“The fundamental weakness is empathy,” Musk recently told radio podcast host Joe Rogan. “There is a bug, which is the empathy response.”
As Musk has established himself as at least the second most powerful person in an administration seeking a wholesale remaking of institutions, rules and norms, what he said matters, because it encapsulates a political plan. What the Project 2025 report set out in over 900 turgid pages, Musk’s remark captures in a simple pithy mantra for the social media age.
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Empathy is one of the foundational blocks of the society he abuses.
The fact he says this, he proves that he really never cared for the human good, all that talk was just to people buy his shit.
I guess it closes the debate about Musk being autistic. Autistics are more likely to be hyper empathetic.
Narcissists can display similar traits similar to autistic people. You’re right, he’s not autistic, just a narcissist.
Wasn’t the opinion of my psychologist about me. She told me I’m mildly autistic and that I show little empathy.
For example I saw a dead pigeon on the bike lane and my concern was: my wife behind me might ride over it and be distressed.
And it’s not that I care about her being distressed if I’m saying the truth. It’s that her distress would be a pain to handle. That the bike would be dirty which would cause further distress to my wife.
Her response to seeing the dead pigeon was that she thought it was sad.
Empathy is tricky 🤷🏻♂️ the only thing I feel about this truly, is guilt. But that’s all.
Speaking as someone who is autistic, autism is rarely a one-size fits all diagnosis.
While Hyper Empathy can be a side-effect of Autism, another is the exact opposite where your sense of empathy is limited to “So what have you done for me lately?”, in this case the person has absolutely no understanding of interaction outside of it being transactional.
Musk is definitely this kind
And adds another chapter to the debate about him being a psychopath.
Empathy as a weakness is exactly what I’d expect to hear from a sociopath. If everybody thought this way, we’d have no civilized society.
Empathy is a skill and he doesn’t have it.
It’s a useful skill if you’re trying to cultivate a popular following. The funny thing is that he used to have it and was quite good at feeling people out for a popular vibe. Now he’s too ketted out to feel anything. Just a rolling ball of Id, bouncing between hungry, cranky, and horny.
I wonder if he was ever good at it, or if before he got a pass on being a weird guy because his goals seemed positive (save the planet, push tech forward). Now that he’s fixated on manosphere/nazi shit, more people are less willing to overlook his idiosyncrasies.
He’s gone too far with special k and needs to come back. Many such cases observed in the scene during my youth.
Empathy is an ability not a skill. It’s not a mundane tool to get what you want.
you’re right, it’s not a tool to get what you want
it’s a tool to not be a horrible person
Plenty of conmen and torturers can tell you differently. Whether your soul can bear the burden of your actions is far removed from what you can accomplish with your abilities.
It is a inbuilt limit that prevents (most of us) from doing harm to our fellow humans, and to shun from society those that do. It is the very core of why humanity has reached the modern society with a high quality of life.
There are a lot of skills he doesn’t have.
The line between stupidity and evil is rather slim
Greatest thing I did with my life was to increase my understanding of other people’s lives. He is toxic, whether he’s trolling or not
I get saying it’s wrong what he said (you would be right) but imo it’s kinda missing the point. The most important thing to see imo is it’s extremely pathetic. This is the same mf faking Path of Exile and diablo accounts so he can seem cool (he kept saying he was a top player so he would get kudos from the gaming community).
This man is probably the most thin skinned idiot I’ve ever seen. So it must be extremely convenient for him to see himself as the bad guy with no empathy whose cold rational calculation leads to emotionless decisions or whatever huge cope he tells himself every day. The reality is he’s got more money than God and is running the current US administration and yet is still so mentally weak he is posting on Twitter hundreds of times per day about how he’s being persecuted and actually arguing in the comment sections
#shitsociopathssay
So when he crashes and burns, or dies of a drug overdose, I’m not supposed to care?
Cool. I think I can manage that.
Hell, I can manage to celebrate
From a fascists pov it is. But only from a fascists point of view.
from a psychopath’s point of view, really….
they like to tell themselves it’s a sort of superpower….
a narcissist kind of thing….
like when Ted Bundy was defending himself in trial for murdering a 12 year old girl, he kept asking the police to describe the crime scene, and thought that showing no emotion would prove he didn’t do it…
Wow such virtue signaling /s
Just linked this in the comment I left as well. Perfect timing on this comic!
“I’m a sociopath.” - Elon Musk
“I’m a sociopath, empathy is a weakness, therefore you should be a sociopath also, or you’re doing it wrong.” --Elmo, paraphrased
“I’m a sociopath, therefore being a sociopath is best, because the alternative would confuse me.”
Empathy is Weakness. In almost all movies they tell about that. Well not the good guys. Hell Emperor Palpatine.
If empathy is the weakness to my species, I’m glad we’re committing suicide by capitalist made climate change.
Without empathy, we have no redeeming characteristics and nothing of value will be lost.
Psychopaths can still be valuable members of society as surgeons who aren’t freaked out by cutting into people. Their lives are worth something.
We’ve just got an economic system that puts them exclusively in charge.
