WEBVTT - Selects: How Empathy Works 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:04.240 Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, Good Saturday to you. 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:09.000 Chuck Bryant here podcaster co host Stuff you Should Know 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.600 to introduce the Saturday Selects episode My pick this week 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.720 everybody is empathy. We all need a little empathy in 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.640 our lives. And I remember this being a pretty good episode. 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:23.720 This is from April six. Listen close and take heed 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:31.920 how empathy works. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:41.640 production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:47.360 I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck, Lena my Shoulder 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:53.199 Bryant and Jerry. How about a hug rolland no, actually, 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:57.200 I'm sorry, Jerry's here in spirit. Our guest producer today 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:03.680 is Noel my Beard. He'll is all Brown. Yes, everybody 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:07.400 knows it's Noel Brown. Are you using your empathy voice? Yeah? 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:11.640 Is it working? Ein ful? In? Nobody? Really, it's the 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.520 bad eyes. Let's say I cut you for ten dollars. 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:21.400 Oh how are you, sir? I'm feeling um empathetic good. 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:27.480 I'm doing good. I have some very strong opinions on empathy, 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:30.759 and not just empathy, but empathy research in particulars. I'm 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.120 sure you're not at all surprised to hear. I'm not 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:35.399 at all surprised to hear. Did you come to the 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.440 same or similar conclusions as I did? I don't know 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:42.440 yet because we don't talk about this stuff beforehand. That's true, 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:47.960 that's how we that's the magic going blind. Did you 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:51.440 know that there's like an Atlanta magic thing? Now, what 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:54.800 do you mean, like a society something something along? I 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.000 just saw a sign for it, an old fourth ward. 0:01:57.080 --> 0:01:59.920 But there's like a seems to be a legitimate magician. 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.640 What's that castle in l A, Oh, the Magic Castle. 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:07.160 It's not that, but it's probably something that the people 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:09.560 who do the Atlanta thing or I'm sure aware of 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.160 the Magic Castle. Probably And then you did a double 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:14.040 take at the sign and it disappeared in a poop 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:18.359 of smart It would be great. I went to the 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:22.520 Magic Castle once, Lucky. Yeah, it's awesome. I think we 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:24.799 had this conversation because I asked you if you've seen 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:28.200 that documentary about the kids competition at the Magic Castle. Yeah, 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:30.919 I have not, but um, it's a really good choke. Yeah, 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:33.280 if if you can highly recommend it, if you can 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:36.359 get in, you gotta know somebody. You gotta know Ben 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:40.880 Stiller oh really. Now, there was a movie that he 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:43.240 was in that took place in the Magic Castle and 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:45.000 he was like the bad guy. I think I don't 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:49.440 remember what it was. Maybe it was that documentary. Well, 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:52.800 let's talk empathy, chuck. Alrighty wait, hold on, I have 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.640 an intro. I have an intro. Okay, are you familiar 0:02:55.680 --> 0:03:00.320 with Frank Rich, the left leaning well lefty is heck essayist? 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.359 I don't think so. He Uh, he's good. He's about 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.480 his He's about as good an essayist as you'll find 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:11.360 on the left. Um, he's a consultant on Veep. He 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:15.079 just he's hilarious and he knows his stuff right. He 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:17.680 usually writes for Harper's, but he's also got a regular 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:20.400 gig in New York Magazine and in New York Magazine. 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:24.320 Recently he published a column I think this week, um, 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:27.440 well this week as of when we're recording this, and 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.080 I think it was called like no Sympathy for the 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:34.120 Hillbilly or something like that, and it was basically, this 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.800 is really astounding coming from him, but it was basically 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:41.360 him saying, you know what, Um, I know that on 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.720 the left people tend to be bleeding heart liberals and 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:48.280 want to empathize with everybody and feel everyone else's pain 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:52.280 and understand where people are coming from. But I believe 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.920 that if you voted for Trump and you're angry, or 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:57.880 if I believe if you're angry at the people who 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:00.160 voted for Trump, are angry that Trump is president in it, 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:02.520 you should be angry at the people who voted him 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:06.360 into into office as well. And he basically is beating 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:08.839 a drum, which I also started to see in other 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:11.960 places as well, where it's like, no, you don't have 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:14.560 to understand people who voted for Trump, you don't have 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:16.880 to love your enemy. Let's just go to war with 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:20.240 these people, and it's it's it's legitimate. He is totally 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:24.240 serious too, and it amounts to basically a call to 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.280 go to the dark side, to resist everything that you know, 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.200 the left has traditionally prided itself on and just go 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:37.440 full bore like culture war against the right, and um, 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:40.040 it just seems like a really bad idea to me. 