this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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“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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[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 minutes ago* (last edited 23 minutes ago)

he has neither intelligence or empathy. he turned intoa space karen, because he mangled his penis in a botched surgery

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

Musk is a weakness

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

You know who lacks empathy? Psychopaths.

This paper says this about it:

Importantly, empathy is such an essential component of healthy human social interactions that absence of it may lead to severe social and cognitive dysfunctions. A personality structure often marked by a lack of empathy is psychopathic personality.

Musk is once again pretending to know about things he's clueless about.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Lack of empathy is how I characterize Republicans or conservatives in general. It explains every single one of their policy position.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 21 minutes ago

there also very good at pretending to have empathy, which is another key trait. hence why we seen "so many people" become super right wing as time goes on.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Musk found out that the people that like him now, after posting of the nerds and tech enthousiasts, base their world view on the works of Ayn Rand, who peached that empathy and governement help is bad.

Disregarding that Rand died penniless and on governement hand outs.

But musk will find out again that, no matter how much money he flings at it, nobody will like him for who he is and that void will eat him up though it may make him do more silly things. And That's a shame

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

Ya know, the irony here, nobody is gonna feel bad for him either.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 hours ago

Empathy is a weakness for sociopaths, and only sociopaths can be billionaires. So it's not a universal weakness, but it is a weakness for him.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 hours ago

What an asshole

[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 hours ago

Empathy is one of the foundational blocks of the society he abuses.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 hours ago

That… Makes absolutely no sense.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 hours ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 hours ago (4 children)

I guess it closes the debate about Musk being autistic. Autistics are more likely to be hyper empathetic.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Narcissists can display similar traits similar to autistic people. You’re right, he’s not autistic, just a narcissist.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 hours ago

Narcissistic Personality Disorder, perhaps?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

I mean, that seems empathic to me - you are relating to her (potential) feelings.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 hours ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

Empathy is a skill and he doesn't have it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 hours ago (7 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Some such people are really good at pretending to have empathy. I used to be with a narcissist who was a nurse. She could put on a good face, but in actuality she just got off on the sense of power over people who needed her help. In areas where being an awful person didn't threaten her job security, she had zero qualms about hurting or taking advantage of others, and she did so without hesitation when she felt it would benefit her.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 hours ago

There are a lot of skills he doesn’t have.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 19 points 13 hours ago

#shitsociopathssay

[–] [email protected] 15 points 13 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 14 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 hours ago

Hell, I can manage to celebrate

[–] [email protected] 38 points 15 hours ago (5 children)
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[–] [email protected] 31 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

"I'm a sociopath." - Elon Musk

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

"I'm a sociopath, empathy is a weakness, therefore you should be a sociopath also, or you're doing it wrong." --Elmo, paraphrased

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 hours ago

"I'm a sociopath, therefore being a sociopath is best, because the alternative would confuse me."

[–] [email protected] 13 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

From a fascists pov it is. But only from a fascists point of view.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 13 hours ago

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…

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago

The line between stupidity and evil is rather slim

[–] [email protected] 28 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 18 hours ago (8 children)

Fuck Joe Rogan for letting him say shit like that unchecked.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 17 hours ago

Fuck Joe Rogan, period.

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