Walter Cronkite talks to Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein as they waited for the landing on the Moon by the crew of Apollo 8. (YouTube: Mondo Cult Presents Walter Cronkite Apollo 11 Interview with Robert A. Heinlein & Arthur C. Clarke)
Note: regrettably, the contributor of the video has disabled embedding so it's not possible to present it here. That kind of short-sighted thinking probably means you won't watch it and that's unfortunate.
"This is the change from puberty to adulthood for the human race" - Robert Heinlein
I don't mean at all to denigrate that idea since it was true in that context but, as we have seen in almost fifty years since then, the human race didn't mature at all. However, in the longer view, it seems inevitable that warring will stop and that was the view from Clarke and Heinlein although not so much from Heinlein.
It's exceptional to see Cronkite again after so many years, particularly given the low quality of newsreaders today.
In large part, the poor outlook on the future in so many people comes from the poor outlook of the newsreaders and their bosses more than anything else. You can easily hear Cronkite's enthusiasm and positivity for the future but you will have a tough time finding anything of that nature today.
It's largely because the newsreaders have nothing to say. There hasn't been news of this magnitude since but the quantity of news hasn't reduced, instead it's increased and radically so. The corporate thinking was to fill the news screens with hot babes and the news will take care of itself. That's no reflection on women in general but it carries volumes about hot babes on the news.
Cronkite said news of the Moon landing was up there with hearing the announcement 'there will be no more war' and that kind of enthusiasm for positivity is woefully absent today.
"The human race will not die. It will go on and on and on ..." - Robert Heinlein
It's foolish for me to interpret what they said and more to the point is the effect of what they said. The personal effect was enormous since I was nineteen at the time and the positive enthusiasm was enormously infectious. The future looks good and, man, it just got so much more vast. That would be shattered the next year when I was drafted but I didn't know that at the time.
The whole world felt it and even the hardest cranks sat to check out Neil Armstrong taking the first step.
Sure I remember where I was when JFK died but for this I remember every moment.
"We're picking up some dust here"
Today that's nothing but then, man, that's Moon dust.
Here at the Rockhouse, we believe, just as much now as when we watched Armstrong take that small step, the future that represented exists even more strongly than it ever did. Humans are capable of so incredibly much more than all the petty disturbances caused by tribal chieftains. Humans are better than that; the chieftains are just louder.
When humans do what we want to do instead of what we'e told, Jonas Salk invents the polio vaccine and then gives it away.
Note: that's true. He did.
Humans aren't just better than the chieftains, we're far better.
Note: regrettably, the contributor of the video has disabled embedding so it's not possible to present it here. That kind of short-sighted thinking probably means you won't watch it and that's unfortunate.
"This is the change from puberty to adulthood for the human race" - Robert Heinlein
I don't mean at all to denigrate that idea since it was true in that context but, as we have seen in almost fifty years since then, the human race didn't mature at all. However, in the longer view, it seems inevitable that warring will stop and that was the view from Clarke and Heinlein although not so much from Heinlein.
It's exceptional to see Cronkite again after so many years, particularly given the low quality of newsreaders today.
In large part, the poor outlook on the future in so many people comes from the poor outlook of the newsreaders and their bosses more than anything else. You can easily hear Cronkite's enthusiasm and positivity for the future but you will have a tough time finding anything of that nature today.
It's largely because the newsreaders have nothing to say. There hasn't been news of this magnitude since but the quantity of news hasn't reduced, instead it's increased and radically so. The corporate thinking was to fill the news screens with hot babes and the news will take care of itself. That's no reflection on women in general but it carries volumes about hot babes on the news.
Cronkite said news of the Moon landing was up there with hearing the announcement 'there will be no more war' and that kind of enthusiasm for positivity is woefully absent today.
"The human race will not die. It will go on and on and on ..." - Robert Heinlein
It's foolish for me to interpret what they said and more to the point is the effect of what they said. The personal effect was enormous since I was nineteen at the time and the positive enthusiasm was enormously infectious. The future looks good and, man, it just got so much more vast. That would be shattered the next year when I was drafted but I didn't know that at the time.
The whole world felt it and even the hardest cranks sat to check out Neil Armstrong taking the first step.
Sure I remember where I was when JFK died but for this I remember every moment.
"We're picking up some dust here"
Today that's nothing but then, man, that's Moon dust.
Here at the Rockhouse, we believe, just as much now as when we watched Armstrong take that small step, the future that represented exists even more strongly than it ever did. Humans are capable of so incredibly much more than all the petty disturbances caused by tribal chieftains. Humans are better than that; the chieftains are just louder.
When humans do what we want to do instead of what we'e told, Jonas Salk invents the polio vaccine and then gives it away.
Note: that's true. He did.
Humans aren't just better than the chieftains, we're far better.
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