WEBVTT

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So, we humans have

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
an extraordinary potential for goodness,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but also an immense power to do harm.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Any tool can be used

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to build or to destroy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That all depends on our motivation.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Therefore, it is all the more important

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to foster an altruistic motivation
rather than a selfish one.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So now, we indeed are facing

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
many challenges in our times.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Those could be personal challenges.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Our own mind can be our best friend
or our worst enemy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There's also societal challenges:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
poverty in the midst of plenty,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
inequalities, conflict, injustice.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And then there are the new challenges
which we don't expect.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Ten thousand years ago, there was
about five million human beings on Earth.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Whatever they could do,
the Earth's resilience

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
will soon heal human activities.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
After the Industrial
and Technological Revolutions,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that's not the same anymore.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We are now the major agent
of impact on our Earth.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We've entered the Anthropocene,
the era of human beings.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So in a way, if we were to say

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we need to continue this endless growth,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
endless use of material resources,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it's like saying if this man was saying,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and I heard the former heads of state,
I won't mention who, saying,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Five years ago, we were at
the edge of the precipice.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Today we made a big step forward."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So this edge is the same

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which have been defined by scientists

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as the planetary boundaries,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and within those boundaries,
they can carry a number of factors.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We can still prosper, humanity can still
prosper for 150,000 years

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
if we keep the same stability of climate

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as in the Holocene
for the last 10,000 years.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But this depends on choosing
a voluntary simplicity,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
growing qualitatively, not quantitatively.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So in 1900, as you can see,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we were well within the limits of safety.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now, in 1950 came the great acceleration.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now hold your breath, not too long,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to imagine what comes next, now.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We are vastly overrun

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
some of the planetary boundaries.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Just to take biodiversity,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the current rate, in 2050,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
30 percent of all species on Earth

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
will have disappeared.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Even if we keep their DNA in some fridge,
that's not going to be reversible.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So here I am sitting in front

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of a 7,000 meters high,
21,000 feet glacier in Bhutan.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[???], two thousand glaciers
are melting fast, faster than the Arctic.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So what can we do in that situation?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Well, however complex,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
politically, economically, scientifically

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the question of the environment is,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it simply boils down to a question
of altruism versus selfishness.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I'm a Marxist of the Groucho tendency.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Laughter)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Groucho Marx said, "Why should I care
for future generations?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What did they do for me?"

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Laughter)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Unfortunately, I heard
the billionaire Steven Forbes,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
on Fox News saying exactly the same thing,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but seriously.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He was told about the rise of the ocean,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and he said, "I find it absurd
to change my behavior today

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for something that will happen
in a hundred years."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So if you don't care
for future generations,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
just go for it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So one of the main challenges of our times

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is to reconcile three time scales.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The short term of the economy,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the ups and downs of the stock market,
the end of the year accounts.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The midterm of the quality of life:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what is the quality every moment of
our life and over 10 years and 20 years?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And the long term of the environment.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When the environmentalists
speak with economists,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it's like a schizophrenic dialogue,
completely incoherent.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They don't speak the same language.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now, for the last 10 years,
I went around the world

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
meeting economists, scientists,
neuroscientists, environmentalists,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
philosophers, thinkers, in the Himalayas,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
all over the place.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It seems to be, there's only one concept

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that can reconcile
those three time scales.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It is simply having more
consideration for others.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If you have more consideration for others,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you will be having a caring economics,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where finances are the service of society

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and not society
at the service of finances.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You will not play at the casino
with the resources that people

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
have entrusted you with.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If you have more consideration for others,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you will make sure
that you remedy inequality,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that you bring some kind of well being
within the society,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in education, at the workplace.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Otherwise, a nation that is
the most powerful and the richest,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
everyone is miserable.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What's the point?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And if you have more
consideration for others,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you are not going to ransack
that planet that we have

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and that at the current rate, we don't
have three planets to continue that way.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So the question is,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
okay, altruism is the answer,
it's not just a novel idea,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but can it be a real, pragmatic solution?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And first of all, does it exist,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
true altruism, or are we so selfish?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So some philosophers thought
we were irredeemably selfish.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You know, but are we really
all just like rascals?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That's good news, isn't it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Many philosophers like Hobbes have said so

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but not everyone looks like a rascal,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or is man a wolf for man?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But this guy doesn't seem too bad.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He's one of my friends in Tibet.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He's very kind.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So now, we love cooperation.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There's no better joy than work together.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Isn't it?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And then not only humans.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Then, of course, there's
the struggle for life,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the survival of the fittest,
Social Darwinism.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But in evolution, cooperation,
though competition exists, of course,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
cooperation is much more creative.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
To go to increased level of complexity,
we are super cooperators,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and we should even go further.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So now, on top of that,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the quality of human relationships,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you know, the OECD did a survey

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
among 10 factors,
including income, everything,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the first one that people said
that's the main thing for my happiness

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is quality of social relationships.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Not only in humans.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And look at those great grandmothers.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So now,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this idea that we go deep within,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we are irredeemably selfish,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this is armchair science.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There is not a single sociological study,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
psychological study,
that's ever shown that.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Rather, the opposite.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
My friend [Daniel Batthson??]
spent a whole life

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
putting people in the lab
in very complex situations,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and of course we are sometimes selfish

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and some people more than others,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but he found that systematically,
no matter what,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
there's a significant number of people

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who do behave altruistically,
no matter what.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now, if you see someone
deeply wounded, great suffering,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you might just help
out of empathic distress.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You can't stand it,
so it's better to help

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
than keep on looking at that person.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So we tested all that, and in the end,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
he said, clearly people
can be altruistic, so that's good news.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And even further, we should look
at the banality of goodness.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now look at here.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When we come out, we are going to say,
"That's so nice, there was no fistfight

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
while this mob
was thinking about altruism."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
No, we expect that, don't we.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If there was a fistfight,
we would speak of that for months.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So the banality of goodness is something
that doesn't attract your attention,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but it exists.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now, look at this. Look at this.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Okay.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So some psychologists said,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
when I tell them I run
140 humanitarian projects

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the Himalayas
that give me so much joy,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they said, oh, I see,
you work for the warm glow.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That is not altruistic.
You just feel good.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You think this guy,
when he jumped in front of the train,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
he thought, "I'm going to feel
so good when this is over?"

