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Selective Empathy Can Chip Away at Civil Society

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Re: Selective Empathy Can Chip Away at Civil Society

#41

Post by jhbadger »

doktrin wrote: post #29
patrickg_zill wrote: post #20

After abusing the great majority of people in the US for the last 50 years both economically and socially, the elite are now surprised by the fact that some of the people have noticed.

If you're implying that abuse by elites is some new phenomenon within the last 50 years I completely disagree. In fact social inequality has probably been more favorable and egalitarian during the last 50 years than basically any other time in human history, and US history. There's always room for improvement, but it's worth remembering how far we've actually come.

I think a lot of the argument over whether "things are getting better" as Pinker et al. claim and "things are getting worse" as Piketty et al. claim is the time scale involved. (Nearly) everybody agrees that we are living in a better world than existed before WWII. The question is are we continuing to get more egalitarian or have things begun to regress.

Re: Selective Empathy Can Chip Away at Civil Society

#42

Post by Udik »

roenxi wrote: post #32

What about the hypothesis that focusing on empathy is the problem, rather than its application the cure? Gloomy as it is to say, technological superiority has been very comfortable but doesn't offer any new way of tackling the fact that humans are basically the same as they have been for the last millennium; large groups of people who simply are not going to agree with each other. What is important is maintaining the…

> What is important is maintaining the institutions that have been wildly successful in mediating conflict between diverse groups

As another commenter remarked as well, there is no point in maintaining mediating institutions if you're not ready to accept the fact that a mediation is a fair resolution between opposing perspectives and needs. In other words, if you have no empathy for the others, any mediation is unfair, and any institution promoting it is essentially flawed.

Re: Selective Empathy Can Chip Away at Civil Society

#43

Post by mikeash »

0815test wrote: post #35
roenxi wrote: post #32

What about the hypothesis that focusing on empathy is the problem, rather than its application the cure? Gloomy as it is to say, technological superiority has been very comfortable but doesn't offer any new way of tackling the fact that humans are basically the same as they have been for the last millennium; large groups of people who simply are not going to agree with each other. What is important is maintaining the…

> What is important is maintaining the institutions that have been wildly successful in mediating conflict between diverse groups This is indeed very important, but "empathy", while not such an institution, is a baseline cultural requirement to make these institutions feasible and sustainable in the longer run. There's not much ambiguity here; intensely tribal, closed and corrupt societies do a lot worse at managing…

How does this explain Europe, which was the most frequently and destructively violent place in the world for hundreds of years until fairly recently?

Re: Selective Empathy Can Chip Away at Civil Society

#44

Post by TeMPOraL »

nostrademons wrote: post #13
speedplane wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tribal instincts are super strong, that's been proven over and over again Tribal instincts aren't as strong as you think. Every civil and egalitarian right that people have gained since the enlightenment are the result of overcoming tribal instincts. The definition of a "tribe" is more often than not mostly a social construct. If society can set it up, it can tear it down.

The definition of tribes is a social construct. The existence of tribes is not. Reformers who seek to abolish tribalism usually find that they've simply redrawn the boundary lines and replaced one set of tribes with another. The dogmatism of the Church gets replaced by the patriotism of the State. Racism gets replaced by classism. Discrimination on appearance gets replaced by discrimination on education. Sometimes ju…

> Reformers who seek to abolish tribalism usually find that they've simply redrawn the boundary lines and replaced one set of tribes with another.

Spot on. It's not always (or generally) under their control either; all it takes for someone else to start calling followers of a revolutionary by some name, and a group is born.

> group boundaries based upon choices or values are more useful than group boundaries based on origins or genetics

They're also much less likely to stay as groups for long. Immutable characteristics like skin color, origin (class and nation), culture, religion or even education (which is immutable in practice for most people past the point they need to become self-sufficient in life) make your membership in a group easy to verify, and out of your control. This makes these characteristics easier targets for people to wrap their identities around. You have to accept that you're $country-of-birth-an, but you don't have to accept being anti-vaxxer - you can leave that group the minute you don't feel like being in it.

Re: Selective Empathy Can Chip Away at Civil Society

#45

Post by mcguire »

roenxi wrote: post #32

What about the hypothesis that focusing on empathy is the problem, rather than its application the cure? Gloomy as it is to say, technological superiority has been very comfortable but doesn't offer any new way of tackling the fact that humans are basically the same as they have been for the last millennium; large groups of people who simply are not going to agree with each other. What is important is maintaining the…

Why would you want to "mediate conflict" with a group who isn't strong enough to be a significant threat to you? There are more than one way to resolve disagreements.

