Why do you care for others?

[[[global:former-user]]]

Why even bother?
What do you even get from that?
Justification?
Another urge satisfied?
Or is it just a mindless action without any deeper thought behind it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Wt8LhoVHA

[Indrid Cold]

@Karina-Kara I get the feeling you don't believe in altruism much, KK? It's a good question, anyway. I pride myself on caring for almost everyone I meet. If I meet someone who's an obnoxious bellend, I'll still care about what it is that's messing them up, and try to show them empathy ...but that does make me sound like a wishy-washy liberal ponce, doesn't it? It does make me sound like a overly-optimistic dreamer, doesn't it?

I just believe in the potential of consciousness, I guess. If someone has the slightest bit of consciousness, even they're generally di cks, it shows they're on the right road. And if someone has a brain in their heads, they have the potential to be cool, and funny, and humane.

[[[global:former-user]]]

@Indrid-Cold
What about psychopaths?
Those who cannot feel anything towards anyone?

[Indrid Cold]

@Karina-Kara In the case of psychopaths (and in all seriousness, I've had bosses who I'm pretty sure have been clinical psychopaths) ...to give them the benefit of the doubt, they're still drawing some kind of satisfaction from being alive, and that's what we should concentrate on.

I mean, you can put yourself in their position like this: say you're in a dream; you don't necessarily care for the characters you're surrounded by, but you still appreciate the hell out of them: they count as pure data and abstract knowledge, and that's gotta be worth something, right?

[[[global:former-user]]]

@Indrid-Cold
No...
They are just puppets and acting how the hivemind tells them to be.
I'm sorry.
But then life itself would just be a single lie.

[Indrid Cold]

@Karina-Kara Yeah, I hear that. But have I told you about my fever dream I had a few years back? I was VERY ill, and half-dead, and my mind was reduced to this hallucination that I was a billion-strong army, fighting a doomed, impossible war. I felt each soldier fighting, and I hated it, because it felt like the exact opposite of ordinary consciousness, and I had no 'self'. But I came through the other side. Perhaps i should be grateful for that hive-mind, even though it felt like the ultimate nightmare?

Does that make any kind of sense?

[[[global:former-user]]]

@Indrid-Cold
It absolutely does.
I just don't understand why others care.

[Indrid Cold]

@Karina-Kara Well, there's no easy answers, mate. I think you're extremely cool for even thinking about this stuff in the first place.

[[[global:former-user]]]

@Indrid-Cold
Thank you~

[TheGoldenMole]

@Karina-Kara said in Why do you care for others?:

@Indrid-Cold
What about psychopaths?
Those who cannot feel anything towards anyone?

I think youre thinking about sociopaths, psychopaths are capable of caring for others

[TheGoldenMole]

@Karina-Kara I think people care for others for the same way we do anything we choose to do, we like it. Caring for someone makes us feel good and having someone care for us feels good as well. All kinds of animals care for their own kind, I think its just something we like and feel the need to do, its also just morally right.

[Wolfie_11]

@Karina-Kara
We care about someone because they care about us. Sympathy and Pity are human feelings that are present in most of the humans. You develop Empathy when you see someone suffering the way you have and hence, you naturally develop a sense of caring towards them. Now, Altruism and Compassion are not really present in everyone. The self-righteous and the extra generous are the virtues of closer-to-extreme souls.

The quality of caring depends from person-to-person and situation-to-situation. You might not care for a person you want to take revenge with or whom you feel deserves it, but you can sympathise for a person whom you feel has been wronged. We are nothing but judgemental emotional beings who are ready to believe someone as we see fit to or based on what we are being shown. And that is quite an insult to the primate thinking ability that we’re blessed with and which separates us from animals, who apparently also show the virtues of caring. So in a nutshell, its a relative ability and we do develop a sense of care to those whom we love or those whom we see suffering.

[Kaho]

@Karina-Kara
Actually I only care for myself .. But my mind behaves weirdly if I think about other person.. N I put myself in his/her shoes (I don't wanna but my mind ) and as I told before I only care for myself

[Indrid Cold]

@Wolfie_11 said in Why do you care for others?:

You develop Empathy when you see someone suffering the way you have and hence, you naturally develop a sense of caring towards them.

@Wolfie_11 said in Why do you care for others?:

We are nothing but judgemental emotional beings who are ready to believe someone as we see fit to or based on what we are being shown.

I agree, on the whole. But I think the modern world, in the past few decades, has got special circumstances. I think sheer conceit and mass delusion has bled into the subconscious and collective unconscious of a lot of people. I think people look at, say, the homeless and people 'just getting by' and the automatic thought-process is not, "I should help those guys", but, "Why haven't they taken a degree studying design consultancy, or management consultancy, or logo-designing, after all, the jobs are very easy, and plentiful". Well, they aren't really, are they? It's no one's fault, but that doesn't change the fact that it's conceit, and finessed peer pressure baloney, and look how fragile our politics and our economies are.

(And obviously this is going off-topic, as I don't think it's the type of soul-searching @Karina-Kara is doing).

[Wolfie_11]

@Indrid-Cold
On second thought, I concur with your observation of the modern world and the thoughts that people have today. And as you said, its not really anyone’s fault but listening to various views and counter-views on a subject via the widespread media is definitely playing its part and we’re losing a touch of caring attitude and acquring the one of pity.
I’m still an Old-Schooler though.

P.S.- You never know what that woman is searching for through her posts. She’s a Deltaruner, with heightened teenaged phases of anxiety and inquisitiveness.

[Alte]

@Wolfie_11 Ever thought what causes some to be oldschool? Cant figure it out cuz i mean we all grow up in similar society.

[Wolfie_11]

@Alte
Our personal behaviours? Some are readily adaptable to changes whereas some like to stick to their old surroundings (set-ups). Also, Old-School in here was referred to as being one with astute morales, unlike the modern world people.

[Alte]

@Wolfie_11 Makes sense. So that base of oldschool is in the childhood.

[Wolfie_11]

@Alte
You can say so. For instance, if someone grows in a nudist family and has been taught to not fear exposing themselves then s/he is better accustomed to wander naked on beaches than the ones who have grown up in conservative environment. And by the standards of modern world, the conservative person will be known as old-school.

[Bela Hella]

@Karina-Kara Not a relevant answer hehe.. I know myself as demure type but I care a lot and my heart is to be blame for this: Heart main purpose is to pump blood not to care lol