Empathy

Think empathy makes the world a better place? Think again … by Paul Bloom

A new book by the renowned psychologist overturns received wisdom; here, he explains the flaws in feeling others’ pain.

It is often said that people lack empathy. For example, if the rich really appreciated what it is like to be poor we would have more equality and social justice. If whites had more empathy for blacks and men more empathy for women things would be different. “Empathy has its merits. It can be a great source of pleasure, involved in art, fiction and sports. And it can be a valuable aspect of intimate relationships. But it’s a poor moral guide. It grounds foolish judgments and often motivates indifference and cruelty. It can lead to irrational and unfair political decisions. It makes the world worse.”

Empathy spotlights certain people here and now, which can be a good thing. Laboratory research, everyday experience and common sense show that it really does make you kinder to the person you are empathising with. “So if the world were a simple place, where the only difficulties one had to deal with involved a single person in some sort of immediate distress, and where helping that person had positive effects, the case for empathy would be solid.”

Empathy favours the one over the many. One series of studies found that people would give roughly the same amount of money to help develop a drug whether they were told it would save the life of one child or eight children. But if people are told the name of the child and her shown her picture, the donations shot up – “the identifiable victim effect”.

These spotlights focus on specifics and are vulnerable to bias. Empathy picks favourites (friend or foe, part of your group or an opposing group); it is sensitive to whether the person is pleasing to look at or not - but not much else.

These facts explain why people’s desire to help abused dogs or oil-drenched penguins often exceeds their interest in suffering millions in other countries or ethnic minorities in their own. Many people give small amounts to multiple charities (getting a warm glow each time), with their choices driven by the lure of stories and pictures of adorable animals and children, and not by a rational assessment of what can do the most good.

Western aid to developing nations can have a negative effect by decreasing the incentives for long-term economic development in the areas that would most benefit from this. Food aid can put local farmers and markets out of business, food aid and medical care for combatants can actually end up killing more people than it saves. [As with corporate bailouts — the money might make things better at the moment, helping people keep their jobs, but it can have negative downstream consequences.]

There are also unscrupulous people who strategically exploit our empathy for bad ends. The sight of an emaciated child beggar means it is hard to resist, but may end up supporting criminal organisations that enslave and often maim tens of thousands of children and put them out on the streets.

Many charities do wonderful work, but doing actual good, instead of doing what feels good, requires coping with the problems of unintended consequences and being mindful of exploitation from competing, sometimes malicious and greedy interests. You need to be careful to avoid empathy traps.

Empathy can also spark violence; our feelings for the sufferer can motivate anger towards whoever caused the suffering. Studies now show that people who are highly empathetic tend to be more violent and punitive when they see someone who is suffering. The media often present lurid tales of abuse. PB is not a pacifist and does believe that the suffering of innocents can sometimes warrant military intervention, but that empathy is too much in favour of violent action with unforeseen costs.

So empathy leads us astray but there are all sorts of motivations for good action, the best of which is compassion, or “loving kindness”, in which you care for others, but don’t feel their pain; don’t put yourself in their shoes but use careful reasoning.

If you want the pleasure of personal contact, go ahead and give something to the child, perhaps feeling a little buzz when your hands touch, a warmness that sits with you as you walk back to your hotel. If you actually want to make people’s lives better, do something different.

Paul Bloom is the Brooks and Suzanne Regan professor of psychology at Yale. His new book is Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion

Source: Think empathy makes the world a better place? Think again …PaulBloom in The Guardian, 19 February 2017

Harry's Last Stand

Harry's Last Stand: how the world my generation built is falling down, and what we can do to save it by Harry Leslie Smith, 2014 Icon Books Ltd.
An interesting book by an 'ordinary person' who has over the years become increasingly worried and frustrated about the direction in which the UK is moving. He was in the UK army in WW2, and did post-war service in Germany, where he met his wife.

