WEBVTT - How Empathy Works 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:05.000 Hey, you may have noticed this past Saturday, you got 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:08.440 an extra episode of Stuff you should know. That's why, 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:11.280 as case selects. That's right, it was not a mistake. 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:13.960 What we decided to do here after nine plus years 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:17.080 is um you know. Maybe you don't know that we 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:21.320 have nine plus episodes. Uh, so we're gonna start throwing 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:25.040 out all I don't want to call it a rerun. Well, no, 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:30.520 it's a it's a hand selected curated episode by us. Yeah, 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.319 a classic if you will that. Joshua, pick one out, 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.159 I'll pick one out. Might be Newsy, it might just 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:37.959 be one of our favorites, and we're gonna run those 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.200 on Saturday. If you haven't heard it, check it out. 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:42.760 If you have, we'd love for you to listen again. Sure, 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:46.720 so check it out in your podcast feed. It's as 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:51.440 simple as that. Welcome to Stuff you should know from 0:00:51.440 --> 0:01:00.720 how Stuff works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:06.440 I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck, Lena, my Shoulder, 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:12.280 Bryant and Jerry. How about a hug Roland No, actually, 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:16.240 I'm sorry, Jerry's here in spirit. Our guest producer today 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:22.720 is Noel no my beard heels all Brown yes, everybody 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:26.440 knows it's Noel Brown. Are you using your empathy voice? Yeah? 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:30.840 Is it working needful? In nobody? Really? That's the b 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:36.559 D eyes. Let's say I cut you for ten dollars. Oh, 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:41.679 how are you, sir? I'm feeling empathetic good. I'm doing good. 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:46.840 I have some very strong opinions on empathy, and not 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:50.480 just empathy, but empathy research in particulars. I'm sure you're 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:52.480 not at all surprised to hear. I'm not at all 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.000 surprised to hear. Did you come to the same or 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.880 similar conclusions as I did? I don't know yet, because 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:01.840 we don't talk about this stuff beforehand. That's true, that's 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:07.120 how we that's the magic going blind. Did you know 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:10.600 that there's like an Atlanta magic thing? Now, what do 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:14.320 you mean? Society something something along? I just saw a 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:16.680 sign for it, an old fourth Ward. But there's like 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:20.760 a seems to be a legitimate magicians with's that castle 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:23.799 in l A. Oh, the magic Castle. It's not that, 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:26.720 but it's probably something that the people who do the 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:29.480 Atlanta thing or I'm sure aware of the magic Castle. 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:31.960 Probably And then you did a double ticket to sign 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:36.720 and it disappeared in a poop of smile. It would 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.960 be great. I went to the Magic Castle once, Lucky. Yeah, 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:42.959 it's awesome. I think we had this conversation because I 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.359 asked you if you've seen that documentary about the kids 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:47.840 competition at the Magic Castle. Yeah, and I have not, 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.520 but um, it's a really good choke. Yeah, if you 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:52.920 can highly recommend it. If you can get in, you 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:58.120 gotta know somebody. You gotta know Ben Stiller. Oh really no, 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:01.240 there's a movie that he was in that took place 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:03.320 in the Magic Castle and he was like the bad guy. 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.000 I think I don't remember what it was. Maybe it 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:11.639 was that documentary. Well, let's talk empathy, chuck. Wait, hold on, 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:14.240 I have an intro. I have an intro. Are you 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:18.400 familiar with Frank Rich, the left leaning, well lefty as 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:22.840 heck essayist. I don't think so. He Uh, he's good. 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:26.040 He's about his He's about as good an essayists as 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.840 you'll find on the left. Um, he's a consultant on Veep. 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.600 He just he's hilarious and he knows his stuff right. 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:36.400 He usually writes for Harper's but he's also got a 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.920 regular gig in New York Magazine and in New York magazine. Recently, 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:44.119 he published a column I think this week, um, well 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.080 this week as of when we're recording this, and I 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:49.720 think it was called like no Sympathy for the Hillbilly 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.320 or something like that, and it was basically, this is 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.720 really astounding coming from him, But it was basically him saying, 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:01.000 you know what, Um, I know that on the left 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.280 people tend to be bleeding heart liberals and want to 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:08.320 empathize with everybody and feel everyone else's pain and understand 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:12.080 where people are coming from. But I believe that if 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.400 you voted for Trump and you're angry, or if I 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:17.800 believe if you're angry at the people who voted for Trump, 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.400 are angry that Trump is president, you should be angry 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.599 at the people who voted him into into office as well. 