{"podcast":{"title":"Reasonably Happy with Paul Ollinger","slug":"reasonably-happy-with-paul-ollinger-635912","podcast_index_feed_id":635912,"rss_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/892156/s/356789.rss","website_url":"https://words.paulollinger.com/s/reasonably-happy-podcast","image_url":"https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/892156/s/356789/a16ca37324e805787f46b75cedb6bc74.jpg","author":"Paul Ollinger","episode_count":336,"summary":"Reasonably Happy is a podcast hosted by comedian and former tech executive Paul Ollinger who explores the intersection of money, meaning, and happiness through candid conversations with authors, thinkers, and creatives. With wit and depth, each episode offers insights into how we can lead more fulfilling lives—without chasing perfection.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-24T02:18:41.337879+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/reasonably-happy-with-paul-ollinger-635912"},"episode":{"title":"How Empathy Is Destroying Western Civilization (with Gad Saad)","slug":"how-empathy-is-destroying-western-civilization-with-gad-saad","published_at":"2026-07-23T13:07:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/reasonably-happy-with-paul-ollinger-635912/how-empathy-is-destroying-western-civilization-with-gad-saad","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/reasonably-happy-with-paul-ollinger-635912","url":"https://words.paulollinger.com/p/how-empathy-is-destroying-western","audio_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/206571636/2d7c90fdfb81ca9c8e76f3fb3097dbbc.mp3","summary":"In this episode of Reasonably Happy, I sit down with Dr. Gad Saad, an evolutionary behavioral scientist, longtime professor, and author of the New York Times bestseller Suicidal Empathy: Dying to be Kind . Gad lays out why empathy, when it hyper-fires at the wrong targets, becomes a form of civilizational self-disembowelment. We cover open-border immigration, cultural relativism, the UK grooming gang scandal, DEI and the anti-meritocracy push, his move to Ole Miss, and what a real prescription for the West actually looks like. Timestamps 00:00:00 Trailer 00:01:28 Intro 00:01:40 From marketing professor to cultural critic 00:03:20 Born Jewish in Lebanon during the civil war 00:05:03 Defining suicidal empathy 00:08:29 Civilizations die by suicide, not murder 00:13:47 How open-border immigration became the flagship case 00:14:29 Cultural relativism and the parasitic mind 00:22:12 UK grooming gangs and the fear of Islamophobia 00:28:13 One-way tolerance and the parasite analogy 00:34:10 Anti-meritocracy, DEI and attribution bias 00:40:16 The career cost of speaking honestly in academia 00:43:34 Why he chose Ole Miss over the Ivy League 00:49:09 Hope through the Southern freedom centers 00:52:10 The prescription: an inverted U-curve for empathy 00:57:36 Outro Follow Gad Instagram: @doctorgadsaad X: @GadSaad Follow Me Instagram: @paul_ollinger X: @Paul_Ollinger Get full access to Reasonably Happy at words.paulollinger.com/subscribe","meta_description":"In this episode of Reasonably Happy, I sit down with Dr. Gad Saad, an evolutionary behavioral scientist, longtime professor, and author of the New York Ti…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4226,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/reasonably-happy-with-paul-ollinger-635912/episodes/how-empathy-is-destroying-western-civilization-with-gad-saad/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/reasonably-happy-with-paul-ollinger-635912/how-empathy-is-destroying-western-civilization-with-gad-saad.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}