Podcaster with 1bn+ plays. I write about the most important lessons from the best thinkers on the planet. 500,000+ people read my free newsletter. Press subscribe to join.
3MM: Fake Empathy, Surnames & Tolstoy
3 MINUTE MONDAYHi friend, My UK & Ireland tour starts 4 weeks today! If you love all things Modern Wisdom, psychology, philosophy, personal development, plus stories I definitely can't tell on the internet and fingering jokes - then come and see me. Plus there's a live Q&A where I'll be answering your questions and bringing some of you up on stage! Get your tickets now - http://chriswilliamson.live/ “The latest social science tells us that children raised in single-mother homes are about five times more likely to be poor than kids raised in stably married homes.
That young men raised apart from a stably married home are, according to recent research, more likely to land in jail or prison than to graduate from college.
That the biggest driver of recent declines in happiness is the nation’s retreat from marriage.
And that, at the community level, the strongest predictor of economic mobility for poor children is family structure: Poor kids hailing from communities with more two-parent families have a markedly better shot at moving up into the middle class than poor kids from neighbourhoods dominated by single parents.” — Brad Wilcox, The Atlantic
Why then, is it so hard to publicly advocate for the nuclear family? Toxic Compassion. Toxic Compassion is the prioritisation of short term emotional comfort over everything else. Over truth, reality, actual long-term outcomes, flourishing, everything. It optimises for looking good, rather than doing good. This is seen in much of popular culture as the desirable, fair, empathetic thing to do. And it’s everywhere. People would rather claim that body fat has no bearing on health and mortality outcomes to avoid making overweight people feel upset. Even if this causes them to literally die sooner or have a worse quality of life over the long run. Parents would rather allow children to play computer games or watch screens and access social media every night instead of dealing with the discomfort of taking it away from them. Even if it ruins their brain development, social skills and self esteem. People would rather say that children growing up in single-parent households suffer no worse outcomes than those from two-parent homes. Even if this misleads parents, children and teachers about why kids behave the way they do. Campaigners would sooner shout Defund The Police as a response to what they perceive as the unfair treatment of criminals. Even if this results in more crimes being committed against people from minority backgrounds due to the abandonment of police officers from those areas. Elon Musk once responded to criticism about his political alignment and contribution to climate change. He identified how big of a shift Tesla had caused in the Electric Vehicle market, and the downstream impact of that on the environment, saying that he’s done more for the climate than any other human in history. “What I care about is the reality of goodness, not the perception of it.
And what I see all over the place is people who care about looking good, while doing evil.”
The important tradeoff with all of these examples is between appearing good and actually doing good. Telling people what they want to hear and giving them immediate gratification and avoiding saying anything that could cause distress, prioritises the former over the latter. And the net effect is often wildly negative. Obviously the prospect of appearing bad while doing good is not enticing at all. But the opposite - saying whatever is required to look good, even if you don’t actually care - is way more destructive. You can be the least virtuous, meanest, most dishonest human on earth, but if you say the right things on social media, you look like a saint. On the internet, the gap of public awareness between words and actions has never been bigger and no one fact checks the words coming out of people’s mouths. Which means that appearing good becomes more important than doing good. Performative empathy is more rewarded than genuine empathy. Posting about mistreated groups is more incentivised than helping mistreated groups. *puts flag in bio, has never actually donated to a charity* This isn’t me saying that you can’t do good whilst talking about it. But that many (maybe even most) of the people who proselytise about how virtuous and caring they are, and how it’s everyone else who is evil, uncaring and the enemy are allowing their morality to stand on the shoulders of limited scrutiny. “It’s like ‘look at how good I am’
Well if the ‘look at’ comes before the ‘how good I am’, it really wreaks havoc on the claim.” — Jordan Peterson
TLDR: Beware the people who prioritise saying good things, they might not be doing good things. MODERN WISDOMI do a podcast where I pretend to have a British accent. This week’s upcoming episodes: Monday. Thursday. Saturday. THINGS I'VE LEARNED1. “The Pew Research Center suggests that 79% of women take their husband’s last name. Spouses who don’t share a surname divorce at about a 50% higher rate than those who do, and their divorces come about 30% earlier in their marriages. Among younger women, preferring to keep a maiden name or hyphenate predicts a higher likelihood of believing that ‘unhappy couples stick together for too long’. While 92% of conservative women adopt the patronym, just 70% of liberal women do.” — Institute for Family Studies 2. Sept 19th, 1858. March 31st, 1852. January 25th 1851 3. “Rumination promises a solution but offers none.” LIFE HACKYou might not need more caffeine or sleep, you might just be dehydrated. The more I learn about the role of salt and electrolytes in alertness, energy and function, the more certain I am that this is going to be one of the next big health revolutions. Proper hydration is not just about drinking fluids, it’s about having sufficient electrolytes in your body to actually use those fluids properly. Drinking LMNT Salt first thing in the morning is the way I’ve started my day for over 4 years now. It tastes delicious and contains zero sugar or any other junk. I keep harping on about it because it really works. Try it and feel the difference. And they offer a money-back guarantee where you don’t even need to return the box - so you can buy it 100% risk-free. Try LMNT Risk-Free with a free sample pack. (US only) Big love, Try my productivity drink Neutonic. PS |
3 Minute Monday
Podcaster with 1bn+ plays. I write about the most important lessons from the best thinkers on the planet. 500,000+ people read my free newsletter. Press subscribe to join.
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3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, I’m looking for people to get involved at my live shows this October in the UK & Ireland 🚀 I want to hear your best stories for me to react to, live on-stage. If you’re coming to see me on tour and want to tell me about your worst first date, a problem you’re dealing with or an unlikely life hack that more people need to know about, head to https://chriswilliamson.live/stories and choose the city you’ll be attending. I'll be picking the best ones I’ve been thinking...