Re: Selective Empathy Can Chip Away at Civil Society

#46

Post by neilv »

One other possible dotcom connection, to the alleged decline in empathy...

Before the initial IPO gold rush, there seemed to be relatively more thoughtfulness and altruisim among CS people, about futures of this technology.

Then the norm became CS students (and sometimes professors) talking like MBA students (who, previously, were very different, and complementary). Talk of futures became simplistic, self-focused, and self-promoting, and often seemed disingenuous.

If we look at the way social media works today, one interpretation is that some dotcom founders have remade the world in their image.

Re: Selective Empathy Can Chip Away at Civil Society

#47

Post by mcguire »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #28
b0rsuk wrote: post #4

Tribal instincts are super strong, that's been proven over and over again [citation needed]. I'm afraid long-term empathy for the sake of Other can't work. It only seems to work when people still remember major disasters and wars. It's inevitable these fade away, isn't it? (except for very, very long term, when evolution and/or genetic engineering might change this) In my country anti-Muslim sentiment is strong, made…

> Tribal instincts are super strong > I'm not a fan of any religion myself, as for Islam my main beef is it doesn't distinguish between the religion and the secular state. It can therefore be called a form of totalitarianism. I think one major shortfall of modern discourse is that we've largely lost the ability to debate ideas (including religious claims) without incorporating tribalism and a "those people are bad" m…

"Lost"?

Re: Selective Empathy Can Chip Away at Civil Society

#48

Post by rayiner »

Udik wrote: post #42
roenxi wrote: post #32

What about the hypothesis that focusing on empathy is the problem, rather than its application the cure? Gloomy as it is to say, technological superiority has been very comfortable but doesn't offer any new way of tackling the fact that humans are basically the same as they have been for the last millennium; large groups of people who simply are not going to agree with each other. What is important is maintaining the…

> What is important is maintaining the institutions that have been wildly successful in mediating conflict between diverse groups As another commenter remarked as well, there is no point in maintaining mediating institutions if you're not ready to accept the fact that a mediation is a fair resolution between opposing perspectives and needs. In other words, if you have no empathy for the others, any mediation is unfai…

Accepting the results of mediating instructions doesn’t require empathy, it requires a deference to rules-based process and a commitment to be bound. To use the US as an example, our social empathy has never been higher, whereas our commitment to mediating institutions is at historic lows. (Especially to the highly empathetic left, our mediating institutions have become mere means to ends.)

Re: Selective Empathy Can Chip Away at Civil Society

#49

Post by mcguire »

deogeo wrote: post #37
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few points also to consider: 1) I haven’t personally seen outright outrage about it. I’ve seen some light criticism that there appears to be no black traders which would exist in those times, and that the characters are uniformly white while Slavic skin color is actually a range between pale and olive. These criticisms make sense to me and were not presented with anger. Could you show me example of outrage? 2) Jord…

> I’ve seen some light criticism that there appears to be no black traders which would exist in those times, and that the characters are uniformly white while Slavic skin color is actually a range between pale and olive. Having been born and raised in a slavic country, I don't think I've seen a black person for the first 15 years of my life, except on TV. In a city with far more people than anything included in the W…

Well, there was this whole geopolitical fluffup throughout the twentieth century....

Re: Selective Empathy Can Chip Away at Civil Society

#50

Post by jessaustin »

rayiner wrote: post #48
Udik wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is important is maintaining the institutions that have been wildly successful in mediating conflict between diverse groups As another commenter remarked as well, there is no point in maintaining mediating institutions if you're not ready to accept the fact that a mediation is a fair resolution between opposing perspectives and needs. In other words, if you have no empathy for the others, any mediation is unfai…

Accepting the results of mediating instructions doesn’t require empathy, it requires a deference to rules-based process and a commitment to be bound. To use the US as an example, our social empathy has never been higher, whereas our commitment to mediating institutions is at historic lows. (Especially to the highly empathetic left, our mediating institutions have become mere means to ends.)

To the left's chagrin, the rightists have mostly come around to this way of thinking as well. All is not lost. We can always replace old institutions with newer ones.

Previously we got the news from large news-media firms. Now we know that we should ignore those firms if the topic is of any interest to the military-industrial complex. There are now independent journalists on youtube etc. to show us e.g. that there is no food crisis in Venezuela even if CNN can't stop itself from telling that lie.

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