There seems to be no logical connection from "shitty people are successful" to "empathy is not useful to society."
Even if I accepted the second statement (which to be clear, I absolutely do not), it doesn't follow that empathy isn't useful to society. Society is not benefited by everyone running about chasing their own personal success to the exclusion of all others: that kind of world isn't even called a society. We have other names for that and they're less positive.
No, it's not about mental models, it's that what you're describing is, at the limit, no longer a society at all. You need a different word for the kind of Randian endgame you're advocating for. Using "society" for it is just confusing things for everyone involved.
People who can't see green are evidence of a genetic defect, not evidence that green doesn't exist.
Old people can be wrong, and in this case, they are.
>There is no reason to have empathy.
This is a category mistake. You reason that empathy is superfluous if people are the cause of their misfortune. However, whether people are the cause of their misfortunes is utterly irrelevant to whether there is a reason to have empathy.
So far, none of your arguments have had any discernible logic behind them. If you are so convinced that empathy is needless, why can you not articulate a coherent argument for your position?
Is that what not having empathy in a society feels like? People just talking at each other without any particular goal in mind other than being unpleasant to each other?
Are you sure that would be the poster's attempt.
> you're just being
He seems to be discussing, to some of us.
What do you suspect he is attempting to do?
Anyone can read this thread and see this for themselves.
This seems to be a flawed mental model in itself.
At the very least, you should elaborate on your definition of empathy. Do you think cognitive empathy is bad? If so, you’re ignoring that social interactions impact outcomes.
You mean, like, a pack of wild dogs?
On the contrary, the "respect" towards others is a condition to societies. Otherwise, all you'd had would be "accomplices". And also since Edward Bunker told us that actually, "dog eat dog",
> will actively hurt your own life
in a pool of free rogues you'll be at severe disadvantage as opposed to a society.
> One only lives once so you better make sure
you will achieve what you should. That includes¹ being something good, not just having some fleeting goods.
--
¹Edit: I wrote 'includes', but that's rhetoric - I meant "mostly is".
Again that is your perspective on "winning", which remains subjective (and normally faulty). Others call psychopathic achievers simply "contemptible".
> Whats the benefit of a "society"?
That would be the whole work of Thomas Hobbes, for example: avoiding the nightmare of perpetual conflict. It is very linear to see the benefit of being able to trust your neighbour.
Then, you acknowledge that you benefit from empathy. But only so long as people do not detect that you are not participating in mutual understanding and reciprocation. Once they notice your lack of genuine engagement, your previously gained benefits will disappear.
On the other hand, people who exhibit empathy towards others will continue to benefit.
Do you see that, by your own logic, empathy is beneficial to society?
No. Very clearly I meant "to be able to trust your neighbour is an asset; not being able to trust your neighbour is a liability", which is a plain analytic basic reply to your question. The statement you replied with has nothing to do with what I have written. If there was a misunderstanding, instead of just bad communication, it may reveal why you see things in a twisted way - but then know it is really a faulty perspective, not the state of things.
Of course you can be """benefiting""" from the lack of society, the "frontier anarchy" in which you implicitly declare are in: were it a society, you would have received since a very early age a credible absolute threat of violence, or shunning, which would have destroyed an advantage of profiting inappropriately.
So you’re a leech on society, got it.
Something tells me you’d be face down in a ditch somewhere if the world actually reflected your ideal instead of the comfy one we live in where you get to take advantage of the “naive”.
– Captain G. M. Gilbert, Psychologist at Nuremberg Trials
(But also, you come across as unhappy and angry, so maybe you're wrong about whether you need personal relationships to be happy. Many people are bad at understanding what makes them happy and end up unhappy because they mistakenly pursue things like wealth.)
things that lack empathy: corporations, machines, AI, psychopaths things that are problematic to society: corporations, machines, AI, psychopaths
And """success""" is not a value. Taken in those ways, it is the mark of the psychopath.
Of course they did, because it is easier to achieve goals if you cut corners. In a gaming framework, it amounts to cheating.
It is correct to see that you have that one life, so you have to use it wisely. The issue will remain about what is "wisely".
> how do I benefit from having
Did anybody tell you you should? You should develop adequate understanding instead - and that will also put the rest into the right perspective.
Just re-read the statement: you were not told that you would benefit from moral behaviour, you were told that you will benefit from understanding. You then were informed that understanding also has side effects.
And after all that, the odds that you'll be the top psychopath are extremely poor.
Consider this: if you were to ask a parent “would you rather your child grow up to be wildly intelligent but have sociopathy to the point of being utterly alone, or frankly average (or even dull) intellectually but have a rich social life with meaningful relationships, which would you choose?” I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone willing to take the former.
It’s like asking, “could you be happy if you were a double amputee?” I trust the answer of an actual amputee than someone just guessing.
The tiger thing is just a weird digression, considering this conversation started with the premise that humans are an innately social species. Let’s keep the discussion on point with humans.