wrongcitizen wrote:
kokopelli wrote:
wrongcitizen wrote:
So essentially what you're saying is you would happily push someone off a cliff if you knew you could get away with it, because you experience constant boredom and that would make you entertained, as you have exerted power over an individual? Or you look for people who are weaker so you can expand your sphere of influence and manipulate a situation, gaining absolute power? Or do you wish for a country's collapse and do everything in your power to eliminate any structure of government so you can exploit and harm those who don't show absolute submission? Have you frequently ended up in jail? Do you break laws, torture animals, children? Not all sociopathic people do these but very few, if any at all, will abstain completely from them. Our empathy seems to be far more adequate than many neurotypicals even. I'm capable of understanding people's cues when I learn about them, but Sociopathic individuals have their emotions so finely tuned they're able to do anything with themselves and to others. I care about others, I feel their pain, I try to help them, I experience shock, sadness, pleasure, pain, and deep emotions in general including empathy.
Perhaps you're only speaking for yourself in this case. I have had a long time disgust in Sociopaths and would be perfectly fine doing to them what they do to us. They make the mistake of thinking they're needed in our society. That's one crime (sending them all to an island to fight each other to death) the closest I'll get to one. People who lack Empathy are a small minority and a major threat. Even if I could myself, I would not manipulate anyone, except those who do harm to others, because I have a sense of morality and justice. I like to stand up for those who can't, and when I can't stand up for myself I take crap knowing I'm doing it in place of someone else. There are many people who accuse us of being Sociopaths (or people with similar ailments), and some sites are made exclusively from some stupid as*holes who continuously accuse us, so I'm weary to even consider accepting your claims as you could easily be one of "those" people. I'll accept another form of personality disorder like AvPD or even Borderline in some severe Aspergers cases, but I don't think any person I've ever met who has AS shows antisocial traits. Quite the opposite in fact.
Who are you addressing that to?
Anyone who thinks they lack empathy or have Sociopathic traits. Someone who lacks empathy is extremely obvious, but someone who doesn't know how to express it isn't.
You might be surprised. It's rare granted, but you may have spoken to tonnes of people who lack empathy completely and just have never known it. You'd only have picked up on the ones who
were obvious.
Some of the above quotes are confusing psychopathic behaviour with the behaviour of someone who lacks all empathy. They are not the same thing. Many (though
not all)
pure psychopaths seek power and dominance, have a tendency toward violence, will actively prey on others, interact badly with the law, etc. You mention you abstain from this sort of behaviour because apart from feeling empathy yourself, you have a sense of morality and justice. People who lack any empathy can also have that sense - sometimes, even more strongly than emotionally average peoples, because this is all you
do have in many cases. Cognitive ethics.
Are people with no empathy a possible threat? Yes. Because we essentially have no emotional "check" to stop us. But not always. If you have someone with no ability to understand empathy who
does have that firm grasp of cognitive ethics, they are actually
less likely to be a threat than an emotionally average person. You hint at the mechanics of that yourself - you note that you would be "perfectly fine doing to them what they do to us" - I'm assuming that covers all the above points made? Such as prey on others? Commit acts of violence?
Someone who operates purely on cognitive ethics without any empathy whatsoever would make no such emotional distinction. Ethics is ethics - it doesn't matter what the subject of those ethics is like. It doesn't matter if you like them or not, it does not matter if they "deserve" it because of some form of personal justice. You would behave exactly the same to a "good" person as you would a "bad" person - because you have decided, philosophically, how you believe it is correct to treat other people. You don't have any other option, after all. There is no "crime of passion" for a creature of cognitive ethics. We are much less likely to be swayed into violence on the force of emotion - which is the basis for much of the acts of violence out there.
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Alexithymia - 147 points.
Low-Verbal.
29 Nov 2017, 4:01 am
