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Digital Social Hour

Why Empathy Can Become Dangerous: Dr. Gad Saad Explains | DSH #1638

23 Nov 2025

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the concept of 'Suicidal Empathy'?

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All good things in moderation.

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Chapter 2: Why did Dr. Gad Saad write his new book?

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It has to happen to the right people in the right situation and the right amount.

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Chapter 3: How does evolutionary psychology explain human behavior?

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Suicidal empathy is the dysregulated application of an otherwise noble virtue like empathy. What makes us human is that we transcend our biology.

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Chapter 4: How does ideology impact critical thinking in universities?

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Biology matters for your dog, biology matters for the giraffe, it matters for the mosquito, but surely it can't apply to human beings.

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Chapter 5: What are 'parasitic ideas' and how do they spread?

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Life is about navigating through statistical minefields.

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Chapter 6: In what ways is empathy misapplied in modern society?

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And so statistically speaking, this is what is most likely to increase your chances of having a successful marriage. It's better to live five minutes tall and proud than to live 500 years on your knees as a me coward.

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Chapter 7: What factors contribute to happiness and meaning in life?

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Okay, guys, special guests for you all today. Dr. Gad Saad, scholar at the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom at the University of Mississippi.

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Chapter 8: How does mating psychology influence partner selection?

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Also author of many books, including Parasitic Mind and his forthcoming book, Suicidal Empathy. Thanks for your time today, doctor. Great to be with you. Thank you. Did the book come out yet, the new release? No, it hasn't come out yet. We're aiming, hopefully, with the publisher for a release in April. Only a single person has read it so far.

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And the response was this book as promised is terrific. So I'm feeling good. What was the inspiration for making this book? What compelled you to write it? So, uh, Let me step back a bit and sort of give people a 30,000 feet overview.

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I've been a professor now for 32 years, and my main area of scientific research is to apply evolutionary psychology and evolutionary biology to study human behavior. And I do so... within the business school. So I studied consumer psychology, economic psychology, and so on.

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And I was amazed very early in my career to see how people could be completely resistant to what seems to me completely obvious and banal truths. which is that human beings are shaped by biological forces. For most of my social science colleagues, what makes us human is that we transcend our biology.

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Biology matters for your dog, biology matters for the giraffe, it matters for the mosquito, but surely it can't apply to human beings. And so that was my original idea of saying, you know what, even very intelligent people that have professor before their name could be complete morons. And so that led me to write The Parasitic Mind, which came out this book right here, the yellow one.

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It came out about five and a half years ago now, almost. It was in 2020. It came out. That book looks at what happens to your brain when it is hijacked by ideological capture. The next book, Suicidal Empathy, looks at what happens to your emotional system when it is hijacked.

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So if I can hijack and parasitize both your thinking ability and your emotional ability, then I have you completely zombified. And so that's the full story. Interesting. And do you feel like a lot of people right now have their emotional system hijacked?

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yes and most of them regrettably uh come from largely one side of the political aisle and that's not because i'm trying to make a political statement that's just the the the sheer reality most of the well all of the parasitic ideas that i talk about in the parasitic mind post-modernism

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cultural relativism, radical feminism, identity politics, they all were spawned on university campuses by leftist professors because the academia is overwhelmingly dominated by leftist professors. Then these dreadful ideas eventually seep their way into culture, into Hollywood, into journalism, into you know, everything into business, into politics.

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