author: Carl Sagan
content: "I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and\
  \ superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason\
  \ more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic\
  \ or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to\
  \ national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place\
  \ and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us\u2014then, habits of\
  \ thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.\nThe candle flame gutters.\
  \ Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
id: 45b8c98d-20f6-4457-9362-b34f724475d4