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.920 And he basically is beating a drum, which I also 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.039 started to see in other places as well, where it's like, no, 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.080 you don't have to understand people who voted for Trump, 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:35.280 you don't have to love your enemy. Let's just go 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:38.719 to war with these people. And it's it's it's legitimate. 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:42.760 He's totally serious too, and it amounts to basically a 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.680 call to go to the dark side. To resist everything 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:49.159 that you know, the left has traditionally prided itself on, 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:55.120 and just go full bore like culture war against the right, 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:58.760 and um, it just seems like a really bad idea 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:01.200 to me. But one of the things that stuck out 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:03.720 to me about it the most was that it was 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:09.560 so contrary to the um ethos, the prevailing thought of 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.440 the time, or at least what made up the Obama administration, 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.240 which was we need to be more empathetic, we need 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.719 to understand people's plight more. And even after Hillary lost people, 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.320 one of the big post mortems was Hillary didn't connect 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:23.960 with blue collar workers who were out of work. She 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:26.479 was totally out of touch with that, she couldn't empathize 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.440 with them. Well, I think a further post mortem has 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:31.720 been like Hillary could empathize with those people all day, 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:33.120 but they hated her and they were never going to 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.760 vote for And now Frank Rich is saying, so hate 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.080 them back is the thing Again. I disagree with that, 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:43.960 but it really points out how what a fragile turning 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:47.240 point we're at right now this path in history on America. 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:49.839 Are we gonna stay and just keep trying to be 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:53.000 empathetic or we again just gonna go full board to 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.440 the dark side, and and just everybody's gonna hate everybody 0:05:56.480 --> 0:06:01.200 who's just who's not like them. White an intro, thank 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:05.839 you for a coastal elite. Oh, I'm not a coastal elite. 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:08.520 I'm just kidding. I just like that phrase. I hope 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:10.920 I'm not. Man. I really don't think I am, and 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.640 I hope people don't think I am. I do stick 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:16.919 my pinky in the air when I take SIPs of water, 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:21.680 and that water has been strained through a m Franciscan 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.640 monks mouth. First. I don't think the only water I'll drink. 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:27.520 I don't think you can be a coastal elite if 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:31.320 you have your roots in Toledo right exactly, you know, 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.920 And I don't forget where I'm from man, and my family, 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:38.200 you know, has long roots and Tennessee and Mississippi. If 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.280 you know this by reading my Wikipedia page, right, does 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:44.960 it say that you're part Choctaw on there yet? I'm 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:49.320 sure it will soon, all right, So we're talking empathy here. UM. 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:51.359 A lot of this sounded familiar, so much so that 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:55.240 I like Quadripple checked that we had not done this. Um, 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:57.080 and I think we've just talked about it a lot, 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:03.280 and namely and uh in our Mirror Neurons episode. Yeah. Um, 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:05.560 and I thought about that one a lot when I 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:08.240 was researching this. Well, I think it's definitely a component 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:11.000 of empathy, but it's not to be confused with empathy. 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.520 It's like part of it, I think is the impression 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.840 I have agreed. So, um, empathy if you look at 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:22.040 our not a great article, Uh, they do define it. Um. 