All statements about empathy

70 statements about empathy in 46 videos, by upload date.

Back to empathy.

2008

2008-08-26 · The Catcher in the Rye, Part 2 — John argues people are not born knowing what to do about empathy: self-consciousness shows we can never fully feel someone else's pain, nor they ours. (hedged) — 00:00:49
2008-08-26 · The Catcher in the Rye, Part 2 — John says limited empathy is a good thing, because our brains are too small and primitive to function if we felt everyone's feelings at once. — 00:01:18
2008-08-26 · The Catcher in the Rye, Part 2 — John poses the question of how we can empathize with each other enough to take care of each other. — 00:01:18
2008-08-26 · The Catcher in the Rye, Part 2 — John argues it is no one's fault: empathy is inherently limited, and everyone in the book, Holden included, is self-involved because that is the nature of being a person. — 00:02:16
2008-08-26 · The Catcher in the Rye, Part 2 — John finds hope in the narrating Holden, who a year later writes about who he was in a way that makes readers care, listen and empathize. — 00:02:45

2009

2009-03-08 · PEEPS for Bangladesh — John confesses he worried more about the Bozeman explosion than the situation in Bangladesh, and argues that intimacy leads to empathy. — 00:01:15
2009-07-07 · Too Much Love will KILL YOU — Hank names a second important kind of caring that is not love, calling it compassion for lack of a better word, which we can have for everyone without love's crushing weight. — 00:01:27
2009-07-07 · Too Much Love will KILL YOU — Hank says we have an obligation to have both love and compassion; compassion recognises that people we don't know love people we don't know. — 00:02:11
2009-07-07 · Too Much Love will KILL YOU — Hank describes compassion as a logical, brain-based, world-saving caring that, though it lacks love's fire, is powerful. — 00:02:11

2010

2010-07-14 · Top 10 VIDCON MOMENTS — John, endorsing Ze Frank's keynote, says we don't make or watch videos for money, subscribers or views, but to feel what it's like to be other people and let others feel what it's like to be us. — 00:01:39

2011

2011-02-14 · CHUBBY BUNNY...blergh! — John says the one good thing about Valentine's Day is that gift-giving, though economically inefficient, is an act of empathy: imagining what someone else would want. — 00:01:45

2013

2013-01-15 · An Evening of Awesome at Carnegie Hall — John says Paper Towns is about empathy and trying to imagine other people complexly, and hopes his books can jump into the abyss to be with readers. — 00:53:07
2013-10-25 · When Was it a Million Seconds Ago? — Hank: Commenters have suggested empathy is the most wonderful human quality, which Hank says may also be true; he likes that humans are pretty cool for many underappreciated reasons. (hedged) — 00:02:48

2014

2014-02-18 · 18 Great Books You Probably Haven't Read — recommendation: John recommends The Golden Rule by his mentor Ilene Cooper: children don't inherently excel at empathy, and the book has helped his family talk with Henry about others' feelings. — 00:01:45
2014-03-11 · Question Tuesday: TFIOS Movie, Existential Crises, and Symbolism — John says studies show a correlation between empathy and reading, at least for literary fiction. — 00:00:36

2015

2015-01-27 · Will Life Get Better for the Poor? — John says the reach of his online life can feel infinite but isn't, which inevitably creates an empathy gap. — 00:02:48
2015-05-15 · Happy Graduation, Future Dead People — Hank says it may feel we are destined for a cutthroat world of ever-increasing inequality, but not if we choose compassion: we decide our world by being it. — 00:02:42
2015-06-09 · What Does It Mean to Be Human? — John says humans tend to be capable of empathy, collaboration and hope, but he doesn't think humans are unique among animals in these respects. (hedged) — 00:02:13
2015-06-09 · What Does It Mean to Be Human? — John believes people confer personhood on each other through empathy, compassion and trust. — 00:02:32
2015-08-03 · I Love You, Hank. Esther Day 2015 — John says that in hard times, from his brain's bad wiring or physical illness, pain, fear and obsessiveness consume him so that he struggles to empathize or listen. — 00:00:42
2015-08-03 · I Love You, Hank. Esther Day 2015 — John says Hank's patience and empathy have shut down that spiral for him countless times, consistently since Hank was about three; he thanks, admires and loves him. — 00:01:06
2015-09-04 · Addicted to Outrage — recommendation: Hank's armor against the outrage cycle: awareness of his own cognitive biases, belief in the fundamental goodness of others, who want good things for themselves and their families, and compassion. — 00:02:48
2015-12-22 · The Myth Reawakens — John notes we pity the droid R2-D2 and empathize with Chewie though he isn't human, but not with humanoid, English-speaking Stormtroopers, who weren't 'proper people' in 1977. — 00:01:56

