May 15, 2026 09:58 PM
(This post was last modified: May 15, 2026 11:41 PM by C C.)
AFTER PARTY (Emily Jashinsky joined by Gad Saad)
https://youtu.be/RDUpSxRjYmA
INTRO: Gad, you quote Thomas Sowell from his 1995 book The Vision of the Anointed. which folks should absolutely go check out. You say he explained how the left intelligentsia espouse policies that make them feel virtuous in their unlimited compassion while being fully decoupled from the negative consequences of said policies. Which in many instances the latter are born by those whom they are supposed to help (marginalized communities).
What Sowell identified more than 30 years ago has been expanded to include the associated concepts of moral licensing, luxury beliefs, and performative allyship.
I'll add just as we're talking about immigration, it wasn't until Republican governors in Texas and Florida started busing more and more migrants to places like Washington DC and New York City that people who are kind of normal center-left folks in New York who I know started to think much more about the flip side of suicidal empathy or of the empathy coin that the media had been selling them.
So Gad, I think a lot of people understand this in the context of blue cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. But can you help us see a little bit why there's a a real element of classism to suicidal empathy as well?
[Analogously] if I am a suicidally empathetic person that lives behind the high walls of the Vatican -- I'm referring here to the Pope with due respect to all of my Catholic friends -- it's nice for me to have tears in my eyes and pontificate about how peacefully and beautifully Christianity and Islam can can coexist. Even though there are thousands of fellow Christians that are being massacred as he uttered those words in Nigeria.
[...] So therefore, I could project to the world how kind I am while I stroke my luxuriant hair and admire myself in the mirror of moral preening. But I always know that I can go back to the safety of my gated armed community or my Vatican walls. That's the ideal situation.
I express to the world my virtue, my compassion, my infinite tolerance, my suicidal empathy... While bearing none of the costs.
Let's take a concept from evolutionary biology. The peacock's tail is a very big, burdensome tail could not have evolved for its survival advantage because it actually reduces the peacock's vitality. It makes it makes it more conspicuous to predators. It makes it less likely that he can take flight and avoid predators.
It actually evolved because it confers reproductive advantage in attracting peahens. It's basically saying despite the fact that I'm carrying this burdensome tail, shouldn't you be choosing me as a mate? So therefore, it's an honest signal of the peacock's quality.
Now, why am I saying all this? Because an honest signal has to have a cost associated to it. Otherwise all the virtue signaling scammers can mimic it without expense. So it's specifically because it is a costly signal, because it is handicapping, that it has evolved as an honest signal.
While when the Pope sits behind the Vatican walls and says Christians and Muslims are beautiful friends, he is not adhering to the costly signaling that we know from evolutionary biology. Because he is bearing zero costs for his virtue...
Elite Left pushes facile do-gooder policies that they never have to live with ... https://youtu.be/RDUpSxRjYmA
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/RDUpSxRjYmA
https://youtu.be/RDUpSxRjYmA
INTRO: Gad, you quote Thomas Sowell from his 1995 book The Vision of the Anointed. which folks should absolutely go check out. You say he explained how the left intelligentsia espouse policies that make them feel virtuous in their unlimited compassion while being fully decoupled from the negative consequences of said policies. Which in many instances the latter are born by those whom they are supposed to help (marginalized communities).
What Sowell identified more than 30 years ago has been expanded to include the associated concepts of moral licensing, luxury beliefs, and performative allyship.
I'll add just as we're talking about immigration, it wasn't until Republican governors in Texas and Florida started busing more and more migrants to places like Washington DC and New York City that people who are kind of normal center-left folks in New York who I know started to think much more about the flip side of suicidal empathy or of the empathy coin that the media had been selling them.
So Gad, I think a lot of people understand this in the context of blue cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. But can you help us see a little bit why there's a a real element of classism to suicidal empathy as well?
[Analogously] if I am a suicidally empathetic person that lives behind the high walls of the Vatican -- I'm referring here to the Pope with due respect to all of my Catholic friends -- it's nice for me to have tears in my eyes and pontificate about how peacefully and beautifully Christianity and Islam can can coexist. Even though there are thousands of fellow Christians that are being massacred as he uttered those words in Nigeria.
[...] So therefore, I could project to the world how kind I am while I stroke my luxuriant hair and admire myself in the mirror of moral preening. But I always know that I can go back to the safety of my gated armed community or my Vatican walls. That's the ideal situation.
I express to the world my virtue, my compassion, my infinite tolerance, my suicidal empathy... While bearing none of the costs.
Let's take a concept from evolutionary biology. The peacock's tail is a very big, burdensome tail could not have evolved for its survival advantage because it actually reduces the peacock's vitality. It makes it makes it more conspicuous to predators. It makes it less likely that he can take flight and avoid predators.
It actually evolved because it confers reproductive advantage in attracting peahens. It's basically saying despite the fact that I'm carrying this burdensome tail, shouldn't you be choosing me as a mate? So therefore, it's an honest signal of the peacock's quality.
Now, why am I saying all this? Because an honest signal has to have a cost associated to it. Otherwise all the virtue signaling scammers can mimic it without expense. So it's specifically because it is a costly signal, because it is handicapping, that it has evolved as an honest signal.
While when the Pope sits behind the Vatican walls and says Christians and Muslims are beautiful friends, he is not adhering to the costly signaling that we know from evolutionary biology. Because he is bearing zero costs for his virtue...
Elite Left pushes facile do-gooder policies that they never have to live with ... https://youtu.be/RDUpSxRjYmA
