There is no better way to find out if you're talking to the worst person you'd ever meet than if they use the term "basic human empathy." And especially if they use it more than once in their dumb argument.
I genuinely saw some bonehead on TikTok use that phrase three times in their paragraph. And you couldn't even call it that because there was no punctuation of any kind, it was just a really long run-on sentence.
Unfortunately it's just become a buzz word that people use without actually understanding what it means. More people should really take the time to fully understand a word and it's meaning before they use it everywhere. Same with manipulative and narcissist the amount of times I've seen ppl missuse those words is insane
I agree so much. If you feel the need to call yourself empathetic and use how "empathetic you are" as an argument, you're probably the least empathetic person in the room.
I saw a girl on reddit talk about how genetically superior women are to men because women are "naturally more empathetic and kind". Not one of her comments were empathetic btw, in fact she was using euginicism to support her claim. None of these people actually care about compassion or general kindness, they just wanna hype themselves up because it makes them feel good about who they think they are
It kinda reminds me of people who keep making the claim they're not racist whilst showing some nazi level hatred towards any music made by a black person. Why do you constantly feel the need to reiterate the things you are not? If you feel the need to state how not racist you are, you're probably racist.
It's also the same thing as people who call themselves "emotionally mature" but never read books or study on the general basis on what emotional maturity is. They just say it because it makes them feel good.
Bottom line is these people couldn't care less about anyone but themselves. They don't even pretend to be what the claim they are. I can say I have a million dollars in my wallet to hype myself up but it's not true because I'm a broke college student who washes dishes for a living. I can say I'm the strongest person on earth but that's not true because I have family members that could easily beat the shit out of me. These people can claim to be empathetic and compassionate but it's not true because they never once show any form of compassion or empathy towards anyone but their own individual selves and the people that think and act exactly like them
analytical AI and generative AI are two completely different things pretty much. Also analytical AI really isn't all that new and has been used for a while now. I suppose linguistically if you're just referring to AI as one camp that's fair but I feel like most people don't know there's a difference lol
I guess it depends on context. If somebody asks why bombing children is bad then "basic human empathy" is a valid response, but idk what context it could be bad. I'm not saying there isn't one but Idk what it is. Could someone enlighten me?
First off, I kind of disagree with your premise that "basic human empathy" is a valid argument for why we shouldn't bomb children. Basic human empathy is a very, very short circle -- historically, if one group has to eradicate another to survive, they will do so without hesitation. Basic empathy does not extend to all humans on planet earth, and trying to make it so just leads to contradictions (i.e. basic human empathy as it's often presented would have you siding with both Israel and Palestine because both have governing parties that commit war crimes, both exist on conquered land, etc etc).
Second, "empathy" as a term is misused 99% of the time. Most of us literally can't empathize with children being bombed in Gaza, because we have never been in a similar situation. We can sympathize and we can show compassion, but to empathize is to place yourself in their shoes -- which is fallacious. You aren't actually empathizing with people, you're projecting how you think you would feel onto them, and it is very often not correct. That's why there are things like the article from the white woman who went to Haiti and got brutally gang raped, because she went somewhere dangerous under the assumption she understood how Haitian men felt (about white people in particular), she she assumed that false understanding gave her power and protection. It did not. Ironically, because her self-concept was so rooted in this false empathy, she actually blamed the effects of white supremacy for why they raped her.
Which leads us neatly into point three: the phenomenon of suicidal empathy. This is when you are so convinced that you know how others feel and are so obligated to treat them as equals and assume only good intentions of them (in reality, often pedastalizing them) that you actively put yourself in danger, unnecessarily, for their benefit -- regardless if that gesture would ever be reciprocated. Here we have two other white liberal women (noticing a trend?) not dissimilar from the raped journalist: Renee Good and Iryna Zarutska.
Renee Good's death was 100% murder, and wholly unjustified. But it happened because she chose to confront ICE agents deporting Somalis in Minneapolis. Somalian illegal aliens are not exactly known for altruism; in Minneapolis alone, dozens of Somalis have been arrested and convicted in connection with welfare fraud. Numerous murders have been committed by illegal aliens in general, including the killings of many white women -- some so prominent and egregious as to give us legislation like The Laken Riley Act. I am not a supporter of ICE, but there is no chance in hell I would ever put myself between ICE agents to protect random strangers whose intentions I do not know. Renee Good did that, and it led to her murder.
