BEN DREYFUSS: Let’s Discuss The Left Wing Psychopaths Who Think The Titanic Tourists Deserve To Die.
We, Princes of Maine, Kings of New England, live in the future of tomorrow and have medicine and shelter and Grubhub, so our empathy machines are not as directly responsible for our immediate survival as they were for people who knew that if their buddy didn’t help them out, they would get eaten by hyenas. But that doesn’t mean empathy totally just for funsies. On a societal level, it’s pretty important that people be generally against unnecessary suffering, and setting life and death aside, there are lesser but still important benefits to the social contract.
(I’m paraphrasing, so if you are really interested in some of this evolution stuff, I think you should check out your local library.)
The abnormal psychopaths, refusing to admit that they are indeed psychopaths, would argue that their empathy machines are, in fact, the ones that are doing the purest evolutionary function. They are caring about people like them because a world that cares about people like them is easier to live in for people like them, and they are a person like them. History has shown us that this can lead to very bad things like war and death and prejudice and those travel adapters you have to bring with you when you go to Europe, but there is a bit of a certain “ok, sure, in some limited ways,” you have to hand them.
But one of the defining characteristics of normal people is that our empathy machines, fortunately for society, are not so singularly transactional. We care about people even when it isn’t immediately obvious that there is something in it for us.
The normal people on Monday did what the normal people do. But the abnormal people didn’t do that.
They heard the news, read the stories, took in all of the information that made you sad, and their first reaction was: anyone who can afford a $250k tourist trip deserves to die.
Or worse — they voted for people who have (R)s after their names: The New Republic Decided to Go There on the Titanic Submersible Story.