2016

2016-05-10 · On Pain — John says it is very hard, if not impossible, to bridge that empathy gap. — 00:01:46
2016-05-10 · On Pain — John says that when you can turn outward, knowing pain can make you much more empathetic, which helps us alleviate each other's suffering. (hedged) — 00:03:00
2016-07-22 · Ending the Age of Outrage (at least in ourselves, if not in the world) — Hank says in a world of infinite content where shareability is king, kindness and empathy sometimes play poorly, so we forget they exist. — 00:03:23
2016-10-14 · Compassion, Weakness, and the 2016 Election — Hank says at the heart of this unnamed ideology is a perspective he cannot abide: that strength is control and compassion is weakness. (hedged) — 00:00:49
2016-10-14 · Compassion, Weakness, and the 2016 Election — Hank argues a strong country digs into civic service, altruism, openness, peacekeeping and collaboration rather than walls and dehumanization, as a confident person shares their gifts; compassion is the ultimate manifestation of strength. — 00:02:29
2016-10-14 · Compassion, Weakness, and the 2016 Election — Hank tells those who call that progress weakness and yell about strength while salting wounds of fear that their rhetoric is sad, hurtful weakness blocking the good work humanity needs. — 00:03:18
2016-12-09 · The Difference A Decade Makes: The 10th Annual Project for Awesome Is Here! — John says that sometimes statistics can be a barrier to empathy rather than a path to it, so he looks at one family. (hedged) — 00:01:58

2017

2017-02-24 · Doing Bad Things To Make Good Things Happen — Hank: Acknowledging it may not hold for everyone and is likelier for him as a rich white guy, Hank has found being kind, thoughtful and empathetic a fantastic way to create successful art and successful business. — video description
2017-04-11 · Making the World's Largest Ball of Paint — John thinks genius is not a simple trait like brown eyes but a continuum, like empathy. (hedged) — 00:01:33
2017-08-18 · What I've Been Thinking About — Hank says breaking down innate tribalism, living in productive diversity and expanding our sphere of empathy is work, and the work done in America is real progress. — 00:02:32
2017-08-18 · What I've Been Thinking About — Hank wants to learn from Mom that beliefs can change, empathy can grow, and the lifelong work toward a more compassionate, tolerant and just world is never done. — 00:03:22
2017-08-22 · The Causes of Cholera — John argues that paying attention itself makes a difference: it encourages more news coverage and helps shrink the huge empathy gap between the rich and poor worlds. — 00:03:14
2017-08-22 · The Causes of Cholera — John says he really believes all human lives are equally valuable, but he can't live that belief if he can't empathize with people living in poverty or in fear of cholera. — 00:03:38
2017-08-22 · The Causes of Cholera — John says he is trying to pay attention because the Yemen cholera outbreak is a health problem, a political problem and an empathy problem. — 00:03:48

2018

2018-01-23 · On Emergencies — John hopes these outrages, and all outrages, spark empathy and commitment instead of fear and resignation. (hedged) — 00:03:33
2018-08-28 · The Book Was Better? — John: Expecting a book at the movies disappoints; a great adaptation explores the same questions and gives the same self-expanding empathy, and while no movie is a great book, it can be a great movie. — 00:03:27
2018-11-27 · On The Melian Dialogue — John says trying to become stronger and make others weaker is not a very effective strategy, personally or geopolitically: the Athenians lost the Peloponnesian War in the end. — 00:02:26

2020

2020-03-03 · Consciously Experiencing Human Dignity — John: Through photography and art you have seen what you'll never see (Mars's surface, deep-ocean bioluminescent fish, a 17th-century girl with a pearl earring); through empathy, felt what you'll never feel. — 00:02:55
2020-06-02 · --- — John says he must listen better to Black Americans and marginalized people, believing that listening with openness and empathy moves us toward generosity, advocacy and justice. — 00:02:26
2020-10-02 (said on 2020-10-01, implied) · I ain't she was with well and I so and it's and but so and I'll and — The description says compassion is not forgiveness and not something done for someone else, but something that helps Hank understand the world better. — video description
2020-10-15 · Civilization and the Lies We Love — John: Many are taught that only the strong survive, the powerful doing what they want and the weak suffering what they must, as the Athenians put it; in fact the human project grows stronger by protecting the vulnerable. — 00:02:26
2020-10-15 · Civilization and the Lies We Love — John: Civilization did not give us compassion, empathy or self-sacrifice: those values predate human civilization and are not limited to humans. — 00:03:24
2020-10-27 · The time I met Joe Biden — John thinks Biden would be a fundamentally different president: listening with empathy, building teams of experts instead of concentrating power, leading with decency and humanity. — 00:02:55