HLS identifies the problems facing the UK as follows:

• Politicians have an obsession with government debt, slashing budgets and eradicating social welfare.
• Governments try to control the information delivered to their citizens. UK and US media are owned by a few wealthy corporations and rich families. [Harry cites the Leveson enquiry in the UK about press conduct and the failure to implement its findings.] 
• Housing initiatives cannot be left to the private sector. Not everyone wants or can own their accommodation, whether a house or a flat. Rent levels are a problem for those with low income.
• The government wants us to believe that recession is not caused by the financial sector or corporations not paying tax, but the fault of the lowly benefit seeker. Newly jobless must wait seven days to sign on. Payday loan companies are predators.
• Corporations and lobby groups get concessions from government. Tax avoidance impacts on society are reduced social spending.
• The money spent on the New Year fireworks is not realistically affordable when the economy is fragile. The government pays £43.5 billion in subsidies to private enterprise, excluding tax grants - at a time when the corporate sector had cash surplus in billions of £s. Off-shore havens mean taxes are not paid.
• Life expectancy for the poor in the UK is on average 13 years less than for the rich.
• It is estimated that more than 3 million UK children go to bed hungry.
• The education is increasingly monetised, with private schools and university fees.
• The government wants teachers' salaries to be based on student exam results.
•  Fee paying schools were attended by 54% of Tory MPs (33% of all MPs, and 7% of the general population).
• Five families control 20% of UK wealth. (Oxfam figures).

His thoughts on on crime and prison were that:

• Boredom results in people seeking stimulation - drinking, risk taking, graffiti. Solitary confinement results in boredom - and sometimes mental illness. Even ordinary imprisonment causes boredom, resulting in lethargy, drug taking, fights and other violence, and depression.
• Prisoners need occupation that is stimulating to counteract the boredom. There is some evidence that listening to music stimulates the mind; classical music seems to be the most beneficial.
• Other activities that help allieviate boredom are aerobic exercise, intellectual actvity (many prisoners would benefit from literacy and numeracy classes) and community and social interaction.

HLS did not specify particular ways of addressing much of the above, but did propose the following:

• Salaries for MPs, Ministers and Prime Minister to be frozen except for cost of living increases.
• Term limits for PMs, Lords and MPs.
• E-voting and lowering the voting age to 17.
• Record spoiled ballot papers.
• Move to proportional representation.

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Easy to Use Smartphone

Not everyone is confident about using technology, but mobile phones are useful even for the unconfident. This was reviewed and recommended in Good Housekeeping, but I've not seen it myself.

The Doro 8030 has a very simple handset, with only three large buttons for Call, View and Send on the home screen.

The set-up process is easy too. The My Doro Manager app can be used by a trusted person to remotely change settings and options, which is great for someone who regularly calls up family members for help.

It is not as fast at opening apps, but the simplifed interface will keep many people happy.

Currently (April 2017) £180 from johnlewis.com.

For tips on making any mobile easier to use, visit goodhousekeeping.co.uk/simplify-smartphone.

Source: Item in Good Housekeeping, April 2017

Keeping Our Gut Happy

We now know that our gut bacteria (also known as the microbiota) are vital to our health: they enable us to digest food, manufacture vital B vitamins and brain chemicals such as serotonin which maintain mood and interact with our immune and nervous systems. They also seem to be crucial in maintaining a healthy weight.

Factors that impact on the gut bacteria are various. The modern Western diet (high in processed foods, sugar and refined carbohydrates, with low fibre and nutrient intake) is not good for the gut. A course of antibiotics can wipe out the good gut bacteria. Farmed fish, meat and dairy products often contain antibiotic residues that can also damage the gut bacteria.

Week 1: Prepare

• Record your typical eating for 1 week. How much is fast/processed/sugary foods?
• Try going veggie or at least cut out meat for a few days to increase the range of foods you eat. 
• Try the 5:2 diet as long as you eat a balanced high-fibre diet for the non-diet days. Short term fasting is good for microbes.
• Stop snacking. Increasing the time between eating may be better for you and beneficial for weight loss.

Week 2: Replace

• Use your food diary to identify whenyou eat unhealthy fast/fatty food options and replace them with hralthy options.
• Replace sugary foods with natural alternatives. Avoid artificial sweeteners as research suggests they can trigger changes that may lead to more calories being extracted from food.
  (See other posts for more information on the dangers in sugars: ~~ Artificial Sweeteners ~~ Beat Sugar Cravings ~~ Fructose Facts and More Fructose Facts ~~ Sugar facts (1) and (2) ~~ Sugar by any Other Name ~~).
• Extra virgin olive oil contains polyphenols in the oil encourage the growth of beneficial bacteria and microbes break down the oil to produce substances that help your immune system and lower blood fat levels.
• Eat whole fruit instead of fruit juice as it contains beneficial fibre.
• Avoid low fat yoghurts as they tend to contain sugar or sweeteners to replace the fat, which stops beneficial microbe activity. Yoghurts act as 'friendly tourists' in the gut; while few stay permanently, the live bugs they contains stimulate the rest of the gut bacteria to be healthy by helping to initiate anti-inflammatory processes and altering out metabolism and the way we break down other foods. (Follow the advice to avoid low fat versions of other foods, as they too will be sweetened to replace the fat.)
• Go for traditionally produced cheeses (ideally unpasteurised) such as aged Cheddar, ripened Brie or blue cheeses such as Stilton or Roquefort, which are full of beneficial bacteria and fungi.

