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this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2026
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Leopards Ate My Face
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It's kind of impossible to have empathy for someone who doesn't have empathy. Once you try to put yourself in their shoes, that's you being empathetic and, as such, failing to put yourself in their shoes. It's like trying to "win" The Game, the act of trying to win causes you to lose.
Shunning, however, is absolutely an empathetic act when done to someone who society has deemed incompatible (which is very few people all told, most just need a hug), especially when considering all the other varied and violent methods humankind has developed for dealing with these sorts of issues over the millenia. Not only is shunning vastly more empathetic than torture, rape, dismemberment, etc., it's also more empathetic to society as a whole to have that person removed.
Personally disagree. Empathy doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing, it can also mean understanding why the other person is thinking like that, while still disagreeing with them.
Being clear, I agree that shunning is the correct path, but it’s not because “you can’t have empathy for people who lack it”, it’s exactly because you understand that if you don’t shun them, they’re never going to change. The utopic end goal is that people understand why they’re being shunned and start rethinking their choices. Of course, if they don’t and they want to keep being shunned that’s still a positive for society, but we should still hope for them to change. It’s sort of like the (stated, unfortunately not factual) purpose of prison.
Yeah, I was referring to people who literally are incapable of empathy, the people you're talking about just need to learn to exercise it. That's what I meant by the parenthetical in my comment about how most people just need a hug.
I… don’t know how I missed that parentheses, sorry if I basically reiterated what you already said lol
In any case though, I still don’t believe in the existence of people physically incapable of empathy (well, outside of some mentally ill ones who lack more than just empathy), it’s just that some people are in a position where they’re never gonna realistically need to learn it in their entire lives.
No worries, you definitely added another perspective! But yeah, those mentally ill ones are the ones I'm talking about. Like the president of the United States, I simply can't put myself in a place where I can truly understand his motives or what causes him to be the way that he is. The more I try, the less I want to. And this isn't to say all, or even most, mentally ill people should just be locked up or completely forced from society, but there does reach for a point for a very select few where rehabilitation and societal reintegration are simply impossible, and the most empathetic thing that can be done for everyone involved is to stop trying.
Eh, in all honesty I think Trump isn’t that far off from the mindset of most corrupt politicians around the world, he’s just more blatant, less smart and has WAY more power. If you try putting yourself in the mindset of “I benefit from doing this and I have a HUGE cult of people that like that I’m doing this”, it makes sense.
The only reason I think rehabilitation is not viable for him (besides, as I said, him being in a position where it’s impossible to make him face consequences), is because he’s really old and I don’t know if his brain is still capable of completely reshaping his thoughts. But I’m convinced that all the other “younger” terrible people (Musk, Tate, Shapiro and so on) could actually change if the whole world stopped giving them attention/praise and started saying “Hey, what you’re saying is fucked up and nobody likes you. We don’t want you in our society”. Of course, that’s a gigantic “if” because unfortunately they all have their own cult of people thinking they’re the messiah which constantly boosts their ego, but one can dream.