19 Uncomfortable Truths About Human Nature - Gurwinder Bhogal - #1073
Modern Wisdom
Chris Williamson
4.6 • 5.9K Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2026
⏱️ 104 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | It's been too long, man. You write these awesome things on the internet. This is the eighth time we've done this now. For the people that haven't seen you before, you come up with some of my favorite aphorisms and insights and stuff. And we just do that. We're kind of like the bonny blue of interesting insights about the internet. We're just taking whatever we get. It's high velocity stuff. The first one that I want to get into the oxytocin paradox. This is one |
| 0:23.1 | of yours. Oxytocin, the love hormone, can also make people spiteful. Cruelty is not simply the |
| 0:28.8 | opposite of compassion. It's often adjacent to it. For instance, the platform most dominated by |
| 0:34.6 | social justice activists, Blue Sky, is also the one with the highest support |
| 0:39.6 | for assassinations. Beware of those quick to show empathy, for they are often just as quick |
| 0:45.3 | to show barbarity. Yeah, so this is a finding that I sort of came across quite recently, but it confirms |
| 0:53.0 | something I've long known, which is that |
| 0:55.6 | people who outwardly express a lot of empathy tend to also be equally capable of cruelty to that |
| 1:03.0 | same extent. And I first learned about this from a book called Against Empathy by Paul Bloom, who's a psychologist. |
| 1:14.4 | And in this book, I think you've had him on the show. |
| 1:17.5 | In this book, he basically talks about how people tend to assume that empathy is just a good thing overall, |
| 1:28.7 | that it's not, that we need more empathy, that empathy is like in short supply. But really, empathy is in group loyalty. |
| 1:36.6 | That's what it is. It's, you know, because we're tribal animals. And what empathy is, is it's when |
| 1:41.7 | you empathize with someone, the way he describes it is you don't empathize with everybody at the same time. |
| 1:47.2 | You empathize with select people. |
| 1:49.3 | And the way he describes it is that empathy is like a spotlight. |
| 1:52.3 | So you shine it on people, you know, a small group of people at a time or just an individual at a time. |
| 1:58.2 | But while you have empathy shined on that person, everybody else is |
| 2:02.0 | in darkness, which basically means that you don't have any real feelings for that person |
| 2:07.4 | that's outside of that spotlight. So what this can mean is that if you empathize, so let's take |
| 2:13.7 | a real world example. Let's say you're somebody who empathizes with the plight of the |
| 2:18.8 | Palestinians. So you'll have a lot of love for those people and you'll be very, very concerned about |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Chris Williamson, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Chris Williamson and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.