I think it's often entirely reasonable to shed one's empathy for someone who displays no empathy for people like you. Tit-for-tat isn't always the best policy, but it's not psychopathic either.

A considerable portion of the AI-girl rhetoric quoted in the article is specifically denigrating liberals. It would be very generous and possibly laudable of liberals to nevertheless feel empathy for the people falling for it, but I think it's pretty understandable if most don't. And I'm not even convinced it's laudable; there's a particular tendency in US media discourse to assign moral responsibility to liberals, but not conservatives, so that liberals are supposed to empathize with MAGA voters and endeavor to understand their values but it's just normal and accepted that Republicans think liberal cities are hellholes that deserve to burn. This asymmetry isn't healthy, even if I'd rather it be resolved by a general increase in empathy than a decrease.

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Hizonner 5 hours ago | parent [-]

How about empathy for the other people they'll make miserable if you encourage their worldview , and maybe the people they'll make miserable if you further embitter them?

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kalkin 4 hours ago | parent [-]

It's really not clear to me how MAGA people getting scammed will encourage their world view, or that there's meaningful room for further embittering them. Maybe, but perhaps they'll be discouraged! Or perhaps they'll have less money to give to actually sincere MAGA activists who will do something bad with it!

To be clear, I don't think the law should tolerate scams of this kind, or that policy should encourage them in any way. But empathy for the victims is an ask on top of policy, and "maybe there will be some bad indirect effects" is a weak argument for it.

	▲	Hizonner 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> It's really not clear to me how MAGA people getting scammed will encourage their world view, Young MAGA-adjacent dumbass who can't get laid sees pretty girl spouting MAGA stuff, reads all her posts and follows her or whatever, The Algorithm(TM) feeds him more MAGA stuff and MAGA posters, his whole social and information environment becomes that much more MAGA. Works even if he knows from the beginning that she's AI, but just likes the eye candy. > or that there's meaningful room for further embittering them. Young dumbass who can't get laid sends money, doesn't get the engagement he wants and/or realizes she's AI, can't accept feeling stupid, further projects his problems onto everything and everybody outside of himself, seeks out material that enourages him to do that...