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:24.040 You know, everyone kind of knows what it is. But 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.040 just to be clear, it's not sympathy. It's a it's 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:32.200 if you can feel and share someone else's emotions. Is empathy, 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:36.760 which is different than sympathy, and that uh you're don't 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.640 You're not feeling it, but you do care about it, 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.520 right right. It's like, um, you can understand why someone 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.480 would be feeling like they're feeling. Is intellectual yea, Like 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:51.160 sympathies from the brain and empathy is from say, the heart. Yeah, 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:53.360 and a lot of these words. When we get into 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:56.640 the definitions of empathy and versus compassion, it gets a 0:07:56.680 --> 0:08:00.560 little Uh, I don't know. Some times I feel like 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.040 people are kind of splitting hairs with that. To me, 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.880 chuck is a huge red flag that the field is 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:11.040 not nearly as established as people like to think. Like 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.080 if there's still confusion on basic terms like empathy and 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:19.000 sympathy and they're used interchangeably, it just means that no 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:22.680 one is doing the right kind of hardcore researcher publishing 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:24.600 the right kind of hardcore papers that say this is 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:26.280 what it is, or this is what it not, this 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.440 is what it isn't almost just said this is what 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:34.240 it not is, this is what it ain't. No coastal elite. 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:39.640 But there was an original German word um einfilung, which 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:42.040 means feeling into and that's where empathy comes from. And 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:46.000 if you talk to an expert or a researcher um 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:48.600 these days, they're gonna talk about a couple of types 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:54.359 of empathy, um effective or maybe emotional empathy and cognitive 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:59.120 empathy and um the distinction is, as it turns out, 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:03.840 is pretty important it and to me, well, to me, 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.160 this is where a little bit of the splitting hairs 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:10.400 comes in, because as far as talking about um effective 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:14.560 empathy versus compassion, like is it the same thing? Or 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:18.240 I'm sorry, cognitive empathy would be more like compassion because 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:22.640 you're not really taking on someone else's pain. So compassion, 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.920 I think, is even like a third word. This is so, 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:29.640 this is what I came up with. You've got cognitive empathy, 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:33.560 which is sympathy, right, you can understand why someone would 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:38.040 be feeling a certain way. Then then you've got effective empathy, 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:41.720 empathy which this one dude calls it okay, which is 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:43.959 like you're really putting yourself in that person shoes and 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.560 you're feeling how they're feeling. Right then, But then compassion, 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:50.160 it seems to me, is the end goal of this 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.839 That's where you actually moved to act. That's where you 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:55.319 do something about it. That's where you put your hand 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:59.080 on someone's shoulder and say it's gonna be all right, 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:04.480 or know, here's a check for five dollars um, get 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:06.720 some groceries with it. Who knows what you're gonna do. 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.040 But I think to me, compassion is the act, like 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:13.760 the action, the end goal of empathy, whether it's cognitive 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:17.640 or um or effective. And that's that's what I think. 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.880 And you know what, this field is so unestablished that 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.319 I can just say that stuff. Yeah, and it's probably right. 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:26.360 Let's just say that that's true. No one can really 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:30.600 come along and say definitively that you're not right right. Uh, 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:32.720 So you know, to put giving you an example of 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:35.880 what that might mean effective or emotional empathy. Um, if 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:37.959 someone if you have a friend or family member going 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:41.000 through a very hard time, uh, and they're distraught, and 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:44.680 then you are also distraught just like they are, then 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:48.880 that is definitely effective empathy. Whereas you're not just like, 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:51.679 oh man, you know your your uncle passed away. I'm 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:54.240 really sorry to hear that, and I feel terribly for you. 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.520 But if if you are you know, actively taking that 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.440 on to the point where you're crying too, and you 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:06.000 didn't know the uncle, because that would be the differentiation rights, 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:08.040 like you don't have a personal stake in it, but 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.480 you're still taking it on as if it is your own. Yes, 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:16.880 and then depending on your view of things, And we'll 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.400 talk a lot about this. There's this really great psychologist 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.560 named Paul Bloom who has basically dedicated a lot of 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:26.760 his life to shooting down ideas of how great empathy is. Yeah, 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:28.400 I thought he was. I thought he made a lot 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:30.439 of good points, and some quite agree with either. But 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.800 he's great. He's really good at poking holes in the 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:37.600 concept of empathy. But he points out that, um that, 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:41.640 I guess it's probably good if somebody's something, someone's in 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:44.640 a great