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Comment by DiggyJohnson | Hacker News Reader

> It turns out the majority of people are just incapable of empathy or logic.

This is an extremely solipsistic take if you actually believe it.

I'm sure that other people's minds exist. I don't have overwhelming evidence that they are capable of empathy or logic. How do _you_ explain poor, rural people fighting for the benefit of billionaires? IMHO, it defies logic. How do _you_ explain people campaigning against the civil rights of people whose personal choices have zero effect on the lives of those campaigning against them or negatively affect literally anyone in the world? IMHO, it shows a complete lack of empathy.

Propaganda is really really effective and works really really well. Even on educated people.

But these economic changes aren't being propounded by a majority of the people. They're coming from people who currently have an electoral majority, which is not at all the same thing. The latter can be engineered by tailoring the borders of voting districts.

Go read The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquite and Alastair Smith, which explains how it's practical to rule a polity with a curated selection of supporters.

That's a very cynical view of your fellow human beings. Everybody is capable of empathy and logic. It's just that our brains try to conserve energy and don't want to spend energy thinking too much about stuff.

Your post is ironically a great example. It's easier for your brain to decide that these people are some kind of un-empathic illogical (sub)humans, than for your brain to really try to empathise and think about how things have lead to this point for those people.

How do you explain the fact that you seem to be completely unable to understand other people who disagree with your politics? IMHO, it shows a complete lack of empathy.

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