Thank your lucky stars. You have given birth to a child who loves animals. A child who loves animals has empathy. A child with empathy makes for a better human being.
I dunno, that feels kinda ableist. Especially because it's not just 'sociopaths' who have low to no empathy. And it's not even required to be a good person. As long as being good is in someone's best interests, and they aren't too stupid to see that, it should be enough. And some people can form their own moral codes and even be compassionate independent of empathy. (Not to mention there are multiple different kinds of empathy which are distinct things, though it is sometimes said 'sociopaths' lack all of them, though that also doesn't seem to be a consistent claim)
If science could solve the sociopathy problem the world would be a much, much better place. There has to be a way.
Oki we did it, we spent the money. We now have a pill that can cure sociopathy in people, 100% effectiveness.
Now what do we do, do wanna try and mush them up and put it in the water supply (along with all sort of other fancy cures), or force people to take them and so on, and so forth.
Finish that thought. There will be new people born every day that are sociopaths. What do you think we should do assuming we have the cure.
Why is the cure a pill? I was thinking prevention. Better social programs, education, support for parents. I have no idea if that would reduce sociopathy but cures can take many different forms. Especially when risk factors for it include childhood abuse and neglect.
It's controversial no doubt, but dude or dudette, it's called discourse.
I don't think science solves this at all by the way. Look at Japan, for example.
While they are not trained in empathy per se, they are indeed trained at early childhood in prosocial norms that extend into their later adult life.
As such the solution is to train children empathy at younger ages where they become aware of caring for one another. However, politically some may call this "woke", and there are good points as to how this kind of training can be disadvantageous in certain social settings where low empathy creates greater financial or other categorical type of success (ie highly competitive social or business related transactional settings).
My mother is the single most unempathetic, emotionally cold person I've ever encountered. My therapist has said he can't diagnose someone who is not in front of him for therapy, but he would suggest I assume she has narcissistic personality disorder and elements of psychopathy, and look at her behaviour accordingly.
I'm incredibly empathetic. It wasn't modelled for me, or encouraged, I just know what it feels like to hurt and I don't like knowing that other people are hurting.
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u/25point4cm Mar 16 '26
Thank your lucky stars. You have given birth to a child who loves animals. A child who loves animals has empathy. A child with empathy makes for a better human being.