Dreams about the future are always filled with gadgets.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that our aspirations and visions of the future are often intertwined with technological advancements.
Neil Degrasse Tyson's quote reflects the idea that when we envision the future, we tend to imagine a world enhanced by technology and innovation. It emphasizes the human tendency to dream about advancements that improve our lives, suggesting that our dreams are significantly influenced by the gadgets and inventions we aspire to create or encounter.
In practice
During a tech conference, a speaker might use this quote to highlight the impact of technology on future innovations.
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.
We are more dependent on science and engineering than at any other time in history. However, there is plenty of evidence that far too many people are scientifically illiterate, often having been put off science at school.
Yet is it possible in terms of the motion of atoms to explain how men can invent an electric motor, or design and build a great cathedral? If such achievements represent anything more than the requirements of physical law, it means that science must investigate the additional controlling factors, whatever they may be, in order that the world of nature may be adequately understood.
We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World.
I think that the future of the human race is to spread through the universe, and now is the time that we should be laying the foundations for that.
The time has come to recognize that food, how we produce it, process it, package it, sell it, cook it and eat it, is as important as any other issue.
I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme.
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