Dr. Kurt Gray

As you point out, social media, a big contributor.

And also, I think another driver of this is that increasingly, because we're so divided with different media streams, different media diets, we now tend to have different core assumptions about what causes harm, about what creates suffering and who the victim is in situations.

So almost every hot button issue that you can think about, illegal immigration, abortion, these are ultimately arguments about who is most vulnerable to suffering and whose suffering are we really obligated to prevent?

And so with abortion, for instance, there's a debate about is it the fetus that really needs protecting or is it pregnant women, women searching for reproductive rights?

And so...

We've got this really intense trade-off here, and both sides are ultimately concerned about protecting someone from harm.

But conservatives make a really different kind of base assumption about fetuses than liberals, which is that a fetus is like a baby and can suffer harm.

And so it's just one example of how

your assumptions about who can suffer, you know, maybe you get it from your pastor, from the news, right?

Those things change your moral convictions.

Well, yeah, it's a good question.

If you think back in the mists of time, I mean, this question really gets at to who we are as a human being.

And it starts with a misconception, I think, which is that human beings are apex predators.

And we have been incredible apex predators for maybe 100,000 years, maybe a little more.

It turns out, though, that for the vast majority

scope of our evolution, we were not apes predators.

We were terrified primates hiding from the real predators like saber-toothed cats or giant eagles.

And so we're kind of hardwired to be on guard for threats.

And so, you know, fast forward a little bit, right, the way we stayed safe from these predators is we lived in groups.

You know, we like banded together, built walls, stayed on the lookout for each other.