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Capitalism has no heart - Communism has no brain. Communism has no heart as well. Just as cold as capitalism. All political ideologies lack heart. Though, maybe social-democracy does have some heart, don know. That will eventually be the problem. They want to save everybody, like Christians. There ...

Most wars in history have been caused by and fought by men - most crime in history has been perpetrated by men as well so therefore claiming that both sexes are equally sensible is a non starter far as the actual evidence happens to be. However we can not actually help it sometimes - since we produ...

Santa_Claus wrote:Capitalism has no heart - Communism has no brain.

Communism has no heart as well. Just as cold as capitalism. All political ideologies lack heart. Though, maybe social-democracy does have some heart, don know.

Big round of applause to Paula Kirby for the following: I have been keeping very quiet over the last week or so, saddened to see the movement tearing itself apart over something that I do not see as central to atheist activism in the first place, and reluctant to do or say anything that might add f...

Individual differences are more important than group differences. Instead of saying that women are in charge, it can be better said that feminism is now obsolete.

It is liberating, though of course it is also, if one lives by this rather than having occasional flashes of insight, rather demotivating. Ambition, achievement, advancement, all become something different and non-ego related. It might explain why Buddhist societies, until Capitalism became ubiquit...

Yup. And it may be AGW (if such a thing exists) that saves us from an extinction event. Most species can tolerate higher temperatures, but few can tolerate another ice age, with sheets of ice a mile or more thick covering everything north of 30 degrees north. Of course, that doesn't mean that every...

It is liberating, though of course it is also, if one lives by this rather than having occasional flashes of insight, rather demotivating. Ambition, achievement, advancement, all become something different and non-ego related. It might explain why Buddhist societies, until Capitalism became ubiquit...

Fair enough, but we've had a lifetime of being fed the message, "be good to others". (which is a good thing), and we now see foreigners in our living rooms every day on the tv. It's bound to lower our natural feelings of mistrust and dislike. We no longer have the natural fear and mistrust that evo...

We can be incredibly caring about some people, and incredibly callous about others. Usually, callous about people who are, or appear, foreign in some way. We evolved this ability when we lived in tribes. It makes sense to protect those who are close, and probably related, and to be inclined to atta...

rachelbean wrote:

Daan wrote:Damn it Rachel Bean. My reality doesn't suck, seeing your picture!

Aw, thank you

.Morticia. wrote:me too

I just gotta stop taking things so seriously

It depends on whether you got money issues, but otherwise you are right!

Correct. So how would one judge or measure the "empathy quotient" in an individual as a part of determining how "evil" they are? Clearly a person without any empathy is a psychopath, but it's impossible to distinguish between bad acts performed despite empathy and the absence of empathy, so what's ...

Excellent point, Morticia. We must be careful to distinguish between empathy, which is "the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another," and action. For example, I had empathy for my alcoholic, violent, dangerous, abusive father. I ...

Empathy is over-rated in human beings when you look at the species objectively. It's often the charming sociopath that'll put the knife in your back from a position of social power. Is there reaally a difference between charm and empathy? We're dealing with a black box here and it is so easy to see...