Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization

by Neil deGrasse Tyson

You know you’re living in the future when you can board a hundred-ton pressurized aluminum tube with wings, fly smoothly in a cushioned chair at 500 miles per hour, 31,000 feet above Earth’s surface, and while crossing the continent, get served a pasta dinner and a mixed drink by someone whose job, in part, is to make you comfortable. And for most of the trip you surf the internet, watch any one of a hundred movies, only to land safely and smoothly a few hours later and complain that the marinara sauce was not to your liking.

They are collectively called “lawmakers.” Do the persistent impasses in congressional deliberations owe their origins to the art of arguing rather than the science of truth-finding?