There are no articles any more that dream about the cities of tomorrow.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the decline of visionary thinking about future cities and societal progress.
Neil Degrasse Tyson points out the absence of media or literature that inspires people to imagine and strive for the cities of the future. This lack of visionary ideas may suggest a stagnation in our collective imagination and ambition, urging us to rekindle our dreams about architectural innovation and societal development.
In practice
In a keynote speech about urban development, one might say, 'As Neil Degrasse Tyson noted, there are no articles any more that dream about the cities of tomorrow, highlighting the need for visionary thinking in architecture.'
The problem is that many people operate on the assumption that NASA should go to Congress every year with hat in hand and justify it every year. Well, I see it as the greatest economic driver that there ever was. Economic drivers don't need justification.
The press still thinks [global warming] is controversial. So they find the 1% of the scientists and put them up as if they're 50% of the research results. You in the public would have no idea that this is basically a done deal and that we're on to other problems, because the journalists are trying to give it a 50/50 story. It's not a 50/50 story. It's not. Period.
As a scientist, I want to go to Mars and back to asteroids and the Moon because I'm a scientist. But I can tell you, I'm not so naive a scientist to think that the nation might not have geopolitical reasons for going into space.
In just one year, the expenditure of of the U.S.'s military budget is equivalent to the entire 50-year running budget of NASA combined.
One of my great laments is that education today seems to have... be less about passion and more about process, more about tactic or technique.
Lots of people think, well, we're humans; we're the most intelligent and accomplished species; we're in charge. Bacteria may have a different outlook: more bacteria live and work in one linear centimeter of your lower colon than all the humans who have ever lived. That's what's going on in your digestive tract right now. Are we in charge, or are we simply hosts for bacteria? It all depends on your outlook.
There are two great classes of men: the people and the scholars, the men of science. For the former, nothing exists but that which directly leads to action. It is for the latter to see beyond. They are the free artists who create the future and its history, the conscious architects of the world.
What an ironic tragedy that an affluent, “Christian” minority in the world continues to hoard its wealth while hundreds of millions of people hover on the edge of starvation!
Even in this world where you’re getting everything you need and having this nice life, there’s still loneliness and longing and disconnection.
Let us respect others no one lives alone in a city, a nation, or a world.
Taught to regard a part of our own Species in the most abject and contemptible Degree below us, we lose that Idea of the dignity of Man which the Hand of Nature had implanted in us, for great and useful purposes.
Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can't reach.
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