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Comment by shermantanktop | Hacker News Reader

The payoff is the last line: “ If you’ve signed up to offer an attention-luxury good, you undermine it when you also try to make it quick and convenient.”

Culture is also a luxury good, by this definition. If you read the Wikipedia summary of a Shakespeare play, you can fake a basic understanding of the plot. But you’ve gotten the social proof (e.g. dinner-party survival) without the deeper appreciation of the characters and their motivations.

As far as that goes, empathy seems to be a borderline luxury good at this point.

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> As far as that goes, empathy seems to be a borderline luxury good at this point.

Empathy isn't optional. It's necessary for a functioning society. The fact that some people are starting to view empathy with suspicion is an indicator of the decline of this one.

Society is a luxury good (?)

This last line explains what’s bothered me about the convenient pickup-order trend at restaurants.

The whole point of going to a restaurant is luxury. I find myself turned off by restaurants that I loved before but cheapened themselves after covid.

I don’t want to eat out of plastic bowls with plastic forks. If this is going to be about efficiency, it is no longer about luxury and I don’t want to do it anymore.

Once the focus becomes convenience, the restaurant begins to undermine itself and accidentally starts to complete with more convenient (and cheaper) alternatives like readymade meals at the grocery store or fast food.

Edit: I should also add that going to a restaurant with a group of friends, sharing a meal together, and paying attention to one another - this makes restaurants somewhat of an attention luxury good.

> Culture is also a luxury good, by this definition.

Has always been. One of the key ways the upper class defines themselves is by their sensitivity for good taste AKA sensibility[1] (as in "Sense and Sensibility"). Haute couture, fine arts, etc. "Good" taste is of course dynamic, but that's beside the point.

[1]An understanding of or ability to decide about what is good or valuable, especially in connection with artistic or social activities. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/sensi...

It seems that way (re empathy as a luxury) but I don't think it's true.

Empathy builds cooperation and biases towards game theory optimal, which increases chances of survival and furniture thriving.

It doesn't seem like this right now, because all our luxuries are built on momentum enabled by past empathy.

In fact it's the lack of empathy (and curiosity) for others that is causing more suffering and an increasing trend towards lose-lose dynamics, it's just hard to see because the scale across people, time and space is so vast.

Like everything else (reality as vibrations), it seems that global empathy oscillates up and down across generations, with a long-term trend upwards.

So I don't think empathy is a luxury, empathy enables luxury. It's just hard to see past the silver spoon narcissists and collective victim mentality in the current context. I'm optimistic more empathy is in our future, even if not short or medium term.

Well said. There's an odd suspicion of empathy at this point (even some right-wing Christians calling empathy evil which is really odd considering what the founder of their religion taught). There's so much grievance on all sides that's being fueled by various media outlets and algorithms. Grievance says "I've been uniquely wronged". And it leads to giving up on empathy so as to get even.

I suspect your comment references Allie Stuckey, who wrote a book "Toxic Empathy" and was viral in a video with this idea recently.[1] To the unfamiliar reader, her concept of "toxic empathy" can be boiled down thus-

-Empathy becomes "toxic" when it encourages a person to affirm sin, validate lies or support destructive policies

-Truth over feelings. Biblical love does not blindly affirm an individual's feelings or choices if those choices violate moral truth

For a tangible example of these ideas and their connect to the Gospel (what "the founder" taught), watch the video.

[1]https://youtu.be/BUjeVodnbzA?t=2978

From what I understand about history (which is just enough to know there's a lot I don't know), it seems that collective victim mentality leads to a rise in authoritarianism.

Also yes a hallmark of a victim mentality is a lack of empathy for others. One believes that no one else cares about them, so why should they care about anyone else?

It's tragic, but it keeps happening, so maybe it has some bigger picture purpose that's hard to see from an individual's perspective. Doesn't feel great to live through though, and it can get really dark...

The concept comes from early psychology in the orbit of Freud. It was invented in 1903/1909. It's somewhat mystical and somewhat mechanical, an automatic feeling that we're supposed to have. These days we can be told off for lacking this supposéd thing. I don't like it, quite independently.

Which concept?