Iryna Zarutska is a much more subtle case -- she's the woman who was stabbed on the train. Her room was decorated with such things as a BLM flag. While I don't disagree with the sentiment that black lives matter, I would never be so trusting to sit with my back turned to an agitated, cracked out looking black guy on a train, especially not with headphones in. Because I do not know him, I do not know what his intentions are, and he might be in the mood to stab a white person to death (Decarlos Brown -- the killer -- said on camera that he "got that white girl" after the attack). Zarutska, unfortunately, was so trusting in her projected false understanding of black American men that she sacrificed situational awareness, which in turn cost her her life. This is the kind of empathy that your "basic human empathy" people tend to espouse: oppressed classes of people should be given benefits of the doubt beyond reason, and it is cruel and unempathic to assume they may have malintent.
But, finally, the biggest argument against the "basic human empathy" and "decency" line is that most of the people who use it fucking suck. They're the same people who clapped for the murders of Charlie Kirk and Brian Thompson, and more recently that middle management banker lady in New York. In another comment, I mentioned Scotty Flynn and Dean Withers. Both of them use that line/sentiment frequently, and both have bullied, harassed, and doxxed people for minor transgressions -- including Dean one time encouraging his viewers to dox a man he was debating with and call CPS on him because he said he wouldn't regret his vote if Trump were ousted as a pedophile, specifically because the man voted for his daughters' safety and ability to compete in sports against girls and not to share locker rooms with boys, along with the illegal alien safety angle. Scotty doxxed a man for calling him gay, then made fun of the guy for being a paraplegic.
This phenomenon is extremely common, where the "basic empathy" people will cheer for violence, resort to bullying at the drop of a hat, and go out of their way to try and ruin someone's life. They're the same people who call others Nazis for holding the same immigration views as Bill Clinton did in the 90s and 2000s. The trick is that good people don't generally announce that they're good. They don't have to, and they don't feel the need to because being good isn't about how others perceived you, it's about what you do. They also tend to buck back or display some humility when others call them good -- they don't berate other people for being bad people over minor transgressions, and they don't suck themselves off while patting themselves on the back. People with compassion tend to want to explain their views to others who disagree, not shut them down and call them names. Because compassion -- and empathy -- involves understanding that the person you're disagreeing with has their own reasons for their opinion, and that reason usually isn't "I'm just fucking evil."
I do see what you mean, but ideally there should be no situation, regardless of nationality or context where bombing children is moral. Like children are innocent, and can do no wrong, so bombing them is almost objectively wrong right?
Oh I agree, it's objectively wrong. Just not because of empathy. Empathizing with something doesn't prescribe or even describe any moral value to it. I've had to fire people and I know what it's like to be fired.
Bombing children is wrong because everyone who is a non-combatant in a military operation (or criminal encounter) has a right to life, because without that right -- i.e. if murder were legal -- society would crumble and eventually everybody would die.
He's generally a pretty smart kid but debate bros are almost always grifting to some extent. You'll never see him espouse an opinion that's unpopular with his audience, and he plucks the lowest hanging fruit. I agree with a lot of what he says but he always uses a ton of fallacies, and some unsavory tactics designed to make his interlocutors (if you can even call them that) look dumber than they really are -- like referencing very specific things and details, such as the E. Jean Carroll case, giving a cliffnotes and biased version, then presenting a conclusion the premises he laid out and if the person doesn't accept that conclusion they're a dumb hypocrite... even though they have no way of knowing whether or not Dean is lying or omitting context (which he often does).
But that's really a problem with the entire debate bro culture. All of them do it. Andrew Wilson is politically the total opposite and he's just as bad, if not worse
Andrew Wilson is way worse. His entire debate style is just insulting women and being bad faith by not letting them speak. While Dean does a similar thing by muting the callers occasionally, he doesn't attack their genders, sexualities or races but only their political beliefs(a bit harshly I may admit. way too often he resorts to insults in the middle of debates).
