this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2025
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Damn that sucks, but I bet it's really freeing to no longer have to worry about empathy. I would never wish the same on myself, but it would be interesting to see what it feels like for a day or two.
There are disabilities that involve reduced empathy. Autism for reduced cognitive empathy and ASPD/NPD for reduced affective empathy. They both seriously impair relationship skills. People with ASPD often have criminal records because they did something stupid like shoplift breath mints and then punch out the cop who caught them. Empathy is a form of intelligence, and if you can't imagine how people are going to feel when you do shitty things, then you'll tend to do shitty things and get in lots of trouble for it.
What do mean by "cognitive empathy"?
Affective empathy is the ability to understand someone else's feelings. Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand someone else's thoughts.
Cognitive empathy is really useful for lying, because you can anticipate how someone will think about what you tell them. It's also good for social deduction and interpersonal problem solving. You might use it at a job interview to intuit that your potential employer values modesty, so you understate your accomplishments to win her approval and get the job. Poker is all about cognitive empathy, the goal is to read the value of your opponents' cards on their faces. It can help you to recognise unwritten rules and to absorb information by cultural osmosis. If you want to bend a rule, cognitive empathy will help you gauge how the relevant authority will react, and whether you'll be allowed to bend it.
In short, cognitive empathy is one of the most essential skills to living life as part of a society in a world full of people who don't always say what they really mean. Which is an accurate description of nearly all neurotypicals.
To add to that - I believe I have reduced empathy and the effect is that I cling to rules as much as I can because they are the only sensible guide what's right and what's not. I know I have some empathy - just lower than normal folk. Still can't imagine how it is to have none.
well normally i'm on my computer allthe time soi don't really need to think about anyone else