51–60 of 78 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can also think of it as "make an effort to act in a way others enjoy".
Problem is that only people with bad empathy enjoys it since otherwise you can see through peoples superficiality. So going through the motions and pretending to like each other doesn't work with/for many.
Those who do it well, which is most of us, just seem like nice, friendly and interesting people.
Can you empathize with genius beyond your comrehension, or is this just a downward relationship, and does doing so make you a peer? Can you empathize with objective evils like sadism or cruelty without becoming a party to it? It raises the question of what it is, really. The popular emphasis on empathy seems to reduce to a secular political idea, where the more traditional value of compassion is more of a theological…
What I'm most interested in is to to what degree the lack of "facial expressions", "speech melody" and the like in internet communication impedes the development of empathy. We can communicate with more people than ever before, but our ability to empathize with those people is poor.
You don't develop empathy - some people have it, some people not so much. We need both, unless we want other countries to come by and explain to us that their un-empathetic people with guns will now be telling us how to live our lives. It's not ability to empathize that's poor online - it's motivation to empathize that's absent. I'd really rather not deal with temper tantrums ever, but if someone throws one and I'm a…
I don't think this is true, for the most part. A counterexample is buddhists who spend years practicing compassion meditation. It seems to work for them. Lots of religious leaders emphasize compassion, and there seems to be a benefit from it. I know people who pray for others, which is a clearly empathetic act, whether or not I believe in the power of prayer.
I don't think that empathy is just a given, as you seem to think. People all over the world, and over vast spans of time have put a lot of effort into developing it.
Can you empathize with genius beyond your comrehension, or is this just a downward relationship, and does doing so make you a peer? Can you empathize with objective evils like sadism or cruelty without becoming a party to it? It raises the question of what it is, really. The popular emphasis on empathy seems to reduce to a secular political idea, where the more traditional value of compassion is more of a theological…
Honestly, I'll take either empathy or compassion. We need more of both.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Problem is that only people with bad empathy enjoys it since otherwise you can see through peoples superficiality. So going through the motions and pretending to like each other doesn't work with/for many.
You can see through the people who do it badly. Those who do it well, which is most of us, just seem like nice, friendly and interesting people.
Most people have not read that book nor any like it. Most people appear pleasant because that's the way they genuinely are, not because they went to a seminar or read a book to learn how to fake it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, I'll take either empathy or compassion. We need more of both.
I agree, empathy is a bit fake, you have to guess and I for one will do my very best to guess what others are thinking and feeling, but at the end of the day, being in someone else's shoes is a guess. Compassion is entirely solid though. Both are needed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't develop empathy - some people have it, some people not so much. We need both, unless we want other countries to come by and explain to us that their un-empathetic people with guns will now be telling us how to live our lives. It's not ability to empathize that's poor online - it's motivation to empathize that's absent. I'd really rather not deal with temper tantrums ever, but if someone throws one and I'm a…
”You don't develop empathy - some people have it, some people not so much." I don't think this is true, for the most part. A counterexample is buddhists who spend years practicing compassion meditation. It seems to work for them. Lots of religious leaders emphasize compassion, and there seems to be a benefit from it. I know people who pray for others, which is a clearly empathetic act, whether or not I believe in the…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, I'll take either empathy or compassion. We need more of both.
I agree, empathy is a bit fake, you have to guess and I for one will do my very best to guess what others are thinking and feeling, but at the end of the day, being in someone else's shoes is a guess. Compassion is entirely solid though. Both are needed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can see through the people who do it badly. Those who do it well, which is most of us, just seem like nice, friendly and interesting people.
> Those who do it well, which is most of us, Most people have not read that book nor any like it. Most people appear pleasant because that's the way they genuinely are, not because they went to a seminar or read a book to learn how to fake it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Always count on HN to provide plenty of arguments against empathy
"Empathy - the ability to share someone else's feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person's situation" I'd risk a statement, that it is actually impossible to take someone's else position. What one can do is precisely this - imagining someone's else position, which is a fiction (fueled by so called good intentions).
Some people are better at this than others, and yes there's some guessing involved, but it doesn't have to be perfect to work. This is especially effective if the other recognizes the effort and also tries to empathize.