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@grrlscientist Is absence of #empathy one characteristic of how a #DeplorableGene 
is expressed? 
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#empathy
10 posts10 participants0 posts today
Psychologist GM Gilbert on the nature of evil:
“I told you once I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
For everyone in the world outside the US starting up the isolation process...remember how well that worked in the 1930's. It left tens of millions to die, turning back refugees sent them to their deaths, and fascism still came for their countries anyway. Isolation & abandonment is not a great policy. The world is even more globalized now than it was 100 years ago. The faster we realize we can rise or fall together, the better off everyone will be.
Politics can be complicated, but empathy is not. Empathy demands that we look at what is going on in all oppressed nations and peoples, and bear witness. And no one with empathy can then refuse to help. This is why empathy is being made to be the enemy. This is why individualism is being touted.
So. Let's all climb out of this pit now, and together, as the people of the Earth.
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@josemurilo "Sounds" nice. But it's such an enormous waste on #resources: #water, #energy, and money!
We do know how #empathy is build and how anti-aggression trainings work. We do know how people can train more awareness. We know it for many many years.
At the same time, the money for NGOs and groups working in this sector with success, is radically cut in so many countries.
Cheap alternative: Training communication on Mastodon.
Why is it that when people remember their past lives they’re always someone famous?
I watched a bit of the film Gangs of New York & kept thinking the film’s criminals are the forefathers of today’s white American bigots—you know the we’ve always been here…no you haven’t and chances are your #immigrant forefathers were desperate refugees from Europe and Eurasia, many of whom were illiterate & looking for food. #empathy we USAians need to remember our past to move forward.
Cui Bono? 
“𝙾𝚗𝚎 𝚍𝚘𝚎𝚜𝚗’𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚍𝚘 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚖. 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚋𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚎𝚖𝚙𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚢 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚜𝚞𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚝.”
― 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘔. 𝘉𝘭𝘰𝘸
"""
Research shows empathy manifests in two opposing ways that impact our conduct, making it caring or cruel.
The psychopath does not feel someone else’s pain. They lack affective empathy. However, they still have access to cognitive empathy. This gives them the advantage of being able to read others. (...) The psychopath – without affective reactions like remorse, guilt, anguish – uses their cognitive insights to create a following and to destroy targets.
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Psychology TodayWhy Are Bullies Popular? Brain Science Can ExplainDo you wonder how it is possible that bullying and abusive people are often well-liked? Brain science shows that they use empathy to manipulate, but not to care.
The fifth talk from #SotB2025
@scottdotis - Mindful Design for Developers
Is now avaliable for your viewing pleasure.
https://2025.stateofthebrowser.com/speaker/scott-riley/
#Design #Ethics #Empathy #MindfulDesign
2025.stateofthebrowser.comScott Riley | State of the BrowserScott (he/him) is a designer, developer and author focused on building early stage products backed by mindful and ethical design practices. He wrote a book called Mindful Design and honestly will not shut the fuck up about it.
The #Grifters running #Amerikkka are calling public media a grift! Probably because they embrace DEI and aren't afraid to criticize the #Fascist administration! This will not only cripple or destroy #PublicTelevision stations, #CommunityRadio like #WMPG also receives money from the #CPB!!!
White House calls #NPR and #PBS a “grift,” will ask Congress to rescind funding
By Jon Brodkin, April 15, 2025
Excerpt: "In a statement provided to Ars today, PBS CEO Paula Kerger said that 'the effort underway to get Congress to rescind public media funding would disrupt the essential service PBS and local member stations provide to the American people. There's nothing more American than PBS, and our work is only possible because of the bipartisan support we have always received from Congress... Without PBS member stations, Americans will lose unique local programming and emergency services in times of crisis.' "
Ars Technica · White House calls NPR and PBS a “grift,” will ask Congress to rescind funding
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@GhostOnTheHalfShell @Moss I think I understand what you're trying to say about hijacking empathy to manipulate the mob. I'm not a psychologist, so take everything that follows with pinch: I think you're referring to sympathy, which is a more primal/simpler emotion than empathy. Sympathy is getting tuned to someone other projected emotions. Sympathy is easily manipulated.
Empathy is a more complex social emotion and takes at its root to recognize the other as human being with emotions, not like a "it" - what a psychopath does. (Empathy is then often categorized on affective and cognitive empathy, but it's useless here). Asking to consider others like a it is by definition of empathy asking to lose your empathy.
So, i think Trump is using sociopathic deception to manipulate his mob sympathy, rouse their primal emotions like glee, rage, egoism, self preservation, fear etc to make them abandon their more complex social emotions, especially empathy since it's a core one for complex social structures.
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Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary 
#vegan #animals #pigs #empathy #sanctuary
Even outside of <waves at all the things going on in our country>, you never know what people are dealing with.
It takes •••so little energy••• to ask how someone’s day is going, to hold the door for somebody, to help someone put that heavy bag of cat litter in their car and push away their shopping cart.
Be kind to one another! It’s free!
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Mentioning this because of all the nonsense about how “toxic” #empathy is.
An alpha asshole can bully individuals to comply. They may obey out of fear or just to avoid fighting.
But Mark Rashid watched & saw which horse the other horses followed, who they gravitated to, who they wanted to be around. No surprise if you think about it: It’s the horses that make others feel safe, respected, & maybe even protected.
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Life is devoted to endless destruction in the service of an endless quest for power and admiration, unmitigated by basic empathy or guilt.
—Bandy X. Lee et al., The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump
#sociopathy #empathy
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Although sociopathy always means a lack of empathy, there is one way in which severe sociopaths do have a certain, frightening type of empathy. It is the empathy of the predator.
—Bandy X. Lee et al., The Dangerous Case of Donald Trum
#sociopathy #empathy
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The failure of normal empathy is central to sociopathy, which is marked by an absence of guilt, intentional manipulation, and controlling or even sadistically harming others for personal power or gratification. …sociopathy is among the most severe mental disturbances.
—Bandy X. Lee et al., The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump
#empathy #sociopathy