Pie in the sky by and by – “prophets of science”

The term in the headline was first applied, I think, to the strongly Pentecostal roving brush arbor preachers of the Great Awakening in the States back in the early 1800s – whom Westerners referred to as “sky pilots.” It was picked up by “knights of the road” (hobos) and the dispossessed and displaced of the Dirty Thirties. It poked fun at these iterant preachers – mostly scam artists – who made a living by preaching about “giving to God” (meaning, in the preacher’s contribution basket) would reap wonderful benefits in heaven after death.

Politicians, of course, have been preaching a version of this for millennia – especially here in the States. Taxes now mean big wealth and other benefits sometime in the future. Soviet communism pushed this idea: their ideal of international socialism was to end in the wondrous glories and benefits of “true” communism sometime in the future when the “state” withered away.

Sadly, even some libertarian (self-proclaimed, at least) activists and advocates have behaved similarly: do away with the omnipresent state and its evils and we will enter into a golden age. Later, of course: by and by. It makes for a great science fiction story, but how likely is it to happen?

But we see it as really applying as much to engineering and science as to religion and politics. The wonders of technology, are always to appear on the markets “next year” or “the year after that” – flying cars and batteries that let trucks and cars travel for hundreds and hundreds of miles. Or just let that silly flashlight shine for more than a few hours! To say nothing of miracle tiny nuclear power plants or fusion power plants. Ah, the glories that are just around the corner!

Popular Science Magazine (popsci.com) and Popular Mechanics Magazine (popularmechanics.com) are two of those publications (and now websites) well-known for more than a century for this kind of boosterism. If only a tenth of what they predicted had come about within 20 years of when these publications claimed that they would, we would not recognize the world around us. The vast ships, the flying cars, the super-speed trains, the robotic vehicles, the high-rise farms, and the automated factories would have made the planet a physical and secular paradise!

Ditto for government: we are going to balance the budget – in ten or twenty years. Meanwhile, enjoy your $20 Chicken McNuggets and $5 beer (12-ounce can, or it is 11 ounces now?). And five-dollar or ten-dollar gasoline. But tomorrow will be oh, so glorious!

All of which “science” working together with politicians is going to solve for us. Manana.

And we believe them – just as we believe the clickbait lies about the next astroid, the rise of the ocean levels, and the efficacy of the next vaccine.

Isn’t it time we woke up and demanded (1) facts and (2) treating us as adults? Demanded that those who claim to own us (or at least act like they own us), those who bleed us dry of even the fake money they pawn off on us, actually fulfill their promises?

Just thinking…

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