critical moment they really have to be able to answer questions. So in preparing to defend their theses, they must anticipate questions; they have to think, “Where in my thesis is there a weakness that someone else might find—because I sure better find it before they do, because if they find it and I'm not prepared, I'm in deep trouble.

Richard: Ok any final thoughts Carl?

Carl: For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring it may be. For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.