You don’t think that maybe people are just insecure about it? How does one display that they are smarter! Usually through conversation. So I think that is natural.
No, I don’t think that maybe people are just insecure about it, because there are more intelligent people than him who are less pompous. If you were right, that wouldn’t be possible.
What does intimidation have to do with anything? He's just pompous. He's smart and educated, but that doesn't mean he's not full of himself. And I don't find him particularly entertaining.
I used to be a fan of Neil until I saw how he conducts himself in person. He is not only arrogant but also needlessly cruel. I watched him make a girl break down and cry in front of an auditorium full of hundreds of people by ridiculing her and the question she asked during the q and a part of his visit. It was intentional and unnecessary. And he even made condescending remarks referring back to her after later questions so it wasn’t like he was accidentally too heavy handed with his initial dismissal of her.
I don’t know him and never met him so my opinion is colored purely by the content of his I have seen, and I get the same impression. For someone being poised as Sagan’s successor, I’m not convinced he’s got the right approach.
I still credit him with really sparking my interest in science, but he’s taken a the lighthearted question of “could this work in the real world?” to extremely pedantic and unpleasant extremes. Who the fuck cares if “uhm actually the stars didn’t look like that when the Titanic went down”?
I don’t think he’s a bad person, just a jerk and not someone I’d want to be stuck in an elevator with. Nowadays you have people like Randall Muroe, Adam Savage, Steve Mould, etc. who still dive into speculative physics while keeping it fun and fostering curiosity.
I’m not sure if I would say he’s a bad person. Much more certain about saying that he is not a good person. I look forward to someone else stepping into the role of scientific ambassador to the common folk.
I was excited for it but the plots are boring and the continued with the worst parts of the precanceled show, namely doing topical bits. I’m not taking a stance but I found the pandemic episode to be so boring like just not what I want from them.
Some of the other episodes were really solid but I hope they go lore and scifi heavy and stay away from topical going forward.
I like the season and still agree with you. At the least they need a lighter touch with the topical stuff so that it’s not so on the nose.
The problem with topical cartoons set a thousand years in the future is two fold. First, life moves fast but production times don’t. By the time an episode comes out either it’s no longer topical or at the least the talking points are a year old. South Park gets away with it because they have short production times (ok, they used to, I haven’t seen it in years so I don’t know if that’s still the case). Second, if it’s not dated, I promise the viewers are watching a funny space show to escape the constant bombardment and fatigue of it for 23ish minutes.
There are tropes that can be used from topical episodes that don’t have to be super on the nose. How people react to an epidemic is a super interesting thing to explore and we learned a whole lot in the last few years. But that can be explored while trusting your audience.
That’s the point of speculative fiction. Explore today’s problems in a way that forces you to think of tomorrow’s solutions.
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