Week 3: Rebuild

•  Add new ingredients to your diet. The more diverse the foods you eat, the more diverse your gut microbes.
• Eat plenty of plant foods: vegetables, nuts, pulses, fresh herbs and fruit. Aim for at least seven small portions a day.
• Include prebiotic foods: Jerusalem artichokes, leeks, onions, asparagus, garlic, wheat bran, broccoli, tomatoes and bananas. Most gut microbes are found in the large intestine and these foods contain non-digestable fibre, which provides food for these beneficial bacteria.
• Eat probiotic foods: traditionally produced cheeses and yoghurts, and other fermented foods (e.g. sauerkraut, kefir, miso, kimchi and tempeh) daily.

Week 4: Consolidate

• Eat mindfully and don't rush. The first stage of digestion happens in the mouth, so chew properly to help digestion and absorption.
• Studies suggest that regular moderate drinkers have greater microbial diversity than non-drinkers. (But ignore this if you are a recovering alcoholic.)
• High levels of stress may be harmful to gut bacteria, and the number and diversity of the microbiota may also affect our stress responses.
• Vary your protein, eating beans, pulses, seeds and nuts as well as meat and fish. Limit meat intake; organically farmed is more likely to be hormone and antibiotic free.
• Drink coffee as it is a good source of beneficial plant compounds called polyphenols, so a good food for gut bacteria.
• Get active as research indicates that exercise stimulates the microbes to produce a chemical called butyrate, which has a beneficial effect on the immune system.
• Eat 70% chocolate as gut bacteria break down the polyphenols it contains to produce anti-inflammatory substances that reduce stress on the blood vessels. Researchers also found that when volunteers ate cocoa extracts, their levels of beneficial stomach bacteria rose.

Source: Advice from Professor Spector Gut Makeover feature in Good Housekeeping, April 2017.

Cutting Out Sugar

If we eat fat and protein, a hormone is released by our gut that tells us to stop eating when we have had enough. If we eat carbohydrate, a different hormone is released by our pancreas to do the same thing. BUT one carbohydrate type does not trip the appetite control switch - so we have no 'enough' switch - and that is fructose - our bodies do not detect it as a food; the liver converts it immediately to fatty acids (triglycerides) which go into our bloodstream.

Explaining to others. As increasing numbers of people claim a food intolerance, you may find it easier to say you are 'fructose intolerant' (rather than cutting out sugar) and able only to eat fructose as whole fruit, as otherwise you suffer from fatigue, weight gain, bloating, poor sleep, high blood pressure and excessive appetite.

There is some evidence that men find it easy to go 'cold turkey' while women (especially if still menstruating) get on better with a slow withdrawal from sugar. If you go slow, keep a food dairy and set out weekly targets. [Eg. if you have 4 cups of tea a day with 2 teaspoons of sugar, first cut to 1 teaspoon per cup, then half teaspoon per cup, then zero. Next tackle another area of sugar consumption.]

The simple sugars are glucose, galactose and fructose. Glucose is the primary fuel for our bodies and once ingested will be used by the body as fuel. Galactose is primarily found in dairy foods, in the form of lactose. Fructose is relatively rare in nature, and found primarily in ripe fruits. Table sugar is half glocose and half fructose, and seems to be addictive in that it affects the dopamine centres in the brain.

Fructose now appears in many manufactured foods; it is not just the cakes and biscuits, honey, lemon curd and jams, but also dried fruits, flavourings, the flavoured breakfast cereals, most sauces (e.g. sweet chilli, Worcester, cranberry, brown sauces, chutneys), ice creams. Any fat-reduced foods and sauces will have added sugar to make them palatable. Balsamic vinegar is not vinegar but a reduction of syrup of sweet wine grapes, containing 12% to 15% sugar. [In 1945, 25% of sugar eaten was already in food we ate; in 2010 this had risen to 75% of sugar eaten was already in food. Low fat foods typically include extra sugar to replicate preferred texture.]