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.440 But one of the things that stuck out to me 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:47.000 about it the most was that it was so contrary 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:51.000 to the um ethos, the prevailing thought of the time, 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:53.680 or at least what made up the Obama administration, which 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:56.279 was we need to be more empathetic, we need to 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.640 understand people's plight more. And even after Hillary lost people 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.440 into the big post mortems was Hillary didn't connect with 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:05.080 blue collar workers who were out of work. She was 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.400 totally out of touch with that, she couldn't empathize with them. Well, 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.320 I think further pours mortem has been like Hillary could 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:13.320 empathize with those people all day, but they hated her 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:15.520 and they were never going to vote for And now 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:20.080 Frank Rich is saying, so hate them back is the thing. Again. 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:22.920 I disagree with that, but it really points out how 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:26.520 what a fragile turning point we're at right now this 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.840 path in history on America. Are we gonna stay and 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.839 just keep trying to be empathetic or we again just 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:35.599 gonna go full board to the dark side and and 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:40.480 just everybody's gonna hate everybody who's just who's not like them. 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:45.240 Quite an intro, thank you for a coastal elite. Oh 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:48.120 I'm not a coastal elite. I'm just kidding. I just 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:50.839 like that phrase. I hope I'm not. Man. I really 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:53.080 don't think I am, and I hope people don't think 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.400 I am. I I do stick my pinkie in the 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.320 air when I take SIPs of water, and that water 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:04.719 has been st through a m Franciscan monks mouth. First, 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:06.840 I don't think the only water I'll drink. I don't 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.400 think you can be a coastal elite if you have 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:13.920 your roots in Toledo, right, exactly. And I don't forget 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:16.320 where I'm from, man, and my family, you know, has 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:20.240 long roots in Tennessee and Mississippi. If you know this 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.719 by reading my Wikipedia page, right, does it say that 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.599 you're part choctaw On there yet? I'm sure it will soon, 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:30.600 all right. So we're talking empathy here. Um. A lot 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:33.120 of this sounded familiar, so much so that I like 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:36.279 quadruple checked that we had not done this. Um. And 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:38.240 I think we've just talked about it a lot, and 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:44.240 namely and uh in our Mirror Neurons episode. Yeah, um, 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.479 and I thought about that one a lot when I 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:49.159 was researching this. Well. I think it's definitely a component 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:51.920 of empathy, but it's not to be confused with empathy. 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.480 It's like part of it, I think, is the impression 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.800 I have agreed. So, um, empathy, if you look at 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:03.000 our that's a great article. Uh, they do define it. Um, 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:04.960 you know, everyone kind of knows what it is. But 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:08.800 just to be clear, it's not sympathy. It's it's if 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:12.720 you can feel and share someone else's emotions. Is empathy, 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.679 which is different than sympathy, and that uh, you're don't 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.600 you're not feeling it, but you do care about it, 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.480 right right, It's like, um, you can understand why someone 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:28.440 would be feeling like they're feeling. Is intellectual, Yeah, Like 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.080 sympathies from the brain and empathy is from say, the heart. Yeah, 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.280 and a lot of these words. When we get into 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:37.640 the definitions of empathy and versus compassion, it gets a 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:41.760 little uh, I don't know. Sometimes I feel like people 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:45.520 are kind of splitting hairs with that. To me, chuck 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.040 is a huge red flag that the field is not 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.120 nearly as established as people like to think. Like, if 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:56.000 there's still confusion on basic terms like empathy and sympathy 0:07:56.240 --> 0:08:00.200 and they're used interchangeably, it just means that no one 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.600 is doing the right kind of hardcore research. You're publishing 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:05.560 the right kind of hardcore papers that say this is 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:07.200 what it is, or this is what it not, this 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.400 is what it isn't. Almost just said, this is what 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:15.200 it not is, this is what it ain't no coastal elite. 