Empathy? (y/n): _ - eviltoast
  • magnetosphere@fedia.io
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    3 days ago

    I know it’s bad to dehumanize people, but sometimes I can’t help myself when we’re talking about a person who completely lacks empathy. It’s like they walk and talk exactly like a person does, but they’re missing something essential.

    • TwoBeeSan@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Perfectly said. My ex was a legit psychopath and they are not like us.

      We were adopting a cat. On the form it says “reasons you would get rid of the cat” shit you not this dude starts writing biting, clawing, yelling like genuinely asnwering what he would do.

      Had to stop him and say but not say “act like a human”.

      • Genius@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        The word psychopath comes from the Greek words psyche, meaning soul, and pathos, meaning suffering. So in Greek, psychopath means suffering soul.

        What a shit name.

        Fortunately, English speaking doctors invented a better name. Antisocial personality disorder.

      • ssillyssadass@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Unless it’s intolerance of intolerance.

        “Welcome to my house, here everybody is welcomed and respected, but if you choose to make somebody’s life difficult because they’re different from you your ass will be on the curb before you can raise your palm over your head.”

    • ssillyssadass@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Empathy needs to be the definition of humanity, such that those who don’t feel it are classed as inhuman.

      • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        Classing anyone as inhuman is dangerous. A widespread inability to see the most barbaric Nazis as regular human beings like ourselves is one of the reasons Nazism has been able to sneak back up on us. It’s important to recognize that the potential for empathy, and the potential for empathy to wither away, are both human potentials. As humans we have the capacity for great compassion or great cruelty. It won’t help us if we say, “Oh, that cruelty is not us. We’re humans; they’re not.”