I have never heard a person talk about empathy introspectively. Invariably it has been about how someone else needs to be more empathetic, and almost always, the speaker would hypothetically be the beneficiary of this increased empathy.
yep. it’s weaponized and used to shame people into agreement.
people also don’t have general empathy, they have it for specific other persons they identify with and they tend to totally lack it for those they don’t identify with.
people also generally mean ‘feel bad for’ when they use the term. true empathy is more about being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and relate to their experience, it’s not an abstraction. empathy doesn’t make you feel bad, it helps you understand others experiences… but it’s not used that way colloquially and definitely not that way on the internet.
the thing people really do when they go on about empathy, is pity. and when they demand empathy for themselves, they are demanding pity for themselves.
People in the west need to adopt more Buddhist language. One facet of empathy often overlooked is sympathetic or appreciative joy, also known as mudita, one of the four brahma viharas. Empathy doesn’t always have to be about negatives, and mudita is a good inoculant against envy.
people in the west don’t do that. they warp eastern beliefs to suite themselves, and turn buddism into an exercise of ego-building, rather than ego-minimizing that is supposed to be. we are insanely ego-centric and we distort any belief system we encounter to fuel that egocentrism.
It’s why the west like Freud so much, but not so much Jung. Because Jung was about collectivist ideas, and Freud was all about our struggles with ourselves and our struggles as individuals against other individuals.
I have never heard a person talk about empathy introspectively
Happens more often than you might think, but rarely in online discourse or Internet blowharding.
A nice idea but highly unlikely.
People actually subscribe to AI. As such, the likelihood decreases daily.
They pay for chatbot? The thing everyone is furious to get when they’re trying to reach customer service?
Has any of the trends so far required a lot of effort to do?
There was that trend 20 years ago of getting a post secondary degree.
Yes, the exact opposite of MAGA.
Me too. Most of us in 2026:
Most of us are not shitty ai memes thank you very much.
WHO MAKES THE MONEY??!!?!
the most unempathic people i have met love to go on about how important empathy is
same for critical thinking.
they are basically words with no meaning other than whatever is most convenient for the speaker at the moment to use to shame others for not sharing their opinion or feelings on the matter.
emotional intelligence is another one of these BS terms people spout that also has no meaning other than ‘agrees with me’.
Counterpoint: Critical thinking and empathy are important, and a lot of people don’t have much / aren’t very good at it
yeah and how do you measure how much they have exactly?
do you ask them what they do if they find a tortoise lying on its back in the hot dessert?
You want me to give you some objective “measure” like “inches” about most people’s critical thinking skills? If you really want a thorough analysis I’m sure you could delve into the social sciences, philosophy, humanities … history, sociology, psychology, anthropology etc., but that may not please you if you want it purely quantified.
so basically they have to have a liberal arts degree? that’s your measure of what critical thinking is? everyone has to do four years of coursework in the humanities?
No, that’s not what I said. I said in order to answer your question to me, you’d have to delve in to these disciplines. Although sure, for people to get better at critical thinking, of course it would help to actually… learn to think and have intellectual pursuits.
And it’s nothing to do with a degree. It’s the deep study time and focused effort that counts.
ok, and how are you going to force people to do that? how are you going to make sure they learn it? and how would you judge they have attain these skills?
I’m not going to force people to do that, the point is not to force it and you can’t “force it” anyways
I’m not going to make sure they learn it, you can’t “make sure”
I can only judge from my own / our own analysis. You can make up a quantitative metric “critical thinking score” but you would only be fooling yourself.
Emotional intelligence to me, means that someone understands their feelings, why they have them and where they come from. They know how to ‘treat’ themselves.
Some people are better than others at this. Some might get really frustrated but not understand why, while others can perfectly describe why they are frustrated, what they need to resolve it and then act on it. This to me is a very real thing.
EDIT: Oh and it also goes the other way. Someone who is emotionally intelligent might also be good at infering others emotions. Doesn’t just apply to one self. I suppose this is called empathy.
Emotional intelligence to me,
thanks for proving my point. it’s a totally subjective thing. the term was popularized in business literature as a way to evaluate management candidates. then it was popularized by pop psychologists. it’s bullshit through and through. as is almost all of business/pop psychology.
what it is useful for, is a way to manipulate people by making up a bullshit metric by which you can judge them and they can judge each other. hence you have dummies who think ‘i do therapy and read self-help books therefore i am very vemotionally intelligent’
before that phrase it was EQ emotional quotient, trying to ape IQ as a way of being a legitimate measure. IQ is also largely bullshit for morons to convince themselves they are geniuses because they scored well on an arbitrary test.
the more homework you do on this stuff the more you realize it’s all manipulative BS made up by corporate bozos who want to use it rank their employees against each other by some arbitrary metric because ranking them by their actual work productivity is too hard and scary for management. or sorting school children.
emotional intelligence is another one of these BS terms people spout that also has no meaning other than ‘agrees with me’.
Proudly broadcasting your ignorance there, aren’t you? Your kids probably don’t talk to you much, do they?
How do I make a profit from that though?
The funny part is it would be more profitable than what’s happening now as the ultra wealthy have convinced a majority of voters to keep wages low, keep taxes low for the wealthy, higher for the non wealthy, turn the US into a purely service and gig economy, and so now the economic system is slowing and grinding to a halt as fewer and fewer people can participate in all sectors, from necessities to leisure spending.
Exactly, if an economy is an engine then money is the oil; if it pools (by a few people hoarding it) then there’s less flowing through to lubricate the engine turnover and it ceases up.
Need to open those reservoirs and help the gears turn
If the oil ceases to flow the engine could certainly seize up
there are enough rich people to keep it going for generations.
but it’s true that wealth inequality generates slower economic growth than wealth equality does.
“More people should think more critically”
Monkey’s Paw Curls
Everyone gets into fights with you because they’re second-guessing every damned little thing
Nobody gets anything done because they’re overanalyzing
Nothing actually improves, because nobody’s priors changed and they all come up the same conclusions anyway
Heuristics exist for a reason. You’re not supposed to be doing deep analysis all the time. It’s exhausting and does not reliably improve your life unless you’re generating real new useful insights.
If you can’t trust anyone else, you can’t rely on common wisdom or instinct, and you’re constantly in positions to make costly errors because of trick questions, critical thinking isn’t going to save you.
Pfff nah I’m flinging my shit like a chimp that lost their mate
Might as well be a geek too!! Lammme
So, you vegan, then? Or just empathy for your close circle and other psychological extensions of yourself?
Narrator: It wasn’t.
I hope she’s prepared for disappointment