Empathy. It's surprisingly modern. I admit compassion is a similar term and refers to almost the same concept, and I have no issues with that one, but it doesn't carry the same pseudoscientific baggage.

Oh interesting, I didn't know this.

What I meant was the ability to simulate in one's own mind how someone else would feel about something. Basically an ability to predict an emotional reaction in others.

So for example I can empathize with someone who I have to deliver bad news to, and still be an asshole and deliver it harshly, or try my best to soften the blow and deliver it clearly but gently.

We can all empathize with each other to an extent, but beyond a limit we need to know more about the other person to increase precision. This is why I mentioned curiosity. For example if I gave you tickets to a football game, but you don't like football, I might predict you will be happy but that would be wrong because you'll feel awkward since you don't like football and I basically just have you an obligation / social problem. Or maybe not because you won't feel uncomfortable saying "no thanks I don't like football", but some people might be super uncomfortable declining a gift like that. So to empathize accurately and precisely we need to know the whole value system of the other person.

How does this differ from your view?

You describe it as something very cognitive, which is great, I say: something amenable to reason, and not compulsive.

But the other way it's used is similar to the recent (± 10 years) internet fad for diagnosing everybody you don't like as a "psychopath" or a "sociopath". Telling somebody that they lack empathy is like telling them they're a malfunctioning alien, and need to be in therapy and possibly manacles. For those who use "empathy" this way, we supposedly function through a natural, mysterious, almost supernatural and mystical instinct to care about those people and things who we should, morally, care about. And this instinct, which bypasses cognition to arrive directly as a feeling, holds society together, and anybody who doesn't have (or doesn't display, per your interesting point about how one can "still be an asshole") the correct feelings in the correct situations is suffering from a dangerous brain-wrong. Red flag!

This co-opts morality, and takes away your right to intervene cognitively about who or what you care about. But the person who supposedly lacks empathy is not really brain damaged. The person merely has different values, and doesn't care about the person or thing that you say they have to. Fictional instincts (or real but suppressed ones), and the fallacy that natural = good, should not be used as a lever to dictate other people's morality to them.

On the other hand, we totally should be considering other people's values, and enquiring about what those values are. Which may prevent much unnecessary fractiousness. Feel free to accuse people of failing to do that.

Nice. That makes sense. I agree.

I used empathy as shorthand for seeing other people as NPCs.

It’s the dark side of the spotlight effect. Everyone has that impulse, just like racist thoughts and many other types of bias. One needs to work to really see others as full human beings with thoughts and values unlike your own—-it doesn’t happen automatically; the automatic impulse is to see difference as a defect when compared to the ideal person, who is of course “Me.”

Did you mean "not seeing other people as NPCs"?

Indeed I did.

In my experience I don't really see the word empathy being weaponized like you describe (in actual good-will conversation, as opposed to a generalized social media blast). My first instinct is to believe that you may very well lack empathy for reacting in such a way, but it's also possible that some individual[s] did unfairly or harshly use it to shame you.

But this just seems like any kind of disagreement on cultural expectations for interpersonal interactions. Some people will value what they call "empathy" more than others. We can't really say in the general case whether anyone levying these terms is doing so fairly or not, and all one can do is try to route around or find common ground with people that don't...empathize...with their methodologies. If that ends up being most people, then you (the royal you) may be an outlier (or "psycho" in the parlance of our times) and that's gonna be a tough road.

In other words, how is "telling somebody that they lack empathy" that much different from "accusing someone of failing to consider other people's values and enquiring about what those values are"?

I haven't experienced what the parent commenter is referring to either, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was an internet culture bubble somewhere that behaved this way a lot. In general I have noticed a lot of social media bias towards the least respectful interpretation, which is one of the reasons I prefer spending my time here.

And as I posted in grandparent I share your sentiment about what empathy means in a most respectful interpretation sense.

I also think that we all have a limit of how much we can bend our behavior to other people, especially when we are unexpectedly pushed to our limits (extremely bad days). To have empathy for everyone always is a type of genius, and to also have the will to act on it always religion generally reveres as saintly. (It's exceptional)

So one can have a lot of capacity for empathy and usually act on it, but still be called out for lacking it sometimes by a culture taking the least respectful interpretation. It's like road rage in another context. No one's perfect, and most people are average at most things.

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