[icebraining]

"When one man dies it is a tragedy, when thousands die it's statistics." - Stalin (not confirmed).

Empathy is irrational, since it relies on identification with the other being. It's always easier to identify oneself with a living being than to a piece of meat.

On the other hand, it's also very rational; it's a much better strategy than if it was guided by pure knowledge, since it optimizes cooperation: otherwise, you'd either be completely indifferent to someone you can actually help (e.g. injured person near you) or live in mental anguish by the fact that you know that thousands are constantly being killed by wars, curable diseases, etc.

[rcthompson]

The only actual source I've ever seen for that Stalin quote was the fictional Stalin from the computer game Command and Conquer: Red Alert. Is this quote actually attributed to the real Stalin? Has the quote been floating around since before 1995 or so, when that game was released?

[ctchocula]

Wikiquotes has a segment on this quote.[1] It's uncertain whether Stalin said it to Truman at the Potsdam conference, or whether the quote was actually said by someone else and misattributed to Stalin, but it is certain that the game designers didn't make it up for C&C: Red Alert.

[1] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin#Misattributed