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:20.600 But there was an original German word um einfulung, which 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.000 means feeling into And that's where empathy comes from. And 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.960 if you talk to an expert or a researcher um 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:29.559 these days, they're gonna talk about a couple of types 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:35.320 of empathy, UM effective or maybe emotional empathy and cognitive 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:40.080 empathy and UM. The distinction is, as it turns out, 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:45.000 is pretty important and to me, well, to me, this 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.520 is where a little bit of the splitting hairs comes 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:52.600 in because as far as talking about um effective empathy 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.920 versus compassion, like is it the same thing or I'm sorry, 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.440 cognitive empathy would be more like compassion because you're not 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:04.000 really taking on someone else's pain. So compassion, I think, 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.080 is even like a third word. This is so this 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:10.559 is what I came up with. You've got cognitive empathy, 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:14.520 which is sympathy, right you can understand why someone would 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:20.120 be feeling a certain way. Then you've got effective empathy 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:23.720 one d it okay, which is like you're really putting 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.240 yourself in that person shoes and you're feeling how they're feeling. 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.720 Right then. But then compassion, it seems to me, is 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:32.680 the end goal of this. That's where you actually moved 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:34.960 to act. That's where you do something about it. It's 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:38.800 where you put your hand on someone's shoulder and say 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.480 it's gonna be all right, or you know, here's a 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:46.480 check for five dollars, um, get some groceries with it. 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:48.480 Who knows what you're gonna do. But I think to me, 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:52.360 compassion is the act, like the action, the end goal 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:57.840 of empathy, whether it's cognitive or um or effective. That's 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:00.320 that's what I think. And you know what, this fields 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:04.240 are so unestablished that I can just say that stuff. Yeah, 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:06.600 and it's probably right. Let's just say that that's true. 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:09.400 No one can really come along and say definitively that 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.600 you're not right right. Uh, So you know, to put 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:14.760 given you an example of what that might mean. Effective 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:17.760 or emotional empathy. Um, if someone if you have a 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.920 friend or family member going through a very hard time, uh, 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:24.160 and they're distraught, and then you are also distraught just 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:28.920 like they are, then that is definitely effective empathy. Whereas 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:31.640 you're not just like, oh man, you know your your 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:33.840 uncle passed away. I'm really sorry to hear that, and 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:36.560 I feel terribly for you. But if if you were, 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:41.040 you know, actively taking that on to the point where 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:44.760 you're crying too, and you didn't know the uncle, because 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:47.800 that would be the differentiation. Right, It's like you don't 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:49.720 have a personal stake in it, but you're still taking 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.760 it on as if it is your own. Yes, and 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:58.000 then depending on your view of things, And we'll talk 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.360 a lot about this. There's this really great see collegiest 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:03.520 named Paul Bloom who has basically dedicated a lot of 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.720 his life to shooting down ideas of how great empathy is. Yeah, 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:09.360 I thought he was. I thought he made a lot 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:11.360 of good points and something quite agree with either. But 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.520 he's great. He's really good at and poking holes in 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:18.560 the concept of empathy. But he points out that, um that, 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.600 I guess it's probably good if somebody's something, someone's in 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:25.600 a great mood and you're empathetic and sharing in that 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.320 great mood and amplifying it. But on the flip side 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:32.400 of the coin, if somebody is in a horrifically tragically 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:36.679 sad mood and you're sitting there amplifying that by joining 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.360 in part and parcel with it, then you're you're doing 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:44.679 a disservice, right, So in some in some ways, UM, well, 