Wow! Best "first" post I've seen yet! Way to go, Dukes4monny!

Empathy -- it's what gives us value. It's why sociopaths should not lead us. It's the cure to what ails us.

It is our future, if we are to have one.

Thanks Dukes4monny...great video.

We really do have to start seeing ourselves as one big family. Just watch out for anyone trying to be father superior..

Welcome to the forum
Lee

Hi Chico and Lee, thank you both for your kind welcome.

It's a great video isn't it. I just found it today and felt that I had to share it

I'm off to have a look around, back soon

Well I hate to be a party pooper, but the thing that is going to build the New World after the Patsies get used up will be empathy. Empathy for our nuked planet and empathy to be a one species with no boundaries. And it will be scientist like this speaking with no prior context on how Empires are recycled using his empathy to persuade us to join hands and get along. Empathy can be used for Nefarious purposes just like philanthropy.

But I do get your point....

Good point. Our empathy can be used against us, as can things as noble as love. Indeed, con-artists use our trust against us.

Anything we value and consider "good" can be used against us. We need to be vigilant against these abuses and those that perpetrate them. That's part of being a united people.

To add, I would submit that the Empathic Civilization is probably the start up point after the massacre of "Bad" people are gone. A rejuvenated new system will be born, dawning White Robes with a New White House ever telling us that we will not make the Same Mistakes as our Ancestors. How many times has that happened?

You make a very good and valid point, but you are also pointing out the trap. In a truly empathic society there will be no need to recycle any empires...... as they will no longer exist
All we simply have to do is look at the people around us and start to realise that we do not have to compete with each other, no............we simply need to live together.
If scientists are now saying that empathy is the answer, all we need now is for the churches / mosques etc. to start teaching it too and we're home and dry

Mags.....how true.

Before Obama announced his candidacy for President I watched him on (OK - I'll admit it) - the Oprah Show. Now these aren't the exact words...but the gist of it was.

Oprah: What was the most important thing your mother taught you?
Obama: Empathy.

Well, like Chico, I had been studying various personality disorders like narcissism, sociopaths, psychopaths, etc., at the time, and we all know they lack the empathy gene.

I was hooked on the Obama train after that comment. (I disregarded the tendency of these personality types to be masters of mimicry, because I was hoping).

Well, we all see where that got us. Good ol' Oprah.

That is one of the crucial strengths of sociopaths -- the mimicry. They study us intently to learn exactly what puts us at ease, and then they use what they have learned to manipulate us.

On the other hand, one of the crucial weaknesses of non-sociopaths is hope -- the hope that others feel as we do and can be trusted. We tend to assume both, which is accurate 90% of the time. But then we fall for the mimicry of the sociopath, thinking they are like us, and so we trust them. Then they betray us.

Clinton did it, Bush did it, and Obama did it. Nearly all of Congress does it. The Supreme Court does it. Our military leaders do it. And so will the next batch of sociopathic lackeys, unless we learn to recognize the predators among us and stop them.