Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics.
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
I'd say empathy is a social skill learned through experience or proper education.
It can still be distorted and applied selectively or even outright ignored.
And at its core, it can be both simple and complex. Whatever emotions you feel and why can be felt by anyone else in the same way, but perhaps for different things.
So the main thing empathy asks is to understand that, to accept that having their experience and knowledge from their life is what guides their decisions, just as your own guide yours.
We don't know the same things and we should appreciate that difference, even though we might not agree with it.
Empathy for animals is easier to have because they are simpler to gauge and direct in their actions. Less of a headache to deal with the why's.