"The point that I’m trying to make here is that, for one, suffering doesn’t make you better, and, for two, people behave relatively predictably given their circumstances. And the circumstances that matter most are usually power relations.

There are very, very few historical examples where an inequitable power dynamic ends up reifying altruistic tendencies in the more powerful. Almost always, the opposite happens.

The inequality of power—the dynamic, the juxtaposition between the powerful and the weak—usually leads, at least over a long enough period of time, to antisocial, malign, sadistic behavior, which is bad, in my opinion".

V