I’d argue that having the delusion that you understand another person’s point of view while not actually understanding it is far more dangerous than simply admitting that you can’t empathize with them.

For example, I can’t empathize with a homeless drug addict. The privileged folks who claim they can, well, I think they’re being dishonest with themselves, and therefore unable to make difficult but ultimately the most rational decisions.

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blackqueeriroh 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

You seem to fail to understand what empathy is. Empathy is not understanding another person’s point of view, but instead being able to analogize their experience into something you can understand, and therefore have more context for what they might be experiencing.

If you can’t do that, it’s less about you being rational and far more about you having a malformed imagination, which might just be you being autistic.

— signed, an autistic

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mnsc 5 days ago | parent [-]

You are right, and another angle is that empathy with a homeless drug addict is less about needing to understand/analogize why the person is a drug addict, which is hard if you only do soft socially acceptable drugs, but rather to remember that the homeless drug addict is not completely defined by that simple definition. That the person in front of you is a complete human that shares a lot of feelings and experiences with you. When you think about that and use those feelings to connect with that human it lets you be kinder towards him/her.

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mnsc 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

For example, the homeless drug addict might have a dog that he/she loves deeply, maybe oceanplexian have a dog that they love deeply. Suddenly oceanplexian can empathize with the homeless drug addict. Even though they still can't understand why on earth the drug addict doesn't quit drugs to make the dog's life better. (Spoiler alert drugs override rational behaviour, now oceanplexian also understand the homeless drug addict)

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frumplestlatz 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Does “connecting with that human” to be “kinder towards him/her”, in the way that you describe, actually improve outcomes?

The weight of evidence over the past 25 years would suggest absolutely not.

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mnsc 5 days ago | parent [-]

Improve outcomes? Like make the drug addict stop being a drug addict? If so, you misunderstand the point of being kind.

If you want to maximize outcomes I have a solution that guarantees 100% that the person stops being a drug addict. The u.s. are currently on their way there and there's absolutely no empathy involved.

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frumplestlatz 5 days ago | parent [-]

At a societal level, the point isn’t to be kind. The point is to be effective.

	▲	mnsc 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, so that is not the point of being kind.

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r14c 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm having a hard time understanding what you're getting at here. Homeless drug addicts are really easy to empathize with. You just need to take some time to talk and understand their situation. We don't live in a hospitable society. It's pretty easy to fall through the cracks and some people eventually get so low that they completely give into addiction because they have no reason to even try anymore.

Being down and unmotivated is not that hard to empathize with. Maybe you've had experiences with different kinds of people, homeless are not a monolith. The science is pretty clear on addiction though, improving people's conditions leads directly to sobriety. There are other issues with chronically homeless people, but I tend to see that as a symptom of a sick society. A total inability to care for vulnerable messed up sick people just looks like malicious incompetence to me.