Why Show Sympathy ?

[Salafi Stannis]

I've had friends who feel sympathy/empathy are useless emotions. I think they're important to communication and functioning within a society. Sometimes they're even motivators.

Could you give us their names/addresses so we can pass them off to the FBI?

[N/A]

Could you give us their names/addresses so we can pass them off to the FBI?

And you think government enforcement squads like the CIA or FBI that umm, like to ask people some questions very nicely and in a very polite manner and guarantee safety and never ever cause their captives, err I mean welcomed guests any bodily harm would be the ones to teach people about empathy and sympathy ?

Okay here's another question for you people , we all know that it's easier to do something nasty when you don't do it with your own hands or have to see the results or deed through (via someone else) while when you do it yourself it becomes much more difficult , having to watch . So is that a stimulant of sympathy and empathy ?

And relating to that , how do you people who have jobs that entail that , like cops who have to evict people from their homes or other "dirty" work involving law enforcement . Or lawyers who often find themselves in morally ambiguous grounds defending ...err, colorful characters .

How do you deal with it ? What goes through your head ? Have you ever has a moment where you though , wait a second , I can't do this to these people . Weather you eventually had to do it or not .

[Salafi Stannis]

And you think government enforcement squads like the CIA or FBI that umm, like to ask people some questions very nicely and in a very polite manner and guarantee safety and never ever cause their captives, err I mean welcomed guests any bodily harm would be the ones to teach people about empathy and sympathy ?

Okay here's another question for you people , we all know that it's easier to do something nasty when you don't do it with your own hands or have to see the results or deed through (via someone else) while when you do it yourself it becomes much more difficult , having to watch . So is that a stimulant of sympathy and empathy ?

And relating to that , how do you people who have jobs that entail that , like cops who have to evict people from their homes or other "dirty" work involving law enforcement . Or lawyers who often find themselves in morally ambiguous grounds defending ...err, colorful characters .

How do you deal with it ? What goes through your head ? Have you ever has a moment where you though , wait a second , I can't do this to these people . Weather you eventually had to do it or not .

Yeah, cuz I was totally being serious.

[ab aeterno]

And you think government enforcement squads like the CIA or FBI that umm, like to ask people some questions very nicely and in a very polite manner and guarantee safety and never ever cause their captives, err I mean welcomed guests any bodily harm would be the ones to teach people about empathy and sympathy ?

In those situations, we call in the proper authorities.

Okay here's another question for you people , we all know that it's easier to do something nasty when you don't do it with your own hands or have to see the results or deed through (via someone else) while when you do it yourself it becomes much more difficult , having to watch . So is that a stimulant of sympathy and empathy ?

And relating to that , how do you people who have jobs that entail that , like cops who have to evict people from their homes or other "dirty" work involving law enforcement . Or lawyers who often find themselves in morally ambiguous grounds defending ...err, colorful characters .

How do you deal with it ? What goes through your head ? Have you ever has a moment where you though , wait a second , I can't do this to these people . Weather you eventually had to do it or not .

Many of these are situations where empathy conflicts with other social principles, such as self-preservation or societal organization.

In the case of lawyers, they are actually showing greater empathy by putting themselves in the positions of people who most people would not want to be defended. Most people would want a good defence, even if they were guilty, I'd imagine.

More generally, it does bring into question to what extent empathy is a beneficial trait. There have certainly been arguments that we should promote compassion, rather than empathy.

[Solmyr]

From my vulcan-perspective, humans tend to show sympathy in order to establish deeper and more complex communication channel with the recipient. However, in most cases, this actually leads to deception and self-deception, often unintentional, because regardless of how genuine the sympathy might feel to either side, it is rarely a representation of feelings that are truly mutual. Therefore, what sympathy achieves in practice, is to limit attempts at actually communicating the feelings in question in more detail, hence impeding communication.

[Castel]

From my vulcan-perspective, humans tend to show sympathy in order to establish deeper and more complex communication channel with the recipient. However, in most cases, this actually leads to deception and self-deception, often unintentional, because regardless of how genuine the sympathy might feel to either side, it is rarely a representation of feelings that are truly mutual. Therefore, what sympathy achieves in practice, is to limit attempts at actually communicating the feelings in question in more detail, hence impeding communication.

Well, if the point was always to send some sort of objective data then communication would be impeded, this however isn't the case. And this is why Earth still exists and Vulcan is gone :P

[Weeping Sore]

...Vulcan is gone :P

A new homeworld will be found. If you will it, it is no dream!