mood and you're empathetic and sharing in that 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.360 great mood and amplifying it. But on the flip side 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:51.440 of the coin, if somebody is in a horrifically tragically 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:55.760 sad mood and you're sitting there amplifying that by joining 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.400 in part and parcel with it, then you're you're doing 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:03.760 a disservice, right, So in some in some ways, Um, well, 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:07.840 I'll just say Paul Bloom's whole basically, his whole thesis 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:10.400 and I subscribe to it as well, is that cognitive 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:14.120 is far and away the superior of the two types 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:17.440 of empathy as far as the ultimate goal, which again 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:20.600 to me is compassion. Yes, you want to just pepper 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:22.640 in some of his stuff as we go. Does that 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:26.680 make sense because here's a great spot too. Uh. And 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.880 this is one of the studies I imagine. I don't 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:31.240 know if you had a problem with it, but I 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.000 had a problem with a lot of these studies. Um. 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:36.560 But there was a study, um at least one where 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.360 psychologists said, um, how much money will you donate to 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.840 develop a drug that would save one child's life. Um. 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.320 And then another group was asked, how much would you 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.280 donate to develop a drug that would save eight kids? 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.120 And it was about the same answer. Um. Where things 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.120 changed was when they asked a third group about the 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:57.400 one child. But they showed a picture of the kid 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.000 and like, you know, I said, this is this little Joe. 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.520 He's fourteen years old, and this is his sad little face. 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:08.600 And then donations really shot up. And this is where, um, 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.760 what was his name, Paul Bloom, Paul Bloom, a psychologist. Yeah, 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.080 this is where Paul Bloom says that, um, this emotional 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:20.200 empathy is for the birds because A it's it's um, 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:24.440 it's narrow, and B it's very like people tend to 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:27.080 want to help people that are like them. So it's 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.920 I mean biases that the right word super biased. Yeah, 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.280 and and it it makes no sense. Not only does 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.960 it not scale upward as the number of people affect by, say, 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:41.280 like a tragedy increase, it actually goes the other way, 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:44.560 where the more people that are affected by something, the 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:48.319 less empathetic a person tends to be. Whereas if say 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:51.560 it's one person and you know that person's name, and 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:53.800 you see that person's picture on the news, and yeah, 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:56.360 they look like you or your neighbor, your daughter. You're 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:59.400 gonna empathize a lot. But at the same time, there 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:01.600 could be you know, the same thing could be happening 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.280 to fifty other people, and if you'll just vote a 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.160 certain way you can alleviate their suffering. You wouldn't lift 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.880 a finger to do it, especially if it meant slightly 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:12.640 higher taxes for you. So in that sense, empathy makes 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:16.760 no sense whatsoever. Yeah. I mean he even quoted Mother 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:21.120 Teresa in his uh in this essay, which is um quote, 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:23.080 if I look at the mass, I will never act. 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:26.240 If I look at the one, I will, So he's 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:29.960 going with the heavy hitters there, you know, when you 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:33.880 bring Mother Teresa in there to kind of make a point. Yeah, 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.560 but you know he makes a good point. Um oh yeah. 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.520 Like and and that study does. I didn't have a 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:41.120 big problem with that study because it does kind of 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:44.320 prove that out right. That was Telea Coca and uh 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:49.160 Alana Ritov, their psychologists, and then Ritov in another UM 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:53.560 co author, conducted another study where UM that kind of 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.000 pointed out one of the problems with empathy, which was 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.640 they said, Okay, UM. Two different groups of people heard this, 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:05.280 that UM that a vaccine maker cost a child her life, 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.800 kill the child because of the vaccine. Now, UM, should 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:12.720 the vaccine maker be fined? And then one group was 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.440 told that the fine would probably make the vaccine maker 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:21.600 UM follow guidelines even more strictly and would probably prevent accidents, 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:24.640 and then the other further accidents, and then the UM. 