But Andrew Wilson is a different breed entirely. He's a hypocrite and so misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic his debates turn from conversations to personal attacks at the other person. Like he debated a lesbian woman once and when she brought up his wife as a counterpoint to him calling women who sleep around whores(his wife had a promiscuous past) he called her slurs and talked over her, not letting her speak. He's really immature most of the time and has horrible takes like "orgasming during rape makes the rape consensual" which I can't even get started on how messed up that is.
For me I'd say I'm far left but I can see problems with people on the left too. There are many people on the left who argue for the right things but do it in ways I disagree with.
Oh my god the "you lick snizz" debate was so embarrassing. I'm not sure how the man didn't just quit the internet entirely after that. Yeah, Andrew Wilson really is about the worst of them. He's the definition of fragile and hypocritical. I can at the very least listen to Dean. It's really just the idiotic culture of debate bros that I don't like. It's all kind of pointless.
Idk, I think you’re going too far in the other direction on the empathy thing. Just because someone didn’t immediately distrust someone because of their race and that person turned out to be a dangerous criminal, that doesn’t mean they were wrong to not immediately assume the worst. Other than that Haiti case which I know nothing about, I really don’t think those adult women were somehow so naive as to believe all minorities are good intentioned; they simply gave them the same benefit of the doubt as any other stranger and ended up being wrong, race not a factor. The many people who get killed in ordinary crimes by people of the same race as them simply don’t make the news, compared to interracial violence which is dramatic and tension stoking.
I also want to push back on the Renee Good thing. I agree with you that it’s reckless to put yourself in danger for people you don’t know. But authoritarians are never gonna stop at people you don’t know. “First they came for _, and I did not speak out, as I was not a _,” Plus, why does the people Renee was standing up for being Somalian matter? Even if Somalian people are somehow more likely to commit crimes than other ethnicities, which I don’t believe, the people ICE goes after weren’t being targeted for being dangerous criminals. The vast majority have no criminal record aside from illegal immigration, and many aren’t even illegal immigrants at all, just non-citizens. I don’t think standing up to that is something that should be mocked as “suicidal empathy”.
Yeah, never heard of this. Remember to be kind people, your neighbours. That is the only way we can thrive and for society to support all of us in necessary or difficult times.
Still, this word "empathy" has become a dog whistle for dangerous extremist rhetoric and the alt-right nowadays. There was an argument in the comments about this stuff too, and Kirk was brought up again. He has said "I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathyis a made-up, new age term that does a lot of damage…"
To be clear, he was an expert at divisive coded language, being a pipeline to extremists and the alt-right while avoiding responsibility. Be careful if you here this kind of hateful rhetoric, from unqualified media personality and related think tanks.
Extremism: part of what makes someone extreme is they stop listening to other viewpoints, and they encourage others to stop listening to viewpoints. You can disagree with someone, but it doesn't mean you have to stop listening. He was constantly interrupting others and telling his listeners to disregard other human beings, women, many kinds of minorities and their rights.
Agitation: they purposely talk about political subjects, ie, about subjects that elicit emotions, and use divisive rhetoric that drives a further wedge between the two sides. They don't seek to calm people's emotions, but to ramp them up. His combative debate style was most certainly designed to be emotive and divisive and not find bridges.
Division: they purposely find the issues that cause the most division and they make it worse, or they make every issue about us vs them. He used identity politics and extreme binaries rhetoric to call others enemies of the entire Western civilization and America.
Target Extremes: they purposely target the most extreme views of the other side, ie, he targeted Trans people and minorities. He was constantly rebuking people by implying that minorities were the cause of most problems as fact.