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But that's not the end of it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They say, well, but when
you interviewed him, he said,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"I had no choice,
I had to jump of course."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He has no choice. Automatic behavior.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's neither selfish nor altruistic.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
No choice.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Well, of course, this guy's
not going to think for half an hour,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
should I give my hand, not give my hand?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He does it. There is a choice,
but it's obvious, it's immediate.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And then, also, here they have a choice.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So now, there are people who had choice,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
like Pastor André Trocmé and his wife,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the whole village
of Chambon-sur-Lignon in France.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
For the whole Second World War,
they saved 3,500 Jews,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
gave them shelter,
brought them to Switzerland,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
against all odds, at the risk
of their lives and that of their family.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So altruism does exist.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So what is altruism?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It is the wish, may others be happy
and find the cause of happiness.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now empathy is the effective resonance
or cognitive resonance that tells you,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this personality is joyful,
this person suffers.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But empathy enough is not sufficient.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If you keep on being
confronted with suffering,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you might have empathic distress, burnout,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so you need the greater sphere
of loving kindness.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
With Daniel Singer at the
[??] Institute of Leipzig,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we showed that the brain network

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for empathy and loving kindness
are different.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now, that's all well done,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so we got that from evolution,
from maternal care, parental love,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but we need to extend that.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Can we extend it to other species?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now, if we want a more altruistic society,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we need two things:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
individual change and societal change.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So is individual change possible?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Two thousand years
of contemplative study said yes, it is.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now, 15 years of collaboration
with neuroscience and epigeneticists

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
said yes, our brains change
when you train in altruism.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So I spent 120 hours in an MRI machine.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is the first time I went
after two and a half hours.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And then, the result

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
-- I've been published
in many scientific papers --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it shows without ambiguity
that there are structural change

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and functional change in the brain

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
when you train the altruistic love.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Just to give you an idea:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this is the meditator at rest on the left,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
meditation in compassion meditation,
you see all the activity,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and then the control group at rest,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
nothing happened,
in meditation, nothing happened.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They have not been trained.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So, do you need 50,000
hours of meditation?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
No, you don't.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Four weeks, 20 minutes a day,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of caring, mindfulness meditation

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
already brings a structural change
in the brain compared to a control group.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That's only 20 minutes a day
for four weeks.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Even with preschoolers,
we showed in Madison,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
eight weeks program, gratitude,
loving kindness, cooperation,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
mindful breathing, you would say,
"Oh, they're just preschoolers."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Look after eight weeks.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The pro-social behavior,
that's the blue line,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and then come the ultimate
scientific test, the stickers test.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Before, you determine for each child
who is their best friend in the class,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
their least favorite child,
the unknown child, and the sick child,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and they have to give stickers away.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So before the intervention,
they give most of it to their best friend.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Four, five years old, 20 minutes,
three times a week.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
After the intervention,
no more discrimination.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The same amount of stickers
to their best friend

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the least favorite child.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You know, that's something we should do
in all the schools in the world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now, where do we go from there?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Applause)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When the Dalai Lama heard that,
his solution, he said,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"You go to 10 schools, 100 schools,
the U.N., the whole world."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So now where do we go from there?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Individual change is possible.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now, do we have to wait
for an altruistic gene

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to be in the human race?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That will take 50,000 years,
too much for the environment.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Fortunately, there is
the evolution of culture.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Cultures, as specialists have shown,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
change faster than genes.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That's the good news.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Look at attitudes towards war
has dramatically changed over the years.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So now, individual change
and cultural change

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
mutually fashion each other,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and yes, we can achieve
a more altruistic society.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So where do we go from there?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Myself, I will go back to the East.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now, we treat 100,000 patients
a year in our projects.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We have 25,000 kids in school,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
four percent overhead.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Some people say, "Well,
your stuff works in practice,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but does it work in theory?"

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So there's always the positive deviance.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So I will also go back to my hermitage
to find the inner resources

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to better serve others.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But on the more global level,
what can we do?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We need three things.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Enhancing cooperation,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
cooperative learning in the school
instead of competitive learning,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
unconditional cooperation
within corporations.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There can be some competition
between corporations, but not within.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We need sustainable harmony.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I love this term.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Not sustainable growth anymore.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Sustainable harmony means now
we will reduce inequality.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In the future, we do more with less,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and we continue to grow qualitatively,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
not quantitatively.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We need caring economics.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The old economics cannot deal
with poverty in the midst of plenty,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
cannot deal with the problem
of the common goods

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of the atmosphere, of the oceans.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We need a caring economics.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If you say economics
should be compassionate,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they say, "That's not our job."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But if you say they don't care,
that looks bad.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We need local commitment,
global responsibility.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We need to extend altruism
to the other 1.6 million other species,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
sentient beings [?????],

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and we need to dare altruism.

NOTE Paragraph

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So long life to the altruistic revolution.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Viva la revolucion de altruismo.

NOTE Paragraph

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Applause)