NT Empathy, Say What?

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I think the idea is not that individual NTs are not cruel, kind or indifferent and not that they have more or less sympathy.

The idea is that they have a natural ability to perceive subtle, transitory emotional states in others and they also have a feeback loop based on those perceptions that allows them to tailor their behavioral displays to illicit a desired response.

This is the kind of empathy that we lack. It's not just feeling bad because you see that a person is suffering. It's seeing all the other little details of how they are feeling moment by moment and how they are reacting to you.

I think when people say that Aspies don't have empathy, they're talking about the social aspect of it. It's the same thing when they say that we don't have imaginations, feelings, desires, consciences, aspirations etc. I image that a lot of people perceive deaf and mute people the same way because they don't communicate as many things to other people, but no one expresses it out loud because they realize that it's not right and they don't want to sound like an a**hole. A lot of people go through life with a very subjective perception of the world. To them, nothing exists until they are made aware of it. All of reality is based on their own limited perceptions, and as their perceptions change, the objective universe changes around them. Everyone around them lives in the universe that they perceive and accept to be objective. No one else's experiences in life exist outside of their own mind.

I very much agree with this, and could not have said it better.

Ain't this the truth. I've felt this way since as long as I can remember.

I've always been an extremely empathetic person. I may not be able to express it outwardly very well but in my experience I tend to TRY to understand what other people are going through.
I always try to put myself in the other person's perspective whenever I'm dealing with a certain social situation to help myself understand why that person reacted the way they did, said what they did, did what they did.

Most people I deal with don't even stop to think about the other side. How someone else is feeling about it, it's all about them.

And I say people because I don't know if they were aspie, NT or chewbaca. I don't think it's that most people are self absorbed, it's just that considering the other side doesn't really blip on their radar.