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:48.800 I'll just say Paul Bloom's whole basic, his whole thesis, 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:51.359 and I subscribe to it as well, is that cognitive 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:55.080 is far and away the superior of the two types 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.400 of empathy as far as the ultimate goal, which again 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.560 to me is compassion. Yes, you want to just pepper 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:03.560 in some of his stuff as we go. Does that 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:07.640 make sense? Because here's a great spot too. Uh. And 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:10.840 this is one of the studies I imagine. I don't 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:12.400 know if you had a problem with it, but a 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:15.319 problem with a lot of these studies. Um. But there 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:19.760 was a study, um, at least one where psychologists said, um, 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.200 how much money will you donate to develop a drug 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:25.480 that would save one child's life? Um? And then another 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.560 group was asked, how much would you donate to develop 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:31.280 a drug that would save eight kids? And it was 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:34.199 about the same answer. UM. Where things changed was when 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.880 they asked a third group about the one child. But 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:39.640 they showed a picture of the kid and like you know, 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.240 I said, this is this little Joey. He's fourteen years old, 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:46.319 and this is his sad little face. And then donations 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:49.880 really shot up. And this is where um, what was 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:52.719 his name, Paul Bloom, Paul Bloom, a psychologist. Yeah, this 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:56.480 is where Paul Bloom says that, um, this emotional empathy 0:12:56.600 --> 0:13:01.840 is for the birds because A it's it's um, it's narrow, 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:06.160 and B it's very like people tend to want to 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:09.360 help people that are like them. So it's yeah, I 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:13.120 mean biases that the right word super biased. Yeah, And 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:15.520 and it makes no sense. Not only does it not 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.880 scale upward as the number of people affect by, say, 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.280 like a tragedy increase, it actually goes the other way, 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.520 where the more people that are affected by something, the 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:29.240 less empathetic a person tends to be. Whereas if say 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.480 it's one person and you know that person's name, and 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:34.680 you see that person's picture on the news, and yeah, 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:37.319 they look like you or your neighbor, your daughter, You're 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.360 gonna empathize a lot. But at the same time, there 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.560 could be you know, the same thing could be happening 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:45.760 to other people and if you'll just vote a certain way, 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.440 you can alleviate their suffering. You wouldn't lift a finger 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:51.600 to do it, especially if it meant slightly higher taxes 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:56.160 for you. So in that sense. Empathy makes no sense whatsoever. Yeah. 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.280 I mean he even quoted Mother Teresa and his UH 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.520 in the essay, which is UM quote, if I look 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:04.760 at the mass, I will never act. If I look 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.760 at the one, I will So he's going with the 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.840 heavy hitters there, you know, when you bring Mother Teresa 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:15.000 in there to kind of make a point. Yeah, but 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:17.320 you know he makes a good point. Um. Oh yeah, 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:20.440 Like and and that study does. I didn't have a 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:22.040 big problem with that study because it does kind of 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.200 prove that out right. That was Telea Coca and uh 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:30.280 Alana Ritov, their psychologists. And then Ritov and another UM 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:34.520 co author conducted another study where UM that kind of 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:36.960 pointed out one of the problems with empathy, which was 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.520 they said, okay, UM, two different groups of people heard 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:45.320 this that UM that a vaccine maker cost a child 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:49.720 her life, kill the child because of the vaccine. Now, UM, 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.520 should the vaccine maker be fined? And then one group 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.720 was told that the fine would probably make the vaccine 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:01.440 maker UM follow guidelines even more strictly and would probably 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:05.040 prevent accidents, and then the other further accidents, and then 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.760 the UM the other group was told that this fine 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.400 would probably make the vaccine maker get out of the 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.960 business and more people would die because they couldn't get 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:20.600 the vaccine. And both groups said that yes, the vaccine 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.800 maker should be punished with um the highest fine possible 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:27.480 with extreme prejudice. Right. So the upshot of all of 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:32.000 this is that especially with UM effective