Cosmos Episode 13: Who Speaks for Earth Part 2 of 7

[dronecaster]

@tabrisangel22 Vangelis. Probably the most beautiful piece of music he ever wrote.

[GordonMorrice]

Never destroy Earth.

[GordonMorrice]

@GordonMorrice Should we hate? Should we?

[jbs4em]

@tabrisangel22 Ignore the other guy, it's the 2nd movement of Beethoven's 7th Symphony, not his 8th.

[MrDBarch]

Carl Sagan wow, i grew up watching his science specials on b&w tv on the weekends lol

[acolytexiv]

@tabrisangel22 If you mean at the beginning of this section, it's Beethoven's 8th Symphony

[JohnF30Music]

end ethnicism now

[0mni42]

@GordonMorrice

The funny thing is, the previous episode ("Encyclopedia Galactica") featured the same montage of information in the galactic computer, but there our probability of survival was 40%. Sagan changed it for the purposes of telling the story in this episode.

[BillF1967]

A few apocalyptic religious zealots with access to doomsday weaponry could easily bring this scenario into being.

[karkovice10]

I like to think that the cold war was over years ago, but should I live in fear of an imminent nuclear holocaust?

[TheAmorri]

Talk about revalations - one of the best episodes imo =)

[wall0skulls]

Woa, Carl really brings out a tear jerking story at the beginning of this one. I really wonder about his fiction . I Never seen Contact. So, hopefully I can read it without ruin.

[DandAinTac]

This could indeed still happen. There are still thousands of nukes, and a kook like Sarah Palin was actually the vice presidential candidate for one of our two major political parties. I can only hope that if the American people are ever dumb enough to elect this moron that the Air Force Generals have the good sense to deactivate the launch codes before Sarah "End of Times" Palin can get her moronic finger on "the button."

[unassumption]

@DandAinTac

Its more likely to be an accidental launch IMO if that tops us, but running out of fuel before we get a replacement would be like bacteria eating the food on their petri dish, and pollution is like them filling it with their waste followed by populations plummeting to nothing, nukes could kill us but there's so many other killers out there we're to distracted to deal with :)

[nandob777]

i dont know about total extinction, im almost sure its disaster that makes us move forward

[Supuhstar]

Personally, I think this "I have a dream" speech is alot more moving and deep.

[juggerpy]

He uses the "reptilian" comparison to set up a cue point in the evolution of the brain, as pretty much that part evolved to that point when we were still lizards :P

[1RadicalOne]

I have truly enormous respect for Sagan, and greatly enjoy this series, but the one thing I do hate - I do indeed find it offensive - is his constant use of "reptilian" as a catch-all for primitive and violent behavior.

[unassumption]

@1RadicalOne

are you cold blooded? why the affinity for the scaled ones?

[1RadicalOne]

I am endothermic like you.

[exkaliiperi]

What's the song at the beginning of the video?

[festusthefiend]

Its one of Beethovens Symphonies: 5th, I think.

[Chalumeau]

I find this particular segment with the spaceship of the imagination so heartbreaking. We are not out of the woods yet. Perhaps we may never be.

[Aavasaksa]

I am slightly more optimistic right now than Dr. Sagan was in -79, when the cold war still raged and both east and west sent atomic subs diving the oceans, not to mention planes flying with nuclear weapons around, armed and ready to use at order.

[CaptainViral84]

Wow just 1% survile per 100 years that is very low odds of our civilaztion

[djancak]

"we" wont do something that dumb?

all it takes is a few idiots with power

[sciencealwayswins]

Right, just like we weren't 'dum' enough to drop nukes on Hiroshima & Nagasaki, or murder thousands of Jews during the holocaust, or strap bombs to our chests and blow ourselves up in public areas in the middle east. We have intelligence, but our animalistic impulses often cause us to to misuse that intelligence, which is a very scary thing indeed.

Our survival rate is no where near as high as 99.43%. Where did you get that number?

[Jcorp67]

I would not call the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki dumb. We were not there and we were not the ones to lose parents brothers or sisters. I would call it regrettable and horrific.

The holocaust was not dumb it was genocide.

[HighOnScience]

Maybe it was not "dumb" to drop the great bombs on those two city's. But the reason for why we did it and will maybe do it again is the same reason you touched on. The human race will not "choose" to destroy itself, we will might just as well do it with the best intentions possible. To defend our loved ones, revenge family and friends lost in wars, to protect whatever we find needing of protection with any means necessary.

[Jcorp67]

But we did choose to use the weapons. The alternative was most likely millions of dead and wounded rather then a few hundred thousand. It sounds horrible to have to even make a choice like that.

I do not think we would choose to use them unless we had no choice. US nuclear policy regards any use of a wmd as a nuclear attack and will be answered in kind.

I think we have the ability to not destroy ourselves. I give humans more credit. There are stupid people but there are many smart people also

[HighOnScience]

Maybe there is some long term credit for us humans, maybe not. Its unsettling to think about either case :)

[SaganAppreciationSoc]

Too bad you're not an Alpha based Amiga computer. Then you'd be pretty cool.

Now pay attention to the turtlenecked one.