Stephen Downes

What is natural for a human being? I think a lot of people would count empathy as natural. This article recounts an effort to teach it out of people. "Elon Musk revealed the core of the ideology animating the richest person in the world. 'The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy,' Musk said, adding that liberals and progressives are 'exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.'" Whether or not it is natural, it is arguable that "Empathy is a necessary precondition for a society. Without empathy, we'd be living in a social Darwinist jungle animated only by selfish individuals pursuing selfish needs."