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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

Care to elaborate? I've always held Sagan in utmost esteem and I'm curious others' takes are.

The last time I read his Wikipedia entry it mentioned that contemporaneous scientists felt he wasn't contributing much to the field despite his fame, but I think public outreach is immensely valuable in shaping the next generation of discoverers and policy makers.

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I met him once. Right after Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacted Jupiter there was an event at the Mountain View Holiday Inn where he talked about it. I'd arrived a bit early (as an attendee), and while waiting for things to kick off I snuck out for a cigarette. Halfway through it, there was Carl (f*cking) Sagan walking across the parking lot towards me! I dropped/stubbed my cig and told him how much I was inspired by 'Cosmos' and especially by the Library of Alexandria episode/ He said yes, it was really good and that was mainly down to his wife's work. And then he signed my cheap paperback copy of 'Cosmos' and headed in to the seminar. I'm sure he could be a dick. But that certainly wasn't all he was.

Was this a Planetary Society event?

Yes, almost certainly.

Somewhat unrelated but his Library of Alexandria episode is not very accurate:

https://historyforatheists.com/2017/07/the-destruction-of-th... https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/1nqrl0/carl_sag...

The reasonably famous people I have interacted with had public and private personas that were very distinct from each other. The public persona is what most people but the private persona can be very different. Being famous is basically an acting job. And to become famous you usually have to be very driven and can't always be nice.

i saw sagan speak at berkeley in the mid nineties. he was shockingly and brazenly rude to the person running the a/v setup, through his microphone, so the entire overflowing audience could hear every last detail. it was way over the top. appreciate all he’s done for science and outreach but it seems he had an intense personality.

Similar to all the ragers about NdGT. Scientists awful at marketing angry about guy who can function well on the radio and tv and inspire funding and the next generation.

Reminds me of all the people still mad about dodgeball in HS. Neil would have pummeled anyone in dodgeball and the nicest dude in person.

Unfortunately many prominent/famous people present an extremely curated and sanitized version of their personality to the public, and often treat people poorly in private. Shame to learn that seems to have been the case for someone like Sagan.

I've never publicly said this before, but I had this experience with Donald Knuth - I emailed asking him for copyright permission for something on Wikipedia, and he gave it (public domain), but he was extremely nasty about it because I had to reply asking for clarification and apparently receiving an email was extremely disruptive to him.

I try not to talk to public figures, most of them are only nice when in the context of what they are trying to sell. The rare exceptions deserve the praise they get.

I don't even know why I'm writing this......... it was years ago.

Knuth's distaste for email is well known: https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html

That doesn't excuse being nasty to somebody, though.

Another perspective is that we idolize many prominent/famous people and when they have a normal range of emotions (fear, anger, disgust, resentment, frustration, etc.), or just having a bad day, we judge them for it.

Also, though our culture prizes it highly I think "being famous" is probably in many ways very weird and bad and seems to drive many people insane. I don't think I could handle it and would not wish it on an enemy.

The asymmetry of familiarity must be weird too.

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