The choice is with us still, but the civilization now in jeopardy is all humanity. As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and the sky. In our tenure of this planet we've accumulated dangerous evolutionary baggage — propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders — all of which puts our survival in some doubt. But we've also acquired compassion for others, love for our children and desire to learn from history and experience, and a great soaring passionate intelligence — the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity. Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet Earth. But up there in the immensity of the Cosmos, an inescapable perspective awaits us. There are not yet any obvious signs of extraterrestrial intelligence and this makes us wonder whether civilizations like ours always rush implacably, headlong, toward self-destruction. National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars." ~ Carl Sagan, Cosmos
So, tomorrow is Carl Sagan Day, the 75th Anniversary of his birth.
One man, while not single-handedly, managed to do so much for the advancement of not merely science - our never ending quest for knowledge - but a compassion for our fellow man, and yet so many more have yet to hear the message he brought to countless millions. His efforts to educate, most notably through his PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage as well as the book that stemmed from it (which was the book that personally affected me and made me fall in love with Sagan, reinvigorating my lust for the stars), amount to a powerful movement to not only counter the forces of ignorance, but, with luck, push all of our inter-connected human race off the shores of the cosmic ocean and set sail for the stars.
tl;dr - Discuss why Carl Sagan is awesome
