Gad Saad on Empathy without a Stopping Point

Transcript

MEF speech-to-text, word-timed; edited only to withhold private names and to correct misheard public names, in square brackets. Timecodes are source time; each opens the source at that second.

1. 2:32Cancer cells divide and healthy cells divide.
2. 2:37The only difference between the two is that the former have unchecked cell division.
3. 2:42They don't have a stopping mechanism for the division to stop.
4. 2:47Now, why is that related to the distinction between empathy and suicidal empathy?
5. 2:51Well-modulated empathy is a perfectly rational virtue for humans to possess.
6. 2:58We are a social species, therefore, we interact with each other.
7. 3:01For you and I, Laurie, to have a meaningful conversation, I need to put myself in
8. 3:05your mind and vice versa. That's called cognitive empathy or theory of mind.
9. 3:10So there is nothing wrong with well-calibrated empathy.
10. 3:14Suicidal empathy, though, does something akin to what cancer cells do.
11. 3:19It hyper fires in the wrong situations towards the wrong targets.
12. 3:26Once that rational empathetic module is gained, it
13. 3:33becomes suicidally, uh, you know, faulty.
14. 3:37Now... And let, let me draw another very quick reference.
15. 3:40Aristotle, several thousand years ago, explained through his golden mean the idea
16. 3:46that too little of something is not good, too much of something is not good, and much
17. 3:50of life is about finding that sweet spot, that golden mean.
18. 3:53That exact principle applies to empathy versus suicidal empathy.
19. 3:58No empathy renders me a psychopath.
20. 4:01Too much empathy towards the wrong targets makes me suicidally empathetic.

Views expressed are the speaker's own.