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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[–] skhayfa@lemmy.world 43 points 2 days ago

The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.

— Hannah Arendt

[–] KingPorkChop@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 day ago (2 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.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

He’ll achieve more lasting fame than the puppet who got elected. There will be endless psychological and economic studies on his rise and fall, trying to explain it.

As people shun his name there will be a legend of a mysterious unnamed figure who first brought compelling EVs to the masses, who revolutionized space access, and was willing to try futuristic ideas other companies are too afraid to invest in. We’ll never know who that was.

The name of Musk will forever be cemented as the oligarch with some sort of psychotic break who destroyed democracy, reduced the us government to a pandering mess of waste, fraud and corruption serving the whims of a few to the detriment of everyone else. Who was instrumental to wrecking decades of international influence and superpower status, who presided over the us fall from the biggest economy, and created a sharp inflection against scientific and technical innovation, and indirectly caused millions of deaths and great harm and suffering

Hell, I can manage to celebrate

[–] Skiluros@sh.itjust.works 46 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They key issue is to treat oligarchs, their lackeys, their polemicists as individuals that lack empathy and thus lack humanity. Never forget what they are. Only certain types of incentives will work with such individuals.

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[–] RangerJosey@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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

[–] xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 day 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…

[–] Hyphlosion@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago

That… Makes absolutely no sense.

[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 2 days ago

Yes, the one thing that has kept our species' societies (sometimes barely) working for millennia is the bug, just because you're incapable of it, you goddamn ghoul.

[–] justsomeguy@lemmy.world 31 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Billions of years of evolution leading to this. Tons of research with the same result. Nope, says narcissistic sociopath, you're all wrong and I'm right.

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[–] P1k1e@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago

Huh...an admitted psychopath

[–] fossilesque@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 2 days ago

What a sad, pathetic little weasel.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 12 points 2 days ago

Not only him, Goliath...

[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago

But greed isn't weakness?

[–] Naevermix@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think, even a psychopath understand the usefulness of empathy at the conceptual level, both to the individual and society as a whole. Elon is just fucking stupid, insanely out of touch, drugged out of his gourd.

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[–] MadPoetNavarth@lemmy.myserv.one 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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