2022

2022-03-29 · An H of G — John finds that when he can deploy an H of G, which is not always, he is more empathetic, curious and engaged, and less judgmental, angry and miserable. — 00:02:26
2022-05-03 · My Religion and My Banned Books — John says efforts to restrict stories are often efforts to restrict empathy, against his faith and, more importantly, against a functioning society. — 00:03:26
2022-05-17 · Reasons Not to Care — John: As they discussed recently, John says nobody can care about everything all the time: empathy has limits, and must; grieving every death like a loved one's would make functioning impossible. — 00:01:27
2022-05-17 · Reasons Not to Care — John: If our way out of limited empathy is to deny or minimize others' suffering, we do them and ourselves a great disservice. — 00:01:56
2022-05-17 · Reasons Not to Care — John: There will always be a reason not to care; if people or causes must pass an imagined purity test for our compassion, we can extend it to no one, including ourselves. — 00:01:56
2022-06-07 · Hello! Meet Aza! — John says he can feel an empathy for Aza that he struggles to feel for himself when he is really sick, often failing to show himself the same compassion. — 00:01:39

2023

2023-02-28 · Empathy and its Limits — John says he has been thinking a lot recently about the limits of human empathy. — 00:00:00
2023-02-28 · Empathy and its Limits — John says if he felt all those deaths as strongly as a death in his family he couldn't function, so he understands empathy needs limits. — 00:00:29
2023-02-28 · Empathy and its Limits — John feels his own empathy is too limited. — 00:00:29
2023-02-28 · Empathy and its Limits — John says strategies for limiting empathy are built into language, like 'invalid', the English word for people in the 19th century disabled by tuberculosis. — 00:00:58
2023-02-28 · Empathy and its Limits — John says 19th-century invalids' memoirs often express feeling ignored and left behind, as if their community's empathy could not reach them because they had become invisible. — 00:01:27
2023-02-28 · Empathy and its Limits — John says we blame illness on people's heads, smoking or diet, but illness is not a moral narrative, and seeing it that way is another barrier to empathy. — 00:02:47
2023-02-28 · Empathy and its Limits — John says he can't know what it's like to be a bird or to have someone else's pain, but he can listen to people when they tell him of their pain and believe them. — 00:02:47
2023-02-28 · Empathy and its Limits — John concludes, playing on 'invalid', that we validate each other. — 00:03:37
2023-12-15 · Cat...I Farted. — Hank says language divergence causes extraordinary beauty and diversity but is also one of the greatest barriers to cross-cultural empathy. — 00:01:00

2024

2024-08-06 · What Helped Through Depression — John is working hard to embrace his belief that every human being, including him, deserves love and compassion and a generous, empathetic welcome into the human fold. — 00:03:43

2025

2025-06-03 · My Lies — John says trying to shrink the empathy gap through imagination turns out to be a worthwhile endeavor, even in 2025. — 00:03:18
2025-06-17 · My Religion — John really likes prayer, which for him is an exercise of his empathy muscles. — 00:06:19
2025-06-20 · 'Influencer' Must Die. — Hank says distribution is often seen as algorithm hacking and metrics, which matter, but it is also empathy and the craft of building an audience, which fits no existing craft. — 00:03:59
2025-08-12 · On Balance — John says this forgetfulness is a feature of human consciousness, useful for survival, but it can be a barrier to empathy, even toward ourselves. — 00:03:35
2025-10-17 · We Never Know What Anything Means — Hank says the telegraph also awakened global awareness, extended our circle of care, required the first digital encoding system, and may have helped create the very idea of humanity. — 00:04:35
2025-10-31 · We Did It… — Hank says this is no indictment of people: humans care about what they care about, and expanding our circle of empathy is in some ways contrary to our nature. — 00:04:19

2026

2026-01-09 · There is Only One Source of Value — Hank would have guessed that a global network making it as easy to talk to someone in Nepal as to a neighbour would make the world more connected and empathetic; it has had on average the opposite effect. — 00:00:58
2026-03-17 · Tuberculosis and Hank's Shingles — John: Hank's video reminded John that people sometimes find meaning in pain, and that pain can make us more empathetic, or at least make us believe others' pain. — 00:00:29