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What a great site. There is so many interesting ideas and the forum’s seem to be full of people who are open to intelligent debate. A breath of fresh air from most of the ignorant, close minded comments people leave on provocative issue debates on facebook, myspace, political forums and even cable news websites.
This particular video brought to light that which we have heard so many times when we were a child, but is it something that is still on our minds? Does the Golden Rule exist in our daily lives? Karen Armstrong says in the video that living the Golden Rule all day and every day would transcend you into the presence of a higher being. It is a common theme in many religions, but points out that often when religious people gather to debate it is on things that people spout off hatred about. She deduces that this is caused by the fact people have the need to be right. The need to be right is intrinsically motivating, and fulfills the psychological need of competence.
She always says that modern religious teaching must educate and stimulate compassion. People tend not to understand compassion; they misinterpret it as simply feeling sorry for someone. She calls upon the media, scholars, and educators to encourage to challenge uncompassionate speech and disdainful remarks. Is it even possible for everyone to be on the same page on this issue? In order to understand compassion you have to participate in it. Are all people capable of this? I would immediately think that it would be very difficult to make this happen on a large scale because of the lack of immediate reinforcement.
Though through what we have talked about in class, my first thoughts may be incorrect. The benefits of living this lifestyle such as conscious, values, awareness and synthesis with self would be a combination of identified and integrated regulators which are extrinsic motivators and not necessarily things that would be reciprocated right away. If we look at Cognitive Evaluation Theory, it says that external events affect a person’s intrinsic motivation when they influence the PLOC for that behavior, Events that promote a more internal PLOC increase intrinsic and decrease extrinsic motivation. The above extrinsic motivators are all somewhat or completely internal. So it may be deduced that engaging in this behavior actually raises intrinsic motivation.

I went to the TED website, but ended up watching the same video you posted! It's funny that you used the metaphor of someone cutting you off in traffic, since I came up with (probably not the first, however) and use it to explain why empathy is important. I have actually had a number of discussions with different people about the importance of not holding people to your own expectations and being able to forgive and understand others. I start with the car example, showing that in all likelihood, the person cutting you off is no more intentionally cruel than you yourself would be if you had to cut someone off. So trying to see why people around you do the things you categorize as mean or idiotic can help you become more empathetic. From there, I believe that we can take that metaphor to forgiving friends for transgressions they have made against us. For example, I used to be angry with friend of mine since I would put a lot more work and love and effort into gifts I would make for them (like hand-knit scarves and hats or a individualized blanket) than they would put into mine (a book or a gift certificate). I used to feel that they obviously didn't care about me as much since they didn't put the effort into the things they gave me. Then I realized that we simply had different standards, and I was trying to hold them to my expectations for myself. If I wanted to be hurt, I had to let them know what I expected of them first. Otherwise, I would only be directing my frustration at someone who didn't even realize there was a problem. True, they really might put less effort in, but I shouldn't hold anger against them for it unless I was sure they understood my feelings. In life, I think we do this too much, where we hold people to expectations they don't even realize we have for them, much less why they are important. With a better sense of empathy, I am far more intrinsically motivated to be empathetic than I ever was before. The golden rule shouldn't be followed because of some extrinsic motivation alone, otherwise empathy isn't really involved, just a sense of obligation. When empathy goes along with the golden rule, we become intrinsically motivated, which is important to following through with the desired behavior.