Unpopular opinion

@Jackaloftheazuresand Most people's morality is based on empathy. Empathy is awareness of and sharing another person's experiences and emotions. Non-sentient beings don't have experiences and emotions, so empathy isn't really applicable to them. That's why we lovingly nurse sick puppies back to health if they're hurt, but then commit mass bacteria genocide in the sink without a second thought.

@BlueVeins People don't have empathy, they do what makes them feel good. All motivations are about pleasuring the self

@Jackaloftheazuresand That's a degenerate thing to believe.

@BlueVeins Think about it, even something considered as pure as love is just a person choosing another person to be in their life because they like the way that person makes them feel. They don't do it for the other person and they don't treat the other person poorly because when the other person is upset it makes themselves upset and they are really just trying to avoid that. I guarantee every single person is like this too. Thinking there is some transcending nature to life is the same as making up a religion, it's a delusion to cope with the crippling antagonism that is existence. And it's fine to have delusions, we go insane without them but make no mistake that they are.

@Jackaloftheazuresand I agree that love isn't based in empathy, at least not in itself.


Empathy isn't transcending nature. It's part of nature. Tons of animals have an instinctual ability to model each other's thoughts and emotions because of course that's useful for predicting their actions. Social, complex animals take that further to feel each other's emotions because doing that strengthens in-group social bonds, which are in turn useful for cooperative survival and whatnot. It's much better to be in a group where the guy with a broken leg gets nursed back to health than one where that's not the case, and that requires some measure of legitimate mutual altruism.

People canvass for political causes knowing they won't individually move the needle. People make anonymous donations to disaster victims on the opposite side of the world who they'll never, ever meet. People travel to war zones to risk their lives to save people who would have them hanged for their sexual orientation or religion. And frankly, veganism is a good example. If you eat meat, you won't be punished for it at all. If anything, life will be a little harder if you don't do it and you might get socially punished for going against the grain a little. Yet about 1-3% of the population still abstains from doing it, for no other reason than that it causes suffering for others. There's a lot of empathy in the world, you just have to be willing to see it.

@BlueVeins Where do you derive "better" from?

@Jackaloftheazuresand I said that in the context of evolution. In that context, 'better' means bigger probability of propagating your genes.

@BlueVeins And it makes you feel good to serve this evolution does it? Same for the anonymous, same for the activist, same for the savior. They can't live with themselves if they aren't doing what they think they should do. This is not empathy, it's selfishness always.

@Jackaloftheazuresand Your entire brain is built by evolution. Every impulse and feeling you have is one hundred thousand dead ancestors telling you what to do. Eat this food, it will power your cells. Don't let your balls touch that hot stove, it will prevent them from producing your progeny. None of this is mutually exclusive with empathy. If I show empathy to another person, boom -- dopamine dump. I feel good about it so I do it again.

Regardless of how you feel about that, it is not selfish. Selfishness is


If you are showing empathy, you are definitionally showing consideration to others.

@BlueVeins There you go, there's that transcendence again. Not only do humans not have empathy, it's not even real. You're not being considerate, you're manipulating people to get desired outcomes. You don't sit there and ask them how they feel about every action you take that effects them. You're just not paying attention to all the ways in which you are being inconsiderate.

@Jackaloftheazuresand it is real.
People do have empathy.
Well, some do.
Some dont.
Children have it in abundance.

I do understand you thinking that it's not real, as its seemingly becoming less common.
I feel that 'life' can train it out of us ..or turn it to darker uses.

Empathy was once a good survival trait, especially in child rearing, caring for memebers of your tribe/village.
However its not a good survival trait in this 'dog eat dog' society. Empathy is easily abused....taken advantage of.

Then of course there is 'dark empathy' - empathy that is used to control others, use them. Narcissists use dark empathy : the ability to read others weaknesses and use them against them.

As to the view that love is no more than a transaction - thats 'need' or 'desire'.
We frequently translate those things as 'love'.
- which is understandable...on the surface, but love runs deeper. Love isnt transactional.
You can love someone you hate.
You can love against your own will.
Love makes people stay even when people are bad.

People speak of 'unconditional love', when all love is, by its nature, unconditional.
Desire and emotional or egotistical need are.

I know you dont see empathy around you and probably dont even feel it.
As i said, some people just dont have it. Just like some people dont have high ambition or dont have a competitive nature. Some have a natural ear for music and rhythm - and some have absolutely none.

But it is real.
To some with high empathy its tangibly felt on a physical level.

For some, their empathy is so strong it is bombarding to their sense of being.
I can walk into work in the afternoon and 'feel' the vibe of the students before i walk into the building.
I know before im told if serious shit has gone down.
Sometimes i can walk by a student and know if something is emotionally wrong, (i never know what exactly , but i feel it).
Its a tenseness, or tightness like a high frequency sound you cant hear, but feel.
Its emanating. Its like a thin vapour that surrounds someone.
(You know....kinda like a fart , it follows them😅).
Its like you can 'emotionally smell it' coming from them.

Its hard to understand if you dont experience it.

Like, i dont get how some are some musically gifted. How singing is easy.
The thing is..... they just have a feel for it.
A feel i don't have.
A feel i dont feel.

I think its the same with empathy 🤷‍♀