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:29.200 The other group was told that this fine would probably 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:32.360 make the vaccine maker get out of the business and 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.760 more people would die because they couldn't get the vaccine, 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:40.240 and both groups said that yes, the vaccine maker should 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:44.640 be punished with UM the highest fine possible. Extreme prejudice. Right. 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:47.920 So the upshot of all of this is that especially 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:53.560 with UM effective empathy as we understand it, we we 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.160 it doesn't it doesn't follow any kind of rational guidelines, 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.560 and the basis of rationality being that who is more 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:04.040 important than one right and empathy just doesn't go in 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:09.160 that direction. Yeah. But UM, Interestingly, UM, while you can 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.720 train yourself to be more empathetic, it definitely to me 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.360 feels like something that you were sort of born with 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.200 to a certain degree, or maybe in the formative years 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:23.760 you might gain um but uh In in blooms article, 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:26.640 he talks about babies and as as soon as a 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:29.360 baby can get up and start getting around, they're gonna 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:31.720 try and comfort. Like if you go into a preschool 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:35.920 and there's another baby crying, you will probably see another 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:38.280 little baby walking over there and patting the little baby 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.520 and stroking the baby. There's nothing more adorable. It's a 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:45.880 pretty adorable um. And you know it happens in the 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:50.520 animal kingdom. Um. Although they did note um this, Franz 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:55.480 de Wal the pramatologists notes that it kind of follows 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:59.320 humans in a way and that um, a chimpanzee might 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:04.400 really um like put like hug a victim of an attack, 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.560 but it's got to be another jimp. Like if they're 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.120 like they will smash the brains out of another kind 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:13.960 of monkey maybe if it wanders into their little village. 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:17.560 That to me kind of underscores this whole, this whole thing, 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.240 like when we when we look at empathy, the first 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:22.560 question that people have is like, why don't we have 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:24.880 more empathy or why don't we have empathy for everybody? 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:27.919 We're all here, And it seems like based on France 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:31.679 to Walls studies and um other studies about the the 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:35.399 evolution of in group and out group behavior. Like we 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:39.240 we evolved over hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years, 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:41.600 but I guess more than that if you're if you're 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:45.800 also looking at the grade apes right to see other 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.040 groups that aren't like us as threatening, right, it makes 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:53.120 sense in an evolutionary speaking, right, And it's it's only 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.240 in like the last uh ten eleven thousand years that 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.040 we settled down and started forming cities. But even then 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:01.400 there was in group and out group people. You didn't recognize, 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:03.720 we're coming to kill you for your crops, so you 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:06.040 needed to fight those people. You didn't need to empathize 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:08.280 with them that, oh you're hungry, so you're gonna take 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.560 my life. I understand, right. That didn't That didn't jibe 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:15.879 with natural selection. But then you add jets into the mix, 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.520 and then TV and then the Internet, and all of 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:21.320 a sudden, we're exposed to more in groups and out 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.120 groups and are expected to get along more civilly than 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:27.480 ever before. But our evolution hasn't caught up quite enough, right, 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:30.280 So now we're faced at this point where it's like, Okay, 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:32.200 we just need to figure out how to empathize more, 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:36.280 and this last vestige that's holding back out completely civil 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.440 global society will fade away. In France, to all put 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:41.840 it pretty well, he said, this is the challenge of 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:45.640 our time globalization by a tribal species, and that's where 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.119 we're facing right now. And right now it feels like, 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:51.920 at least in the United States, we're backsliding. Yeah. Well, 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:54.560 that's a good place to take a break, I think, Yeah, 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:56.240 all right, Well, we're gonna come back in just a 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:58.960 minute and talk a little bit about something called the 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:27.720 racial empathy gap right after this. All right, so I 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:31.800 promised some talk about race. And there's something called the 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:35.360 racial empathy gap. Um studies of kind of. I mean, 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:38.359 