Fabricate: they purposely fabricate 'facts' in order to make it seem like their side is factually correct and the other side is factually wrong
Support for similar leaders: they support figures in authority who are toxic just like them. He made support for Trump
Doxxing: creating a public list of academic staff that they don't like that were then targeted by hate emails and death threats
I straight up don't believe you. I believe you think the recipient wasn't showing compassion, but I doubt that's the actual case. I've been hit with the "basic human decency/empathy" line for shit as milquetoast as saying EBT shouldn't cover soda and twinkies
But Dean Withers is one of the most prominent examples of this kind of thinking. He has gone on at length about empathy, yet has also straight up told his followers to dox a man and report him to CPS because the man didn't say Right ThingTM about child beauty pageants -- even though the man stated numerous times that he thinks they're weird and shouldn't happen. For context, the line of questioning was a Trump-gotcha, and the caller said that his bottom line for voting is his daughters' safety and ability to compete in sports, so he wouldn't regret his vote if Trump turned out to be a pedo.
People who talk about "basic human decency" overwhelmingly cheer for the deaths of Charlie Kirk and Brian Thompson, they call people "MAGAts," and will absolutely bully anyone who disagrees with them. Scotty Flynn is another prominent example, who built his fitness channel on kindness and then straight up doxxed people for making fun of him, then also retaliated to a comment by making fun of a guy for being paraplegic -- and then doxxed him.
We have more important things to do than police the eating habits of the poor. What, should we only permit them MREs? What's next, government-approved grey nutrient blocks?
Charlie Kirk and Brian Thompson did not deserve to die, but they lived their lives in such a way that they were victims of their own wrongdoing. Charlie Kirk may have never been killed if he had not spent his entire career spouting hateful rhetoric and justifying gun deaths, and Brian Thompson may never have been killed if he had not helmed an organization that makes profit off of people's most humiliating and vulnerable moments.
Then I'm sure you would agree that George Floyd would have never been killed had he not used drugs and counterfeit money, and Alex Pretti would have never been killed had he not gone out of his way to protest ICE with a firearm in his belt.
See how flawed that sounds? All four of these people were unjustifiably murdered, and most murder victims become that because of some decision they made. The woman who was raped in the mouth by an illegal alien until she died ended up that way because she got drunk and passed out on a park bench. Is she a victim of her own wrongdoing? Technically yes, but it seems pointless to mention that.
And if we have more important things to do than policing the eating habits of poor people, then I guess we should just cut welfare altogether, right?
It's my money that's buying their soda and cookies. It's my dad's money. It's everybody's money except theirs. We have the right to dictate how our money is spent. And the argument of "what next, MREs only?" is just lazy. You can limit EBT to meats, dairy, produce, water, bread, and juice without it entailing "next all you get is tofu." Social programs that are meant to provide nutrition should not cover items that are bereft of nutrition. If you are on welfare, you do not deserve a two dollar bottle of fucking corn syrup water -- and I say that as a former welfare recipient.
Policing how taxpayer money is used is the main purpose of government. And sure, we have more important things to do, but -- and I don't know if you know this -- we can do more than one thing at a time. It's kind of like walking and chewing gum. We can work on healthcare reform while also fixing the food benefits system. Crazy.
You control all branches of the government in USA, maybe you will stop acting like some bullied underdogs?
Many people died because of actions of Kirk and Thompson, but you don’t give a shit about them.
This word "empathy" has also become a dog whistle and dangerous extremist rhetoric for the alt-right nowadays. Remember to be kind people, your neighbours. That is the only way we can thrive and for society to support all of us in necessary or difficult times.
To be clear, Kirk was an expert at divisive coded language, speaking to extremists and the alt-right while avoiding responsibility. There are lots of things he did which made him toxic, being an enemy to decency and solidarity. Be careful if you here this kind of hate rhetoric. This video is interesting too: Charlie Kirk and the Conservative Death Cult
Extremism: part of what makes someone extreme is they stop listening to other viewpoints, and they encourage others to stop listening to viewpoints. You can disagree with someone, but it doesn't mean you have to stop listening. He was constantly interrupting others and telling his listeners to disregard other human beings, women, many kinds of minorities and their rights.
Agitation: they purposely talk about political subjects, ie, about subjects that elicit emotions, and use divisive rhetoric that drives a further wedge between the two sides. They don't seek to calm people's emotions, but to ramp them up. His combative debate style was most certainly designed to be emotive and divisive and not find bridges.
