Sometimes, empathy with one person entails a real struggle not to murder one or more other people with extreme prejudice.
This, at scale, is why "raising the level of empathy" in society is not some sort of positive ambition.
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I'm possibly not very civilized, in that I think the world would certainly be a better place if certain people could just be, y'know, killed.
But that's never how it happens, at any scale worth talking about for society. You never just kill the superpredators and call it a day.
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Our species gives birth to these individuals because they have a niche. No amount of murder will ever get rid of them.
If anything, our propensity for violence is one of the things that carve out this niche for antisocial disorders and exceptional levels of self-interest.
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Replying to
You know, I agree with you entirely here, and I've never heard anyone 1) just come out and say that their empathy makes them feel like some people should be killed and 2) point out why that *wouldn't work*
Thank you.
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- sincerely, someone who knows a LOT of folks with severe PTSD from being abused as a child and has to sit on their damn hands
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Replying to
You know, one person I love was abused, terribly, by one man.
I know where he lives. I know he's still a predator, that he abuses others. I am confident I could find him, and kill him. Sometimes I think about it.
I don't know where to put that part of me. But I don't trust it.
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The human ability to normalize, routinize anything we do, is too powerful to trust with something like murder.
Even if the victim inarguably deserves it.
And then there are all the other ramifications...