I know it’s bad to dehumanize people, but sometimes I can’t help myself when we’re talking about a person who completely lacks empathy. It’s like they walk and talk exactly like a person does, but they’re missing something essential.
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Tolerance of intolerance is contradictory.
There is no defense for intolerance.
Unless it’s intolerance of intolerance.
“Welcome to my house, here everybody is welcomed and respected, but if you choose to make somebody’s life difficult because they’re different from you your ass will be on the curb before you can raise your palm over your head.”
You aren’t arguably human if you have no empathy.
That is just a cartoonishly evil thing to say. That is why it is difficult to not dehumanize. It feels so unreal.
Empathy needs to be the definition of humanity, such that those who don’t feel it are classed as inhuman.
Classing anyone as inhuman is dangerous. A widespread inability to see the most barbaric Nazis as regular human beings like ourselves is one of the reasons Nazism has been able to sneak back up on us. It’s important to recognize that the potential for empathy, and the potential for empathy to wither away, are both human potentials. As humans we have the capacity for great compassion or great cruelty. It won’t help us if we say, “Oh, that cruelty is not us. We’re humans; they’re not.”
Dehumanization is always the first step to eradication.
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Human civilizations arose and grew because of human cooperation and organization
Not through the will of one man or a small group of people
You can claim kings, emperors, divine rulers, czars and god men who led entire groups of people … but it was masses of people cooperating with another that made it all possible.
We may be disillusioned, distracted, manipulated, controlled, coerced and taken advantage of … but it is still and will always be masses of people that make our world possible.
I love the African philosophy of ubuntu: ‘I am who I am, because of who we all are’
Buddhists would say that if you look closely, you find no distinction between yourself and everyone else. We are made of each other. Empathy and compassion are our nature because nothing happens to just me or just you. It’s one shared life, and we suffer when we fail to recognize this.
This is a really good perspective too!
Even those leaders are just avatars of the shared humanity they lead and represent, they persist only as a creation of a shared culture and by permission of those people whether or everyone involved is cognizant of the fact.
The masses create everything, even those leaders because nothing exists in a vacuum
I hope that empathetic people temporarily suspend their empathy when approaching musk
You know, “its a weakness” he says, don’t be weak when you have to eliminate a nazi
this is exactly what i came in here to say. it’s a sort of paradox, but only for those who can’t see the big picture. in order to save humanity, we have to become as ruthless as they are.
our children can learn to love after we’ve won the war.
The social contract grants governments and their leaders authority in exchange for protection and guaranteed rights for the citizens.
When those in power violate the contract, it no longer applies to them. Trump, Musk, and the rest of the fascists are no longer covered by the social contract. We do not have to tolerate them, respect them, or have empathy for them.
This is a realization that I’ve come to:
that humans survive (and thrive) when there is a genuine organization based in part on empathy. When a human tries to disrupt this organization for their own gain then it’s in the best interest of the group to ostracize and remove that human from the group.
You can have empathy but still do what needs to be done
He does deserve empathy. That means he deserves a speedy trial, no torture, reasonable accommodations, a sentence that fits his crimes and is not primarily punitive, minimally restrictive confinement, a break every few hours from mandatory labor (building public transit, for example), and a non life sentence.
Rights are protected by a democracy, but fought for by a resistance. I hope you’re right about which one of those we’re at.
Studies show again and again that people tend to attribute their wins to skill and ability even in a completely rigged game. Likewise, they tend to do the opposite when looking at their fellow man: “they got lucky, while I worked my ass off to get here”.
When wealth is regarded as a proof of skill and enterprising spirit, poverty must perforce be the opposite of that. And once you start regarding lack of wealth as a moral failing, true empathy dies on the vine.
From the APA’s “Journal of Experimental Psychology”:
“Empathy is hard work: People choose to avoid empathy because of its cognitive costs” (2019)
(Abstract) or (Full Text PDF)
Further reading on this subject:
“How resource sharing resists scarcity: the role of cognitive empathy and its neurobiological mechanisms” (2022)
“Empathy moderates the relationship between cognitive load and prosocial behaviour” (2023)
“Cognitive load and moral decision-making in moral dilemmas under virtual reality: the role of empathy for pain” (2025)
(Abstract)
“The Influence of Cognitive Load on Empathy and Intention in Response to Infant Crying” (2016)
There’s a growing body of research from behavioral neuroscience which indicate that wealth, power, and privilege have a deleterious effect on the brain. People with high-socioeconomic status often:
- Have reduced empathy and compassion.