empathy as we 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:36.800 understand it, we we it doesn't It doesn't follow any 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:40.000 kind of rational guidelines, and rather the basis of rationality 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:44.080 being that two is more important than one, and empathy 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:48.520 just doesn't go in that direction. Yeah. But um, Interestingly, UM, 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:52.640 while you can train yourself to be more empathetic, it 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:56.880 definitely to me feels like something that you're sort of 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.320 born with to a certain degree, or maybe in the 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:03.080 formative years you might gain UM. But uh. In in 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:07.360 blooms article, he talks about babies and as as soon 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:09.480 as a baby can get up and start getting around, 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.000 they're gonna try and comfort. Like if you go into 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:16.240 a preschool and there's another baby crying, you will probably 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:18.640 see another little baby walking over there and patting the 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.120 little baby and stroking the baby. There's nothing more adorable 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:26.720 than pretty adorable. Um. And you know it happens in 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.680 the animal Kingdom UM, although they did note UM this, 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:36.000 Franz de Wal the Pramatologists notes that it kind of 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:40.080 follows humans in a way and that um, a chimpanzee 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:44.800 might really um like put like hug a victim of 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:49.080 an attack, but it's got to be another chimp. Like 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:51.520 if they're like they will smash the brains out of 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:53.720 another kind of monkey maybe if it wanders into their 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:57.440 little village. That to me kind of underscores this whole, 0:16:57.920 --> 0:16:59.920 this whole thing like when we when we look at EMPI, 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:02.960 the the first question that people have is like, why 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:04.840 don't we have more empathy or why don't we have 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.879 empathy for everybody? We're all humans, And it seems like 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.560 based on France to Walls studies and UM other studies 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:15.200 about the the evolution of in group and out group behavior, 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:19.080 like we we evolved over hundreds of thousands, if not 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:22.160 millions of years. I guess more than that. If you're 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.159 if you're also looking at the grade apes right to 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:29.400 see other groups that aren't like us as threatening, right, 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:33.560 it makes sense in an evolutionary speaking right, and it's 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:36.800 it's only in like the last uh ten eleven thousand 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.480 years that we settled down and started forming cities. But 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:41.520 even then there was in group and out group people 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:44.200 you didn't recognize were coming to kill you for your crops. 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:46.320 So you needed to fight those people. You didn't need 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:48.800 to empathize with them that, oh you're hungry, so you're 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:51.600 gonna take my life. I understand, right. That didn't That 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:55.960 didn't jibe with natural selection. But then you add jets 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.920 into the mix, and then TV and then the Internet, 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:01.600 and all of a sudden, we're exposed to more in 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:04.040 groups and out groups and are expected to get along 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:07.320 more civilly than ever before. But our evolution hasn't caught 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:10.159 up quite enough, right, So now we're faced at this 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:12.040 point where it's like, okay, we just need to figure 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:15.160 out how to empathize more, and this last vestige that's 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:19.240 holding back a completely civil global society will fade away. 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:21.320 In France, to all put it pretty well, he said, 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:24.840 this is the challenge of our time, globalization by a 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:28.200 tribal species, and that's where we're facing right now. And 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:30.439 right now it feels like, at least in the United States, 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:33.680 we're backsliding. Yeah, well, that's a good place to take 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:36.480 a break, I think. Yeah, all right, well, we're gonna 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:37.960 come back in just a minute and talk a little 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:41.800 bit about something called the racial empathy gap right after this. 