Did you know?

Our children are the first generation in modern society to fear the future. For the first time, the future is not seen as a place of hope and something better. Too often, even adults can feel powerless in the face of today's challenges. Despite the complexity, there is a way out. The mission of the Empathy-Based Society Initiative is to champion this path.

We live in a violence-based society, in a world that normalizes violence towards people, animals, nature, and the planet and we built our economic systems on it.


Violence needs a winner and a loser. For it to exist, it needs an inequality of power.

Power inequality leads to hierarchy.

Hierarchy leads to separation.

Separation leads to alienation.

Alienation leads to selfishness.

Selfishness leads to greed.

Greed leads to non-cooperation.

Non-cooperation leads to deterioration.


All these dynamics dominate today's society, and we are witnessing their devastating consequences on all living beings and the planet. Most of the problems we tackle as separate phenomena (wars, climate crisis, factory farming, world hunger) are simply symptoms of violence.

But...

Research shows that we are born with brains hard-wired for empathy and that empathy inhibits violence. By nurturing empathy, we can create greater well-being for all and a foundation for systemic change.


EBSI's PURPOSE: To disrupt cycles of violence by promoting empathy as a key to personal and societal transformation.

  • Empathy is our biological purpose. We are born with brains hard-wired for empathy.
  • Humans have normalized violence toward people, animals, nature, and the planet and built economic systems on it.
  • Empathy switches off violence. The two cannot be expressed at the same time because violence and empathy share a part of the same circuitry in our brains and switch each other off. Empathy needs to be developed and strengthened.
  • Without empathy, cycles of violence and harm will persist—threatening the well-being of current and future generations.