- Have a diminished ability to see from someone else’s perspective.
- Have low impulse control.
- Have an extreme sense of entitlement.
- Have a hoarding disorder.
- Have a dangerously high tolerance for risk.
When you don’t need to cooperate with other people to survive, they become irrelevant to you. When you’re in charge, you can behave very badly and people will still be polite and respectful toward you. Instead of reciprocity, it’s a formalized double standard. When you have status, you’re given excessive credibility, and rarely hear the very ordinary push-back from others most of us are accustomed to, instead you receive flattery and praise and your ideas are taken seriously by default.
Humans have a strong need for egalitarianism; without it our brains malfunction and turn us into the worst versions of ourselves.
Some sources:
Hubris syndrome: An acquired personality disorder? A study of US Presidents and UK Prime Ministers over the last 100 years
Does power corrupt? An fMRI study on the effect of power and social value orientation on inequity aversion.
Social Class and the Motivational Relevance of Other Human Beings: Evidence From Visual Attention
The Psychology of Entrenched Privilege: High Socioeconomic Status Individuals From Affluent Backgrounds Are Uniquely High in Entitlement
Hoarding Disorder: It’s More Than Just an Obsession - Implications for Financial Therapists and Planners
On the evolution of hoarding, risk-taking, and wealth distribution in nonhuman and human populations
Just a quick reply - haven’t read your sources yet. But I also feel like it works both ways, one’s lack of empathy helps you succeed in a capitalist culture that only has one metric for success, money. Will now start reading ;).
I agree with the underlying concept, that having low/no empathy is rewarded under the current capitalist systems that most first world countries endorse.
The conflict I have with that mentality, which drives me, personally, away from it, is that if you go back in the history books, we only survived some eras because of strong communal bonds and collaboration with our tribe. In every circumstance, collaboration has been more beneficial economically, than any other option.
Therefore, I reject the selfish capitalist ideals and embrace empathy for the sake of humanity and my role in it.
I’ll note, I am neither rich, nor American.
We are still
thrivingcreating great things because we collaborate on a large level. It might not be that communal anymore (unfortunately), but working together is still the key to success (in a system way).It would be beneficial for all, if we could bring back the communal part - while still holding on to some of the benefits the modern global system has produced. I just always wonder, how do you replace or compete with the ice cold global capitalist systems, that can win most of the time in the short term and just overwhelm any sustainable, communal long term system.
That’s the trick, isn’t it?
Make a thing that helps collaboration that people buy into for long term survival, sacrificing what “could be” to hopefully achieve a better tomorrow…
Nobody has successfully achieved this yet.
Thank you! Needed this so badly!
Aren’t those signs of sociopathy?
I think we need to forbid people who qualify as sociopaths from holding any office with any degree of power. They can’t be trusted with power.
That literally sounds like the local rich kid that was a bully but then got a DUI and killed someone but because his parents are rich didn’t even serve a day.
Wealth accumulation as a mental disorder makes so much goddamn sense.
Excellent summary. It’s not just Musk that doesn’t understand empathy — it’s ALL the tech bros.
I remember talking to a coworker at a tech startup once. He was leaving to go work for some like military intelligence spy company. I was like, “But what if they have you work on something fucked up, like spying on innocent people, or sending drones to kill people?” He was like, big shrug, the pay is good.
Some people just don’t care about other people. He was nice to people he knew, when it didn’t really cost him anything.
Our society isn’t really set up to discourage that kind of worldview. That kind of selfish person typically thrives.
It’s all powerful people. Many studies show that social power affects the brain, suppressing empathy centers.
As you get more wealth, status or fame, your brain becomes less capable of empathy and closer to the brain of a psychopath.
As long as we have hierarchies, we will be ruled by villains.
Apparently a ton of the tech bros are part of cults in SF that practice rationalism. Some offshoots of rationalism attempt to “jailbreak” the mind into psychopathy. They quite literally teach that psychopathy is a net benefit for the individual and they strive to become psychopathic as a tool for success.
