this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2026
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"The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy." Elon Musk, 2020
I remember being outraged by that, not only by the evilness, but also about how easy it is to disprove.
As I said back then:
Empathy is one of society's greatest strengths, when people fall down, others will help them up, enabling them to keep contributing to society later, this creates a flexible but strong society.
A society without empathy is a brittle society, it doesn't bend, when someone falls down, they are left behind, and the society loses their their experience and future contributions, creating cracks. Eventually these cracks will break an unempathic society.
You can even claim that empathy is a form of selfishness, by helping other's you make sure that there are other's around that can help you.
TL;DR: Elon lacks basic logic.
I don't think it is intentional. Sociopaths are unable to simulate another emotional state in their mind, thus they have problems predicting emotions, even their own future emotional state. All they can do is to project their own emotions onto others.
Elon lacks empathy. If you don't have empathy it's like some magic fairy miracle stuff, and you don't understand it. So you hate it.
HE does however claim to be logical, he obviously isn't, but he claims to.
ideological is a kind of logic.
So is prejudice.
So are other "religions".
All of them are imprint->reaction programmings.
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I always kind of liked the take that empathy is self serving. You're kind and compassionate to others because it makes you feel good to do so. People without empathy are just less of a person for the lack of it.
I don't understand the perspective you're coming-from.
True empathy is where one totally-understands another's experience/perspective, & one "is one with" their condition/experiencing.
It isn't that it makes you feel good to do that, or even to be able to do that: it's just wired in, an innate-muscle of mind ( the mirror-neuron system, which seems to be broken in psychopaths ).
Why would being pierced by another's grieving make one feel good to be doing?
Honest empathy isn't self-serving.
It is overwhelming.
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This is what happens when you build a system that rewards narcissism and psychopathy.
Don't forget machiavellianism: the WHOLE DarkTriad is selected-for, by politics & concentration-of-wealth-archy, both..
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How would he ever have empathy? He has never suffered a day in his life. He probably can't even imagine what it's like
well that's the thing innit. empathy implies the ability to feel and connect to another person regardless of shared experience.
Remember when all the right wing “Christians” were spouting about the “sin of empathy?”
Seriously?
When?
That should be on banners, identifying them as being the enemies of their Christian Holy Spirit.
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For it was 6-8 months ago I think? Some MAGA pastor ass hat wrote a book about it saying empathy was a sin because it led people to not hate gay people basically and all the the fuck nuggets picked it up
I think it is more the other way around. The world is a scary place if you cannot predict other peoples or your own emotional state.