Suicidal Empathy - Effective Altruism

So today I wanted to dig into, and this is related to X, especially with Elon Musk, related to suicidal empathy versus effective altruism.

I'm probably going to lean more to talk about the suicidal empathy part, but people have these topics out there.

So Gad Saad, his name is G-A-D, last name S-A-A-D, if I'm mispronouncing it, I apologize, Gad.

He is the promoter of what you would call suicidal empathy.

And he's long publicly argued against political correctness and social justice activism, which he believes limits academia.

He's against wokeism.

He coined the phrase suicidal empathy, which he defines as a form of empathy that has the potential cause to cause the destruction of the party exhibiting it.

A lot of people have called it fake science, off-putting and hateful.

So that has been critical of immigration for Muslims to what he describes as Western countries.

But he's kind of coined the term suicidal empathy.

So what he's getting at is that you could be so – in general, I'll make a simple argument.

I'm not saying it's perfect, and I'll talk about what Elon Musk has said on this, what Thomas Sowell has talked on this.

What he's getting at is you can have so much empathy – that you can't see the trees through the forest or however that turns goes.

I get it, right? You can go too far to the extreme.

Where this gets dangerous, that we forget that there is a society, that there is a world, that there are people that aren't as capable or have the opportunities that need help.

It kind of goes down the Ayn Randian, you know, objectivism, individualism.

We'll also get into Milton Friedman and his thoughts on this, because this is definitely related to that, Thomas Sowell.

So when he talks about, you know, suicidal empathy that has the potential cause the destruction of the party exhibiting.

So what does that get at, right? if I, and this is where it will lead to effective altruism, if all I do is just generally just donate every dollar I have to every charity out there, I don't vet the charities, I could destroy my philanthropy in that way, right? I don't do, I just kind of give it away.

And it's not as simple as that.

You know, he comes at it with the idea that, This is, you know, he's a marketing professor.

He tries to apply evolutionary psychology to marketing and consumer behavior.

And this has led him down the path to, say, suicidal empathy.

Musk has said, and his quote, the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.

Now, He's he's actually said he doesn't have empathy, but really what he says, I believe in empathy.