Paul Bloom's book "Against Empathy", chapter by Jesse Prinz

submitted by meatball4u from self.debatealtright

Empathy is so prized and cherished by Christians that people go way overboard with the concept and surrender self interest. This chapter from Against Empathy is a good read to help decondition us from the downsides of empathy https://t.co/ZaqDqIBpiA?amp=1

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[–]DisgustResponse 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The most important detail of empathy is who you empathize with. Leftists will insist you are a "shitty person" if you don't profess compassion for everyone on the planet (except Nazis). A notion which is fundamentally unsustainable, impractical and in my opinion, dangerous.

To love all is to degrade the loyalty you have to your family and nation, people whom you share real skin-in-the-game common interests with.

I don't find it cold or cruel to say things like "black lives don't matter". It's a frank statement that we are strangers to each other and I will not be your advocate.

[–]Minedwe 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Here's the thing. This idea of Christianity and human rights and etc being incompatible with Third Positionism/the alt right is ridiculous and childish. You can easily balance or fit together ideas, even conflicting ones, you simply have to rationally think about issues and decide a way to compromise or fit them around each other. If you don't care about one or both ideas enough to do this, do you even really believe in them?

I'm pretty sure that a lot of this sentiment comes from the tired and childish left/right, oversimplified, propagandized way of political thought that the media pushes. "You must believe exactly these rigid and near-satire ideas, and no independent thought!". Obviously, you aren't doing this, nor are the authors of this article, but a greater theme I see across especially alt-lite circles or certain members of our communities seem to still be stuck in this basic and scientific idea of non-scientific ideas that the mainstream uses. The political compass and left/right and parties may be good for conveying categorized and packaged general ideas, but here we are dealing more specific and nebulous person thought and feeling on specific subjects and we should try to avoid such ideas, and most of us are guilty of it from time to time.

To be more on-topic though, Empathy is a tool taht should be applied wisely. There are those deserving and needing of your thought and attention, and those who do not. Plenty of people are out there to help blacks, or gays, or others, so you don't really need to care about them as a result, at leats not on a targeted and personal level.

You should save your empathy for those you can help and should care about/help, because your energy can be applied better rather than being wasted.

[–]Nombre27 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

but a greater theme I see across especially alt-lite circles or certain members of our communities seem to still be stuck in this basic and scientific idea of non-scientific ideas that the mainstream uses.

Would you mind elaborating on this?

Just a thought, for empathy to be healthy/productive, it needs to be reciprocal, or at least capable of being reciprocated. For this you need to be more proximal than distal to the person in question. Continuing on that thought, much of modern thoughts and intentions (see liberals/progressives) ends up being zero sum because they don't care to have reciprocity. They don't mind wasting their own time and resources, as well as other peoples resources, on things that are extremely destructive. Combined with the feel good effect they get, they end up being completely unaware of the greater harm they're causing (see broken window fallacy).

In British Columbia, Canada, the healthcare system has resorted to providing the drugs for addicts because "it will cost less", but it only costs less because they've been entirely unwilling to make the hard decisions that they should have made a long time ago.

https://globalnews.ca/news/6744401/coronavirus-overdose-safe-drugs/

[–]Minedwe 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

What I mean is, trying to categorize things that can't really be categorized in a simple manner. Trying to shove someone's network of ideas and such into a small, very specific box or a vague descriptor that doesn't really say much.

And you're definitely right that empathy should be used differently than the destructive ways it is used, or rather weaponized, in modern society by some. But by the same token many of our emotions are being manipulated purposely by the ZOG to manipulate us, i.e. "Care about George Floyd, not the white people falsely arrested or killed by the ZOG" or many other examples.

As for the example you list, that is definitely not the way to go. But what do you feel they should've done in the first place? The focus on price and cost many mainstream people have is absurd and hypocritical, I feel, especially when many of them use guilt and empathy manipulation in other circumstances much less worthy of attention.

[–]Nombre27 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

What should have been done?

Probably something like extremely long sentences of hard labour for the dealers.

For the addicts, dry them out somewhere remote and try to rebuild them. Try to keep it low cost but effective. Not the safe drug injection site and coddling idiocy that we're seeing today. We're kind of living with policies that Popper's paradox of tolerance warned us about.

[–]Minedwe 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I think you're right, measures like this should've been taken long ago. But the issue is, the big dealers in North America and the world are the US Government and China. Most of our drug problem here in the US and I'm sure Canada and South America as well are mainly fueled by US-supported cartels and by the CIA, which has been proven to have supplied drugs to the US.

The problem doesn't just stop with criminals, especially in the US, because the government often helps in some way or another in making that person a criminal/addict. For example, pharma companies were allowed or encouraged by the government to issue tons of dangerous, addictive drugs. Prisons in the US are solely for making money and make criminals worse and more violent. Music and media glorifies criminality and violence so every high-schooler wants to be some gangster thug. It's geared towards creating crime, because crime makes money for the so-called "elite" at the top and helps keep down the goyim below, because they are either criminals, non-criminals subject to the draconian and absurd laws created to "curb crime", or otherwise under the controlling influence of these higher-ups and their political, emotional, and social manipulation.

[–]Nombre27 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Politicians fucking around should be life sentences and capital punishment. Lax oversight has gotten us to where we are. Instead of full transparency of the government, it's the complete opposite where the government is intensely surveilling every citizen.

The problem doesn't just stop with criminals, especially in the US, because the government often helps in some way or another in making that person a criminal/addict. For example, pharma companies were allowed or encouraged by the government to issue tons of dangerous, addictive drugs. Prisons in the US are solely for making money and make criminals worse and more violent. Music and media glorifies criminality and violence so every high-schooler wants to be some gangster thug. It's geared towards creating crime, because crime makes money for the so-called "elite" at the top and helps keep down the goyim below, because they are either criminals, non-criminals subject to the draconian and absurd laws created to "curb crime", or otherwise under the controlling influence of these higher-ups and their political, emotional, and social manipulation.

Yeah. Our societies have really degeneracy-spiraled. Tax cows and broken window socioeconomic policies.

I think this is why people are moving towards trying to establish small rural/semi-rural communities. Alignment of purpose, values, and resources. In cities you're just surrounded by strangers mostly and all the trash and unmaintained infrastructure everywhere is always someone else's problem. There is no accountability the way cities are designed. I know libertarianism gets shit on but they're right about a few things. The thing I'm referring to is the information problem. Cities have far too many people to manage resources efficiently, let alone virtuously. So you just see degeneration and wastefulness everywhere. It's always someone else's problem.

When you live in a smaller community that's responsible for itself, when something is amiss, it gets addressed and the relevant parties bear the burden. So there's a higher likelihood of accountability and reciprocity. Lower tolerance for bullshit too, higher standards because you're in close proximity to people who care about you (as opposed to going off somewhere else in the city away from people that would hold you accountable), etc. I know in reality many people struggle with rural living (seen things about drug addiction, lack of education, etc.), but I think those things can be more readily addressed in a small scale setting than cities.

[–]Minedwe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's like a positive feedback loop. Government gets hyper-progressive and corrupt, then citizenry gets infected and becoems worse, causing the government to leap forwards in "porgressivesness" again and teh cycle continues.

And yes, cities are always gonna be a thing but I think a move to more spread out megasuburbs or an increase in rural/semi-rural settings, combined with greater family ties would improve things greatly. Cities, in my opinion, should be kept mostly for business and government buildings and residences should stay outside in suburban or rural homes/apartments.

Another issue with cities is the bystander effect. People don't do things because they think others will do it for them, resulting in nobody doing anything. Ties in a lot with the issues you listed.