RSA Animate - The Empathic Civilisation

Bestselling author, political adviser and social and ethical prophet Jeremy Rifkin investigates the evolution of empathy and the profound ways that it has shaped our development and our society.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Jeremy Rifkin
• The Empathic Civilisation
• Empathic Civilization
• Royal Society of Arts
• mirror neurons
• evolution of empathy
• empathy
• RSAnimate
• rsa
• the rsa
• rsa animate
• neuroscience
• social neuroscience
• evolution
• RSA Animate

[trademark1989est]

"Empathy is the oppposite of Utopia There is no empathy in Heaven, I guarantee you, I'll tell you before you get there. There isn't any empathy in Heaven because there's no mortality. There's no empathy in Utopia because there is no suffering. Empathy is grounded in the acknowledgement of death and the celebration of life and rooting for each other to flourish and be." Paradise is painless so you cant appreciate pleasures, but a singular life where you can feel both. That's a life worth living!

[fakemadereal]

I must fight my own nationalism.

[IsRealityAnIllusion]

He's assuming that since human beings aren't hard wired to be the worst case scenario we must be hard wired to be the best case scenario. It becomes a question of morality, if we learn how things work and how to better help others through their negative experiences by means of empathetic response to their suffering than is it better to never allow anyone to suffer by always providing enough aid to neutralize their situation?

[arclight777]

a universal consciousness by design, awesome!

[btrules]

@Nidarteh1337 Everyone woman is descendant from "Mitochondrial Eve", there where other women alive at the time and their descendants are among us. But their lines of mitchondrial descent where broken by the inclusion of a male. Its a fact rooted in science, your just not clear on what he exactly means.

Same goes for males, though "Adam" and Eve "where" potentially thousands of years apart.

[Nidarteh1337]

"We all came from two people, some 175,000 years ago"

Rofl "ok". Do some research first please, this is just embarrassing

[couchpotatter]

Some of "the truths" are a bit flawed. I believe the Greeks were considered the first nation-state, at least as far as Western civilization goes.

[qartarsauce]

@TheHeidelbergKid But homicide is thousands of years older than that. See Steven Pinker's TED talk on the myth of violence to understand why your insinuation is flat out wrong.

[broncosnare2006]

this gave me chills. fantastic message he is trying to convey to us.

[TheHeidelbergKid]

Food for thought: organized religion, agriculture, and war all began to appear in the Near East 12,000 years ago.

[AlannahClaire]

@Elibobbob I wasn't influenced. It grabbed my interest. That doesn't mean I was swayed by these 'ideas'.

[Elibobbob]

@madams12f Yes I am aware they can mimick socially acceptable behavours which enables them to function or fit in more with the masses. This 'copying' behavour is also what psycopaths do. I am not associating the two except they learn the same observable skills and apply them when they 'think' necessary. But learning mimiking skills has nothing to do with empathy. Empathy is an emotion, a feeling, just as pain is. People who don't feel pain can't learn to feel it. Psyco's will rule.