Dreaming About Tomorrow
During the 2008 primary, I strongly opposed Barack Obama as the candidate. I didn’t buy into his message of Change and Hope. While I voted for him in the general election, I still think that he was full of shit. As a point of fact, he hasn’t changed the healthcare system or any other policy he said he would. But today I want to talk about the Hope part and how that affects the community of reason.
Recently, Obama cut the NASA budget and scrapped the Constellation project including the Orion space craft. Obama has pretty much stranded America to the Earth.
Yesterday, Neil Armstrong (the first man on the moon), Jim Lovell (Commander of Apollo 13 – played by Tom Hanks in the film Apollo 13) and Gene Carnan (Commander of Apollo 17) wrote a letter to the President calling his new plan for NASA, “devastating.” They are not alone in that view. Astrophysicist, educator, and director of the Hayden Planetarium Neil deGrasse Tyson echoes their view:
Neil deGrasse Tyson is correct, people are not dreaming about tomorrow any more. This move by Obama kills Hope. But not all of the blame is on Obama here. The fact is that even our television and movies have stopped dreaming about tomorrow or at least have put a more negative spin on the future.
Not long ago science fiction was about space exploration, solving problems, the strength of diversity, and the hope for a better world. I think of shows like Star Trek, Babylon 5, Stargate, and others. Today there is very little sci-fi on television and the shows that were recent hits like Battlestar Galactica were depressing shows about how people and technology sucks.
The community of reason depends of hope for the future. We need to teach people to dream and to reach for those dreams. Technology and science aren’t the cause of our problems, but are our partners in finding solutions. The universe is wondrous with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross, but it’s not for the timid. Today’s dreamers are tomorrow’s explorers.
Filed under: atheism, Current Events, education, Hope, Obama, People of Reason, Politics, science, The Future
