“the egalitarian lifestyles of hunter-gatherers exist because the individuals care a lot about status. Individuals in these societies end up roughly equal because everyone is struggling to ensure that nobody gets too much power over him or her. This is… — Paul Bloom Copy Share Image
“In 1999, the anthropologist Christopher Boehm addressed this issue in Hierarchy in the Forest, which reviewed the lifestyles of dozens of small-scale human groups. Perhaps surprisingly, he found that they are egalitarian. Material inequality is kept to a minimum; goods… — Paul Bloom Copy Share Image
I have two teenage sons, and they're both surviving, thriving, and having a great time, and they're always on social media. — Paul Bloom Copy Share
Families survive the terrible twos because toddlers aren't strong enough to kill with their hands and aren't capable of using lethal weapons. — Paul Bloom Copy Share
If Inigo Montoya were around now, he wouldn't need to storm the castle to bring his father's murderer to justice; the police would do… — Paul Bloom Copy Share
Most of us know nothing about constitutional law, so it's hardly surprising that we take sides in the Obamacare debate the way we root… — Paul Bloom Copy Share
“Being a good person likely is more related to distanced feelings of compassion and kindness, along with intelligence, self-control, and a sense of justice.… — Paul Bloom Copy Share
Imagination is Reality Lite - a useful substitute when the real pleasure is inaccessible, too risky, or too much work. — Paul Bloom Copy Share
One way to make a baby cry is to expose it to cries of other babies. There's sort of contagiousness to the crying. It's… — Paul Bloom Copy Share
I want to convince you that humans are, to some extent, natural born essentialists. What I mean by this is we don't just respond… — Paul Bloom Copy Share
The fact that something can be used for good isn't necessarily a knockdown argument for it. — Paul Bloom Copy Share
Our best hope for the future [...] lies in an appreciation of the fact that, even if we don’t empathize with distant strangers, their… — Paul Bloom Copy Share
When people want to inspire you to turn against some group of people, they'll often use empathy. When Obama wanted to bomb Syria, he… — Paul Bloom Copy Share
I'm very interested in why we do good things, or bad things, and where moral judgments come from. — Paul Bloom Copy Share
I have my own difficulty with movies in which the suffering of the characters is too real, and many find it difficult to watch… — Paul Bloom Copy Share
I think what a lot of fiction is, is the imagining of the worst so as to prepare ourselves. — Paul Bloom Copy Share
Morality is often seen as an innovation, like agriculture and writing. From this perspective, babies are pint-sized psychopaths, self-interested beings who need to be… — Paul Bloom Copy Share
