British Home Secretary Suella Braverman says LGBT, gender discrimination not grounds for asylum https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2023/09/26/British-home-secretary-urges-refugee-convention-reform/6841695731279/ (Me: STFU let her live as LGBT in Uganda or Lebanon to understand and have minimum of empathy and understanding)
@nedhamson @harriettmb she’s like thatcher in that you do that and she’d come back and still keep stamping down….you can’t teach empathy to someone who doesn’t want to learn…
@gemma You can’t teach empathy. Full stop. @nedhamson @harriettmb@mastodon.ie
@AlliFlowers @nedhamson @harriettmb thinking like that results in discrimination against people who lack native empathy… you can develop empathic thought processes, even if you don’t have the hardwiring for it.
In the same way people with empathy can learn to turn it off…
@gemma I’d need to see some scientific studies upholding this. I’ve never seen a study suggesting that empathy can be learned. And even if someone who has empathy can turn it off, it doesn’t stay off permanently. It’s too painful. @nedhamson @harriettmb@mastodon.ie
@AlliFlowers @gemma @harriettmb When you lose status or votes for not being empathetic, you can learn to be functionally empathetic even if you do not feel it.
@nedhamson Fake it until no one notices? @gemma @harriettmb@mastodon.ie
@AlliFlowers @nedhamson @harriettmb I mean it feels a little turing testy, but if you meet me when I'm masking, and you can't tell I'm neurodivergent, what's the difference?
If you cannot tell whether someone is empathic naturally, or emulating empathy (and acting in an empathic/caring/considerate way), is it really faking it?
@gemma This is a case of opinion vs. science. @nedhamson @harriettmb@mastodon.ie
@gemma Tell ya what, when I finish my current research, I’ll find ya the sources. You probably don’t have access.
Premise 5. Behaviour that demonstrates empathy, optimises chances of happier outcomes <- Generally speaking and with my understanding of game theory
Premise 6. People without empathy can and do learn to act in ways that would make it very hard for a baseline human to detect that they are not baseline.
Conclusion.People who lack empathy could learn to behave in a way that actually portrayed empathy,to a degree that it would be indistinguishable to most people that it was not real
@gemma If you are able to view, this suggests you are confusing empathy and compassion. Compassion can be taught. Empathy is hardwired.
@AlliFlowers my contention is that if someone is emulating empathy to the point at which you cannot tell without resorting to an fMRI, then why should such behaviour be considered functionally different than running empathy natively.
@gemma Ok, you’re right, Dr. Gemma. Don’t bother looking at the research.
@AlliFlowers I'm not saying I know, and that I'm right, I'm describing by stating my premises and conclusions, my view of empathy, both hardwired, and running in software.
1/2
@AlliFlowers and to reference back to the turing test start, if you cannot tell the difference between a baseline person and a person faking it over substantive periods of time (to show that the behaviours are having genuine positive conclusions not just faked good behaviour), then what actually is the substantive difference to you...
@AlliFlowers @nedhamson @harriettmb
Premise 3. I am neurodivergent aka have autism, and usually when around other people, I portray a behaviour described as "masking". Masking is essentially emulating baseline human behaviour that baseline humans do natively.
Premise 4. Most people who are not neurodivergent (or well socialised with many neurodivergent people, while being neurotypical) cannot tell the difference between masking and baseline human behaviour
@AlliFlowers @nedhamson @harriettmb
Your assertion is that you cannot teach empathy...
As part of that assertion, you've cited a paper in medical ethics that describes figuring out how to teach empathy, and cited your own unpublished research (which is in the field of instructional design?).
I'm not finding this a productive discussion, given it distracts from the inhumanity of claiming that persecuted queer and afab people should be blocked from claiming asylum within the UK.
@gemma Then stop trying to continue this unproductive discussion.
@AlliFlowers Methinks you're making overeager assumptions about what the science concludes...
My hypothesis is
Premise 1. Ability to feel empathy "natively" is the mode within the human population (most babies show empathic behaviour long before its possible to teach said behaviour)
Premise 2. Some people do not have this empathy architecture, and "common wisdom" is that you can see this lack of empathy on an fMRI scan (I actually don't know how accurate said scan "evidence" is)
1 of 2