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Weekend Reads 6/29/19

Republicans Don’t Understand Democrats—And Democrats Don’t Understand Republicans

If the reasons for mutual hatred are rooted as much in mutual misunderstanding as in genuine differences of values, that suggests Americans’ divisions should in principle be easy to remedy. It’s all just a matter of education.

Unfortunately, the “Perception Gap” study suggests that neither the media nor the universities are likely to remedy Americans’ inability to hear one another: It found that the best educated and most politically interested Americans are more likely to vilify their political adversaries than their less educated, less tuned-in peers.

Life is not a zero-sum game

We fool ourselves when we entertain the notion that there is only so much love to go around. When I receive more love, is somebody else therefore receiving less? If I share my $5,000 by giving four people $1,000 each and end up having only one-fifth of what I had to start with, zero-sum thinking would suggest I’m in a deficit situation. But love and generosity don’t work this way. The world is not an inelastic, closed universe. To give is to receive. To shower others with blessing is to be blessed oneself.

What Would Bernie Bomb?

Yet during his 2016 presidential campaign, Sanders’ counterterrorism rhetoric was more muted. He said on multiple occasions that while errant drone strikes are “terrible” and “counterproductive,” drones have also “done some good things,” and “taken out people who should be taken out.” And so, he said, he would continue to use drones, “very selectively and effectively.”

Researchers Discover Giant Freshwater Aquifer off U.S. East Coast

This analysis revealed a continuous, low-salinity aquifer system in both locations, most of it separated from the overlying seawater by hundreds of feet of sediment. Given the similarities between the two sites and the fact that onshore aquifers exist up and down the coast, the researchers believe it’s very likely the aquifer spans this entire stretch of coastline—although doing more surveys between New Jersey and Massachusetts in order verify that would be a “next logical step,” Gustafon said.

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