It’s a lot of people
Well, if you have empathy, you usually aren’t successful (at least in the last ~20 years).
Aren’t successful according to capitalistic ideals. People with empathy are often successful by better measures
Don’t buy into their propaganda. Succesful is not the same as being ultrarich. There are many parameters in which you can be succesful.
How about being able to afford food?
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But die of starvation and a shitload of other things.
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Not being the underdog of everything, having a somewhat enjoyable life.
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Being at least as good as my parents. They ascended to the middle class, so I have to continue this trend or I will be considered a loser by my family.
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Empathy is the cornerstone of a successful society.
By helping people who needs it, society as a whole will grow stronger.
Lack of empathy only causes cracks to form and will sooner or later ruin any society built from it.
Musk has once again shown himself to be an utter idiot.
Don’t treat Musk’s words as if they were coming from an intelligent source.
I believe the whole point of the post was to show contrast: here’s what some great minds said about empathy, and then there’s this guy.
I feel like someone told Elon that he’s autistic and lacks empathy, and his reaction was to get all defensive about it and start claiming people who lack empathy are actually superior.
Isn’t the whole “autistic people don’t have empathy” thing a long debunked myth anyway? It’s generally, among autistic people, seen as ablest to assume they are incapable of empathy, which would make Elon’s/Elon’s supporter’s excuses for him in this respect DOA.
Yes, autistic people struggle with telling how a person is feeling, but once they know, they can be the most empathetic people ever. fElon is using it as an excuse to treat everyone like shit.
also, this south african apartheid nazi is not autistic, he’s just empathetically retarded.
Well my guess is he has narcissism but they told him it’s autism because it’s often a bad idea to tell a narcissist they have narcissism.
I think empathy is misunderstood. Especially this notion that having empathy is a proxy for being a good person.
Consider the sadist. You cannot enjoy someone’s suffering if you can’t recognize it. Being manipulative would also be difficult without a grasp of someone’s inner life. A confidence artist must be an empath. A “cold read” psychic must be uniquely empathetic.
In 1921 Hitler gave a speech where he promised to put Jewish people into camps to see “how they like it”. (he was upset about WWI German POWs and blamed Jewish people for their long internment). So Hitler did recognize Jewish people as human and capable of suffering; that was the point.
There’s a big difference between academically knowing how a person feels–in a disconnected way–and actually being able to relate to that feeling as if you were experiencing it yourself.
Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings and emotions of another person.
You’re right that it’s trivial to find examples of bad people who understand the emotions and feelings of others, but it’s a lot harder to be a bad person when you can share those emotions and feelings yourself.
Like being mean to an NPC in a video game
I know rationally they are just a bunch of pixels and code, but as soon as they have plausible human dialogue, and I say something mean, and they act hurt… something triggers in my brain and I feel that hurt. And I immediately want to stop
I literally struggle to be mean to a bunch of pixels, just because they mimick a living creature. It’s also interesting because often it promotes a sort of dissonance, “I know this isn’t real… and yet I cannot help but feel what they feel… Even though they feel nothing”
something triggers in my brain and I feel that hurt
Are you familiar with mirror neurons? We are social beings. We are built from the ground up to feel each others pain.
Yes indeed. Mirror neurons are directly related to empathy I believe
Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings and emotions of another person.
This is what makes the sadist argument so interesting, if still a red herring. They do share the feelings, and it gets them off! The issue with this line of reasoning is that level of sadism is a mental health problem and not something people should strive for or encourage; so in the end it’s not much of an argument against empathy.
Also, I don’t know that I agree that Hitler “did recognize Jewish people as human and capable of suffering.” I don’t think he cared either way. Their suffering & extermination was politically useful for him. I think that’s a pretty good argument against any empathic feelings he may or may not have held.
When did the West have more empathy than other cultures? Elon’s mistake is not only the conclusion that empathy is a weakness but also the observation that the West is empathic.
This seems to be in the context of the other quote that only somebody with the ability for violence can be peaceful. If you are unable to stop destroying your opponent, are you going to win? Sounds like rage, which is not good to win wars.