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:11.880 All right, So I promised some talk about race, and 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.359 there's something called the racial empathy gap. Um studies of 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:18.359 kind of. I mean, if you walk around as a 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:20.720 living breath and human human being, you can probably tell 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:23.159 that that's something. But they have done studies on it, 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:26.040 and um, a lot of these studies are a little 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:30.040 hinky to me. But uh, in one they showed video 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:36.440 clips of a needle going into someone's skin, uh, notably 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:41.360 a white person's skin at first, and what they found was, um, 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:45.639 white people reacted more or with more empathy when the 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.240 needle went into white skin than when it went into 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.560 dark skin. Right or they had they showed more signs 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:54.280 of distress, like they started to sweat a little more sure, 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:56.640 their hearts started to beat a little faster. Yeah, that's 0:19:56.640 --> 0:20:00.880 where I think mirror neurons might come into play. Um, right, Yeah, 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:03.720 that's what they're like, it's brain wiring. That's a huge 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:07.399 problem with reading about empathy in the popular media. They're 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:12.040 huge jumps from mirror neurons to full on effective empathy 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:15.320 with just the switch of a sentence and then or 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.720 the the stroke of a headline, like and so people 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:21.000 are not talking about the same thing. And I'm sure 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:24.439 there's plenty of empathy researchers out there that are just like, guys, guys, 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:27.680 this is not like you're making huge jumps at the conclusion. 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:31.439 Everybody's like, shut up, doesn't matter, We're selling clicks, you know. 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:35.680 But so, yes, that's so. It is surely setting off 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:40.280 mirror neurons. I don't understand how it's being translated into empathy. 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:44.080 Aside from I think a lot of the empathy studies 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:47.800 involves self reporting. So I think what they're doing is 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:54.480 they're saying, oh, well, uh subject nine, Um, their heart 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.480 really started beating, and look at this on this questionnaire 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:00.919 they filled out, they really consider themselves an empathetic person, 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:06.920 ipso facto, an empathetic person is responding very empathetically right 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:09.800 now to seeing this needle. Yeah, like, what if they 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:13.680 showed painted someone's skin green, Well, they have they've done 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:16.320 violet tended and actually tell you the truth. As far 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:20.200 as correlating with self reports, um, that that does tend 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:25.160 to be a pretty good um control the truth because 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:31.000 apparently all people respond to that one, Huh, isn't that interesting? Yeah? 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:34.720 It is, actually, Um, there is something going on there though. 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:36.840 I mean we're not like discounting that because they have 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.880 done studies that show that minorities, um, maybe don't get 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:45.359 pain medication like they should compared to white people. Uh. 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:47.600 And I don't know. It seems like a racial empathy 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.680 gap is a pretty decent explanation for that for sure, 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:53.200 or in the criminal justice system, which we've talked a 0:21:53.240 --> 0:22:00.439 lot about, or maybe just in empathy altogether between races. Yet. 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:04.320 So if you're if you're a judge though, and you're 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:08.560 you're not following sentencing guidelines, you're just using your own 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:11.680 personal biases to hand out sentences and you have people's 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:14.639 lives and futures in your hands. Yeah, you're not following 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:16.920 the law, you're following your own bias. You're a piece 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:18.800 of garbage. Well, and you have nothing to do with 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:21.080 you being an empathetic person or not. What about that 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:25.800 judge who remember the guy the swimmer who raped the 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:28.480 girl by the dumpster. It was obvious that judge was 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:30.680 kind of like, oh, look at this kid, like, oh, 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:32.719 I don't want to ruin his future. I don't want 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:34.600 to ruin his future, like that could have been my son. 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:37.080 You know, it's kind of like me. It was clearly 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:42.400 bias and empathy going on because he was like him, right, 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:45.239 And there's no way if that would have been some 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:47.840 black kid that he wouldn't have ruled differently. I just 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:50.440 there's no no one can convince me that that that's 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:52.800 not the truth, right, And I think that there's like 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:55.800 there's another distinction that's eventually going to be hammered out 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:59.360 to Like I don't think he was empathizing with that 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:02.880 swimmer kid. If he was, I could be wrong, who knows, 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:05.560 but I think he was m at the very least 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:08.640 exhibiting a bias that yes, he let the kid off 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:12.240 off the hook, um because he looked like I think 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:14.560 he might have been sympathizing with him though. Sure, Yeah, 0:23:14.600 --> 0:23:18.200 because he even flat outsaid like this could ruin his life. Yeah, 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:21.720 he was definitely sympathizing at least for sure. Boy uh 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:26.240