Cenk Uygur: evaluation

Transcript context

…Yeah, I get it. All right, so let’s break it down. So, first, human beings, then we’ll get to politicians. Do human beings have integrity? Well, it’s a spectrum. So, some people have enormous integrity, some people have no integrity. So, there is not one type or character. So, some people have a ton of empathy for other human beings, and they literally feel it. I feel the pain of someone else, and I’m not alone. Most people feel the pain of someone else. If you see it on video, a baby being hurt, overwhelming majority of human beings will go, “No!” Right? You have empathy. That’s a natural feeling that you have. Some people have no empathy because they’re on the extreme end of the spectrum, serial killers and Donald Trump. So, I’m partly joking, but not really. He has never demonstrated any empathy that I have ever seen for any other human being. I’m going to trigger some right-wingers because they think every terrible thing he said is out of context or joking or not real or fake news. But his chief of staff didn’t make it up. He called people who went into the military suckers and losers. Why? Why did he say that? Just hang with me for a second. Don’t have your head explode. Okay? I’m not saying to Lex. I’m saying to the right-wingers out there. So, the reason is because if you’re like Trump and you literally don’t feel the empathy, you’d think, “Why the hell would I go in the military, get killed for someone else? What a sucker. No, I’m going to stay out of the military. I’m going to stay alive. I’m going to make a ton of money and I’m going to look out for myself.” He assumes because everybody does this, you assume that everyone thinks like you do, but they don’t. So, Trump assumes everybody’s as much of a dirt bag as he is, because he doesn’t feel it. He doesn’t feel the empathy. So, he’s like, “Yeah, you’d be an idiot, a sucker and a loser to go into the military and have sacrifice for other people.” So you see the spectrum. Even if you think Trump’s not on that end and you think I’m wrong about that, you get that there are people on that end. So, you have a spectrum of integrity, empathy, et cetera. That’s what I would call your hardware. You layer on top of that your software, and the software is cultural influences, your parents, media, your friends. All these are cultural influences. So, now when you’re in certain industries, they value more integrity. So, religious leaders, if you’re doing it right, which is also very rare, but if you’re doing it right, you’re supposed to have empathy for the poor, the needy, the whole flock. So, that profession is incentivizing you towards empathy and integrity. which is also very rare, but if you’re doing it right, you’re supposed to have empathy for the poor, the needy, the whole flock. So, that profession is incentivizing you towards empathy and integrity. Even then, a giant amount of people abuse it, but okay, good. In politics, it creates incentives for the opposite, no integrity. That software, to your point, over time gets stronger and stronger and stronger until it takes over. Now, you might have someone with a lot of integrity like Tom Massie, the Republican from Kentucky. Whether I agree with him or disagree with him on policy, I get that the brother is actually doing it based on principles. There isn’t any amount of money you can give Tom Massie for him to change his principles. Why? He’s on the principled end of the spectrum as a human being, so is Bernie. They’re on the same part of that spectrum. But for most people, the great majority of the spectrum, if you overload them with software that incentivizes them to not have integrity, they will succumb. Now let’s switch to politicians in particular. Why do I think that they’re on average far more likely to be on the sociopathic part of the spectrum? Because of the incentives and disincentives. So, this changes every congressional cycle. When just Democrats were winning a lot, it got all the way down to 87.5%. But on average for congressional elections, the person with more money wins 95% of the time. It doesn’t matter if they’re a liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat or any ideology they have, 95%. So, now let’s say you got the 5% that went in that are not hooked on the money. Well, they’re going to get a primary challenge, then they’re going to get a general election challenge. 95% of the time, the one with more money wins. So, eventually, this system cycles through until almost only the corrupt are left. One second. Is that real, 95%? So if you have more money, 95% of the time you win, huh?…

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