(1/2) I agree with all of this, save for the last one. As much as I hate to side with Musk on anything, he was right about Empathy, just not in the he meant. To do the most good, you must become numb for the same reason surgeons do.
(2/2) If you can't get totally numb, you will start liking the suffering around you and obsess over what is returned for alleviating it. I believe this to be the root cause of the borderline sadistic billionaire class we have today and the reason they cannot change: they are addicted.
There are many with empathy who can and do act on it, with no expectation of anything in return. That said, I do like the idea of helping others as a base, near mechanical way of operating, if that's what it takes for someone with no empathy to just do the right thing.
I said what I did because I had to force myself to be apathic to function in society. I cared so much about everything that I was constantly overwhelmed by being upset on behalf of people I would never meet and things that barely think. I don't want to know what I would have become if not numb.
I can relate. Pretty sure what you described is roughly where I live, minus the overwhelm. I find a bit of comfort in history showing consistent pushback against bad things, it's just our turn now, is all. One thing I've done that's helped get through days is to look out for the flashpoints.
Right now, I'm in the mode of speaking out and doing the right things I'm capable of in my first couple degrees of separation, but we're approaching the time where I'm concertedly staying in shape for when our upcoming flashpoint will need able bodies to act
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All of which the rich see as being something else they would have to pay for. Here come the lawyers, lobbyists and politicians to shut that down.
Private Equity Firms are destroying #USA
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/retirement-private-equity-trump-administration-wall-street-1047576/
https://acretrader.com/home
https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/jon-tester/bills?cid=N00027605&cycle=2022