Fruit is more widely available in our diets but we should limit our daily intake to two pieces as they can be high in fructose. The equivalent teaspoons of sugar are: 4 tsp: grapes and apples. 3 tsp: banana, pineapple, cherry and apricot. 2 1/2 tsp: orange, pear (with peel on). 2 tsp: melon slice, strawberry, peach, grapefruit, kiwi fruit. 1 1/2 tsp: plum, blueberry, gooseberry. 1 tsp: raspberry. 1/2 tsp: cranberry, lemon. Fruit juice and dried fruit are high in fructose.

Other foods are ok: vegetables,  nuts, meat, eggs, natural yoghurt, plain milk and cream, butter and plain bread (except for bagels which are sweetened). Plain peanut butter, cream cheese and meat pastes are also ok as are most varieties of soy and taco sauces. Best salad dressing is oil plus vinegar or lemon juice and herbs.

Takeaways: Indian food is usually ok, as is most Chinese (but beware the sweet and sour sauces which can be 30% sugar). Burgers are ok but ask for no sauce, pickles, salad dressings or mayo. A slice of pizza will contain 1/2 to 1 tsp sugar.

Baking at home: sugar can be replaced by dextrose or glucose. Dextrose can be bought from home brew outlets (but 'brewing sugar' is likely to be ordinary sugar not dextrose). Baked goods are best eaten fresh as they keep less well, though will last longer in the fridge.
# It weighs half as much as sugar but takes up more fluid than the equivalent amount of sugar, so use large eggs or add an extra egg and or add extra liquid ingredients
# It seems to burn at a lower temperature (so for fan ovens try dropping the temperature by 20C).

Drinks: Most wines in moderation (prefer dry to sweet varieties) and avoid dessert wines, port, sweet sherry, liqueurs and mixers (except diet mixers). Avoid soft drinks; for occasional treat can have Lucazade Original (only contains glucose) but not flavoured Lucazade varieties.

Health issues from Fructose

• Fructose seems to interfere with the body's copper metabolism, affecting collagen and elastin formation (vein and artery wall formation (e.g. varicose veins and possibly aneurisms), premature ageing of the skin) and inhibiting the absorption of iodine (potential thyroid problems). 
• Fructose raises blood triglyceride (fatty acids) levels, which makes us resistant to insulin and leptin (appetite control) hormones - so we keep eating. Risks: diabetes, cancer growth, depression, anxiety, dementia and polycystic ovary syndrome.
• Fructose causes sustained increases in LDL cholesterol levels, with increased risk of heart disease and stroke.
• Fructose raises cortisol levels. This stress hormone usually only spikes for 'fight or flight' situations and depresses all non-essential functions - including the immune system/
• Fructose increases circulating uric acid, which leads to raised blood pressure, gout and kidney disease. 
• Fructose reduces nitric acid production in the inner walls of blood vessels; nitric acid is needed for erectile function in men.
• Fructose increases the amount of abdominal fat, especially around the liver. Can lead to fatty liver disease, and ultimately cirrhosis of the liver and liver failure.
• Tooth decay is caused by the bacteria Streptococcus mutans (S.m), which eats only one thing - sugar (50% glucose and 50% fructose) - which then produces plaque and lactic acid. The plaque keeps the lactic acid on the tooth surface, causing damage. Eating glucose alone, the bacteria can only produce lactic acid, no plaque so no decay.

Why did fat become the enemy?
Dr Ancel Keys made a study of eating habits in 22 countries in the decade after WW2 (i.e. the 1950s). He plotted fat in diet to incidence of death from heart disease, initially in 22 countries, but then focused on seven ranging from Japan (low fat intake and low heart death rate) to the US (high fat intake and high heart death rate. But if the date from the other 15 countries are included, there is no straightforward correlation. Greece had high fat intake, but low heart death rate, while Finland had low fat intake but high heart death rate. Dr Keys later modified his theory to saturated fat is bad and unsaturated is good; he and his wife subsequently created the Mediterranean diet. No-one has been able to replicate the Fat Theory results.

What we do know now is that fat will make you fat if you still have fructose in your diet. If your appetite control system is stuck at 'eat as much as you can', fat is the most efficient way to pile on the pounds (gram for gram it contains twice as many calories as carbohydrates or proteins).

Sources: Sweet Poison and Sweet Poison Quit Plan books.


See also blog entries Sugar Facts (1) and Sugar Facts (2), Fructose Facts and More Fructose Facts, Beat Sugar Cravings and Sugar By Any Other Name.

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