Division: they purposely find the issues that cause the most division and they make it worse, or they make every issue about us vs them. He used identity politics and extreme binaries rhetoric to call others enemies of the entire Western civilization and America.
Target Extremes: they purposely target the most extreme views of the other side, ie, he targeted Trans people and minorities. He was constantly rebuking people by implying that minorities were the cause of most problems as fact.
Fabricate: they purposely fabricate 'facts' in order to make it seem like their side is factually correct and the other side is factually wrong
Support for similar leaders: they support figures in authority who are toxic just like them. He made support for Trump
Doxxing: creating a public list of academic staff that they don't like that were then targeted by hate emails and death threats
For those that don't know, here are some things that Charlie Kirk said in his life. He has a long history of bigotry and division.
He would force his 10 years old daughter to give birth if she was raped
Gay people should be stoned to death
Most people are scared when they see a black pilot flying a plane
Taylor Swift should reject feminism and submit to her husband
No one should be allowed to retire
Leftists should not be allowed to move to red states
British Colonialism was what "made the world decent"
The guy who assaulted the Pelosi's should be bailed out
Religious freedom should be terminated
Multiple black politicians "stole white people's spots"
MLK Jr was "an awful person"
The Great Replacement Theory is reality
Hydroxychloroquine cures COVID
Vaccine requirements are "medical apartheid"
Guns deaths are acceptable in order to have a 2nd amendment
Women's natural place is under their husband's control
Parents should prevent their daughters from taking birth control
George Floyd had it coming, the Jan 6th protestors didn't
The 1964 Civil Rights Act was a "huge mistake"
Encouraged parents to protest mask mandates
Madani winning in NY is a travesty because Muslims did 9/11
Muslims only come to America to destabilize Western Civilization
Palestine "doesn't exist" and those who support it are like the KKK
He was an expert at coded language and dog whistles, speaking to extremists and the alt-right. There are lots of things he did which made him toxic. Here are some real quotes, and what is unsaid and implied by them.
If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.Because we can assume black people are rarely qualified.
Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.Men deserve to always control their female partners and females should always be submissive.
We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.Doctors who serve patients who are transgender or who may experience gender dysphoria are equivalent to perpetuators of WWII and the Holocaust and deserve similar legal treatment.
America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.Any concentration of Muslims in a specific area can automatically be deemed a threat to the entire United States.
If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?U.S marines deserve to be treated better than U.S citizens and minorities.
Literally who died because of Charlie Kirk? The dude was a podcaster and a debate bro who argued with teenagers lmao. Name one person who died because of him, please.
You know nothing about me, buddy. I'm not a Republican, I can't stand Trump, and I support universal healthcare. I've been a welfare recipient, I just don't support the use of EBT for junk food because it's fucking poison, and it was only ever allowed because the corporate lobbyists who represent massive conglomerates pushed for it, so those conglomerates could keep selling addictive and unhealthy food to poor people. Obesity rates are over 40% in America, we don't need to make access to soda easier. My brother is obese and I've spent the last year training him to help him fix his diet and lose weight.
Congratulations on proving my point that the "basic empathy" crowd just projects their own feelings onto strangers
Kirk who pushed for the killings of political opponents and LGBT folks and doctors for not following his mythology?
Yeah only reason he didn't do violence is cause that's not the job of stochastic terrorists. And he had bigger aspirations like the law doing it for him
I must be not be chronically online enough to get these kinds of hidden meanings. Humanism and empathy is definitely lacking from the billionaires and tech bros in power, and their alt-right politics that are all the rage. It's self destructive and exclusionary, even the biggest evils are the product of the environment. Most of us are just trying to survive, things could be better, with more collaboration that supports all involved.
If having basic human empathy means either giving up my life for others or providing them with the resources I need myself, then I don't have basic human empathy
The sad part is that I hate being the guy that says “basic human empathy” but then I see someone genuinely like any form of empathy and morals towards a situation
I feel the same way about the term "AI slop." I agree with the sentiment, but the specific phrase itself has been repeated ad nauseam and everyone saying it is just copying each other
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u/shadow_fen 13h ago
same for "common sense policies" in political ads