A community forum for atheists, agnostics, and believers
http://atheistforums.net/
Yes, I have observed that many people are actually, very simple. As good as their intentions may be, they can't compute the ramifications waiting just two steps ahead. To put empathy to action requires the ability to envision outcomes. For example, every time there is a school shooting, people who consider themselves to be empathetic "send thoughts and prayers". Is that really empathy, because there is that next six-year-old and a bullet with their name on it.drunkenshoe wrote: Tue Jun 23, 2026 12:50 pm Why do people always think about empathy in simplistic, positive terms? You also need empathy to do something bad to people. When someone threatens another one with harming their children, they perfectly know that it's so bad a thing for the person involved, that person would do anything to prevent that. That's fucking empathy too.
Empathy is the base of human intelligence. It's the ability to see things, events, phenomena in relevance to each other, and their relations from outside. Our species have become so successful at this, we alienated ourselves from the very nature that created us. But in the end, even a 2 years old Chimpanzee can't build an empathy about a situation and come to a conclusion while a 5 year old human child can. The Chimpanzee is just feeling sad losing an offspring or a member of the tribe. That's not equal to human 'empathy'.