if you walk around as a living breath and human 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:41.000 human being, you can probably tell that that's something. But 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:44.199 they have done studies on it, and um, a lot 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:47.119 of these studies are a little hinky to me. But uh, 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:52.080 in one they showed video clips of a needle going 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:57.399 into someone's skin, uh, notably a white person's skin at first, 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:03.400 and what they found was, um, white people reacted more 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:05.600 or with more empathy when the needle went into white 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:09.119 skin than when it went into dark skin, right, or 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:11.600 they had they showed more signs of distress, like they 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:14.040 started to sweat a little more, sure, their hearts started 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:16.160 to beat a little faster. Yeah, that's where I think 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:20.200 mirror neurons might come into play. Um right, Yeah, that's 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:23.600 what they're that's brain wiring. That's a huge problem with 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:27.440 reading about empathy in the popular media. They're huge jumps 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:31.560 from mirror neurons to full on effective empathy with just 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:35.040 the switch of a sentence and then or the the 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.160 stroke of a headline, like and so people are not 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:40.560 talking about the same thing. And I'm sure there's plenty 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:43.479 of empathy researchers out there that are just like, guys, guys, 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:46.760 this is not like you're making huge jumps at the conclusion. 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:50.520 Everybody's like, shut up, doesn't matter, we're selling clicks, you know. 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.760 But so, yes, that's so. It is surely setting off 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:58.880 mirror neurons. I don't understand how it's being translated into empathy. 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:02.560 A side from I think a lot of the empathy 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:06.600 studies involves self reporting. So I think what they're doing 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:12.959 is they're saying, oh well, uh subject twenty nine, Um, 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:15.680 their heart really started beating and look at this on 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:19.040 this questionnaire they filled out, they really consider themselves an 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:23.960 empathetic person. Ipso fact though an empathetic person is responding 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:28.399 very empathetically right now to seeing this needle. Yeah, Like 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:32.159 what if they showed painted someone's skin green, Well they have, 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:34.720 they've done violet tinted and actually can tell you the 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:38.480 truth as far as correlating with self reports. Um, that 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:42.560 that does tend to be a pretty good, um control 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:46.639 to tell you the truth because apparently all people respond 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:52.399 to that one. Huh didn't that interesting? Um, there is 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:54.480 something going on there though, I mean, we're not like 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:59.080 discounting that because they have done studies that show that minorities, um, 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:02.680 maybe don't get pain medication like they should compared to 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:05.920 white people. Uh, And I don't know. It seems like 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:08.840 a racial empathy gap is a pretty decent explanation for 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:11.840 that for sure, or in the criminal justice system, which 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:16.880 we've talked a lot about, or maybe just in empathy 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:22.720 altogether between races. So if you're if you're a judge though, 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:27.200 and you're you're not following sentencing guidelines, you're just using 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:30.000 your own personal biases to hand out sentences, and you 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:33.160 have people's lives and futures in your hands. Yeah, you're 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:35.600 not following the law, You're following your own bias. You're 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:37.879 a piece of garbage. Well, I nothing to do with 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:40.159 you being an empathetic person or not. What about that 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:44.760 judge who U remember the guy the swimmer who raped 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:47.480 the girl by the dumpster. It was obvious that judge 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:49.760 was kind of like, oh, look at this kid, like, oh, 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:51.760 I don't want to ruin his future. I don't want 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:53.640 to ruin his future, Like that could have been my son, 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:56.120 you know, it's kind of like me. It was clearly 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:01.719 bias and empathy going on because he was like him. 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:04.320 And there's no way if that would have been some 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:06.919 black kid that he wouldn't have ruled differently. I just 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:09.480 there's no no one can convince me that that that's 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:11.879 not the truth, right, And I think that there's like 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:14.840 there's another distinction that's eventually going to be hammered out 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:18.400 to Like I don't think he was empathizing with that 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:21.960 swimmer kid. If he was, I could be wrong, who knows, 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:24.600