I hope that empathetic people temporarily suspend their empathy when approaching musk
You know, "its a weakness" he says, don't be weak when you have to eliminate a nazi
this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
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this is exactly what i came in here to say. it's a sort of paradox, but only for those who can't see the big picture. in order to save humanity, we have to become as ruthless as they are.
our children can learn to love after we've won the war.
The social contract grants governments and their leaders authority in exchange for protection and guaranteed rights for the citizens.
When those in power violate the contract, it no longer applies to them. Trump, Musk, and the rest of the fascists are no longer covered by the social contract. We do not have to tolerate them, respect them, or have empathy for them.
This is a realization that I've come to:
that humans survive (and thrive) when there is a genuine organization based in part on empathy. When a human tries to disrupt this organization for their own gain then it's in the best interest of the group to ostracize and remove that human from the group.
You can have empathy but still do what needs to be done
He does deserve empathy. That means he deserves a speedy trial, no torture, reasonable accommodations, a sentence that fits his crimes and is not primarily punitive, minimally restrictive confinement, a break every few hours from mandatory labor (building public transit, for example), and a non life sentence.
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I feel like someone told Elon that he's autistic and lacks empathy, and his reaction was to get all defensive about it and start claiming people who lack empathy are actually superior.
Isn't the whole "autistic people don't have empathy" thing a long debunked myth anyway? It's generally, among autistic people, seen as ablest to assume they are incapable of empathy, which would make Elon's/Elon's supporter's excuses for him in this respect DOA.
Yes, autistic people struggle with telling how a person is feeling, but once they know, they can be the most empathetic people ever. fElon is using it as an excuse to treat everyone like shit.
also, this south african apartheid nazi is not autistic, he's just empathetically retarded.
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From the APA's "Journal of Experimental Psychology":
"Empathy is hard work: People choose to avoid empathy because of its cognitive costs" (2019)
(Abstract) or (Full Text PDF)
Further reading on this subject:
"How resource sharing resists scarcity: the role of cognitive empathy and its neurobiological mechanisms" (2022)
"Empathy moderates the relationship between cognitive load and prosocial behaviour" (2023)
"Cognitive load and moral decision-making in moral dilemmas under virtual reality: the role of empathy for pain" (2025)
(Abstract)
"The Influence of Cognitive Load on Empathy and Intention in Response to Infant Crying" (2016)
There's a growing body of research from behavioral neuroscience which indicate that wealth, power, and privilege have a deleterious effect on the brain. People with high-socioeconomic status often:
- Have reduced empathy and compassion.
- Have a diminished ability to see from someone else's perspective.
- Have low impulse control.
- Have an extreme sense of entitlement.
- Have a hoarding disorder.
- Have a dangerously high tolerance for risk.
When you don't need to cooperate with other people to survive, they become irrelevant to you. When you're in charge, you can behave very badly and people will still be polite and respectful toward you. Instead of reciprocity, it's a formalized double standard. When you have status, you're given excessive credibility, and rarely hear the very ordinary push-back from others most of us are accustomed to, instead you receive flattery and praise and your ideas are taken seriously by default.
Humans have a strong need for egalitarianism; without it our brains malfunction and turn us into the worst versions of ourselves.
Some sources:
Hubris syndrome: An acquired personality disorder? A study of US Presidents and UK Prime Ministers over the last 100 years
Does power corrupt? An fMRI study on the effect of power and social value orientation on inequity aversion.
Social Class and the Motivational Relevance of Other Human Beings: Evidence From Visual Attention
The Psychology of Entrenched Privilege: High Socioeconomic Status Individuals From Affluent Backgrounds Are Uniquely High in Entitlement
Hoarding Disorder: It's More Than Just an Obsession - Implications for Financial Therapists and Planners
On the evolution of hoarding, risk-taking, and wealth distribution in nonhuman and human populations
Just a quick reply - haven't read your sources yet. But I also feel like it works both ways, one's lack of empathy helps you succeed in a capitalist culture that only has one metric for success, money. Will now start reading ;).
I was thinking about this recently and noticed something very interesting, as a thought experiment of sorts.
For extremely rich and wealthy people, it is not actually about the money.
I mean, it is about the money in the sense that money is the formal expression of something deeper. But there's a shift, between having to think about money as a tool for survival, and having so much money that it's no longer relevant day to day and it becomes a sort of score for a game of life.
Certainly in mid and high level of management, executives, etc. money is the most important thing, they are hired and their livelihood, as well as their score, depends on them making the line go up and accumulating more and more money for the owner class. But for the owner class, it's all about the status, how the score is going. It's essentially a global level dick measuring contest. Of course they are not going to use the money for anything, they don't care. Their empathy is gone, what they want is to get ahead on the game. It's all about the narrative, the optics, the projection of influence and power.
If it weren't for money, it would be something else. Piety and ranks in theocracies, titles and land in the feudal times, honor and armies in feudal Japan, etc. It's just so happens that modern globalist culture has settled on corporate financial wealth.
There's a sort of mind bug that humans are susceptible to, that pushes people into the pursuit of this affluent status, then eliminates all humanity left from the brain. Just to see who dies with the most points.
I agree with the underlying concept, that having low/no empathy is rewarded under the current capitalist systems that most first world countries endorse.
The conflict I have with that mentality, which drives me, personally, away from it, is that if you go back in the history books, we only survived some eras because of strong communal bonds and collaboration with our tribe. In every circumstance, collaboration has been more beneficial economically, than any other option.
Therefore, I reject the selfish capitalist ideals and embrace empathy for the sake of humanity and my role in it.
I'll note, I am neither rich, nor American.
We are still ~~thriving~~ creating great things because we collaborate on a large level. It might not be that communal anymore (unfortunately), but working together is still the key to success (in a system way).
It would be beneficial for all, if we could bring back the communal part - while still holding on to some of the benefits the modern global system has produced. I just always wonder, how do you replace or compete with the ice cold global capitalist systems, that can win most of the time in the short term and just overwhelm any sustainable, communal long term system.
That's the trick, isn't it?
Make a thing that helps collaboration that people buy into for long term survival, sacrificing what "could be" to hopefully achieve a better tomorrow...
Nobody has successfully achieved this yet.
Thank you! Needed this so badly!
That literally sounds like the local rich kid that was a bully but then got a DUI and killed someone but because his parents are rich didn't even serve a day.
Aren't those signs of sociopathy?
I think we need to forbid people who qualify as sociopaths from holding any office with any degree of power. They can't be trusted with power.
Wealth accumulation as a mental disorder makes so much goddamn sense.
Don't treat Musk's words as if they were coming from an intelligent source.
I believe the whole point of the post was to show contrast: here's what some great minds said about empathy, and then there's this guy.
Well, if you have empathy, you usually aren't successful (at least in the last ~20 years).
Aren't successful according to capitalistic ideals. People with empathy are often successful by better measures
Don't buy into their propaganda. Succesful is not the same as being ultrarich. There are many parameters in which you can be succesful.
How about being able to afford food?
When did the West have more empathy than other cultures? Elon's mistake is not only the conclusion that empathy is a weakness but also the observation that the West is empathic.
This seems to be in the context of the other quote that only somebody with the ability for violence can be peaceful. If you are unable to stop destroying your opponent, are you going to win? Sounds like rage, which is not good to win wars.
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