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Wealth, Welfare and the Brother-In-Law Rule
One of the enigmas of the American political landscape is the impoverished Republican. This is the American with very little money, and many unmet needs, who nevertheless votes for people and policies that will deny him or her assistance. Indeed, many of the reddest states in the nation—those whose leaders want to gut the state’s welfare programs—are among the largest beneficiaries of government aid. This makes no sense. With economic inequality at a historic high, why would so many Americans want to cut spending on social services targeted specifically for them?
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Advance Warning for Light Changes Could Make Intersections Safer
A major survey by the car insurance industry found that nearly 85% of drivers could not identify the correct action to take when approaching a yellow traffic light at an intersection (and, no, the correct response is not to speed up). When a traffic light changes from green to yellow we have to make quick decisions without much information, making them one of the more dangerous encounters on the road. In 2009, the Federal Highway Administration estimated there were 1.2 million crashes at intersections with traffic signals, resulting in 372,000 fatalities or injuries.
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Schadenfreude in Gaza
The Washington Post: Joshua Tucker: The following is a guest post from social psychologists Jay Van Bavel (New York University) and Mina Cikara (Harvard University) ***** As the Gaza-Israel conflict began escalating last month, there were widely circulated reports that Israeli spectators had gathered on garden chairs and old sofas to cheer as bombs rained down on people living in Gaza just a few miles away. This expression of malicious glee is hardly unique to Israelis; Palestinians have also been seen standing on rooftops and celebrating when Hamas fires rockets at cities in Israel.
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Does Believing in Evil Make Us More Violent and Less Tolerant?
New York Magazine: Two weeks ago, many people will tell you, we saw the face of evil. Well, not its face, exactly, since James Foley’s killer wore a black mask as he horrifically beheaded the missing journalist who was kidnapped in Syria in 2012. But the sheer brutality, the sheer inhumanity displayed toward an innocent human being was, in the eyes of much of the world, simply evil incarnate. Since the video was released, there’s been a hardening in public opinion about the Islamic State, the group which murdered Foley and has seized shocking amounts of territory in Syria and Iraq.
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I Talked to Strangers for a Week, and It Did Not Go Well
New York Magazine: Recently, Matthew Hutson argued in a Science of Us piece that New Yorkers might be happier if we engaged in a little more small talk. That story cited a new study in which some Chicago commuters were told to strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to them on the train; they later reported enjoying their commute more than the people who’d been told to sit in silence for the ride. It’s a nice idea, I thought while reading the post — a very nice idea. At the same time: Who would actually do that? ... I’m not usually an overly shy person or anything, but this whole thing has me overthinking things a little.
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Too much tech? An argument for keeping schools low-tech
The Washington Post: Too much tech? One thousand: That’s approximately the number of instructional hours required of U.S. middle school and high school students each year. Four thousand: That’s approximately the number of hours of digital media content U.S. youths aged 8 to 18 absorb each year.
