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by skeledrew 23 days ago
> It is not even like they would be more emphatic toward disabled close ones. They dont extend empathy toward abused or sexually harassed female familly member or kid. Or to gay familly member.

From a biological/evolutionary standpoint, that's the correct approach. Anything that reduces - chances at - reproduction or makes the population less fit is an issue that makes said population tend toward extinction.
1 comments
NietzscheanNull 22 days ago
> From a biological/evolutionary standpoint, that's the correct approach.

I believe the science disagrees on this point. In the case of humans, adaptations that contributed most to our success as a species are a constellation of pro-social traits that enabled us to cooperate in organized fashion in relatively large numbers (which empathy plays a major role in mediating).

Evolutionary fitness is not always meaningful at the level of the individual, particularly in social animals. IIRC, there are a number of species in which individually-disadvantageous (i.e. purely altruistic) behaviors are conserved, despite their apparent adverse effects on individual fitness.

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skeledrew 22 days ago
Humans being social animals doesn't detract from the point at all. Here, it's particularly regarding the small subsets that aren't "fit" from a Darwinian perspective. For example a homosexual is unfit because they will almost never reproduce to pass on their genes (adoption doesn't count), and so it would be disadvantageous to the group (again, from a Darwinian perspective) to "waste" any resources (even empathy) on any unfit individuals. Conversely a serial rapist would be very fit as they aggressively seek to pass on their genes.

And we see it playing out globally: as groups become more socially conscious (aka "woke"), their TFR decreases. Just look at a world map showing TFR, and overlay that on one showing "wokeness" by nation. European nations are generally the most woke in the world, and have a generally low TFR. African nations are generally the least woke in the world, and have a comparatively high TFR.

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