empathy your experiences?

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So I was talking with my friends the other day and i told them a story I found fascinating. My friends found it tragic. This isn't the first time I have thought differently than then when it comes to empathy and emotions. So I was wondering your guys-es experiences and such?

The story was a true story that happened to my grandmother's uncle in the mid 1800's basically he and his sister were jumping up and down on a bed when they were kids and his head hit a shelf and a musket ball rolled off it and into his sisters mouth. She choked to death.

My initial response is "that's sad." But I don't actually feel sad. I've just been around long enough to know that's the "expected" response. That is an interesting and really unique way to go. I can't imagine there are many people that has happened to. And this is the point where I start debating how I would want to die...

I don't think NTs know the difference between empathy, other feelings and their socially accepted reactions.

Like, hearing that story, I know it's sad, but I don't know the girl so I'm not upset.

I think in the situation of hearing that story, for NTs they know the socially acceptable reaction is to act like they're upset, regardless of how they really feel. And because they do it so often, they start to confuse their projected reaction for empathy. But when you look at it rationally, there's no reason for them to react like that to this story, because chances are you didn't know your grandmother's aunt so it's not like you'd be upset by it or need to be empathised with.

There are other situations they do a similar thing, like recently my cousin had a baby and my other cousin was acting super excited about it. But we live in another state. So it's not like she was empathising with the new mother, she was just putting on an act to show everyone else how excited she was... or something.

+1

I think a great many of them are psychopaths, and so over act the part so that people won't suspect them of being so.

Having an emotion and showing it are two very different things. Showing an emotion has only evolved as a function for a social environment, for the benefit of others to read.

i don't know if i would say that a great many of them are psychopaths, that strikes me as a touch cynical--but i would agree that most NTs greatly overestimate their own capacity for truly empathising with other human beings.

Yes it's cynical, and based on my own observations which have become more intense as of late. I've been looking very specifically for conditions and markers, and the rate of occurrence is far higher than I'm comfortable with.
I am taking into account that many people out there are simply imitating behaviors and attitudes of psychopaths when they are in a social environment. The amount of deception built into the behaviors of society is mind-boggling, and of course clouds the issue greatly.
There are people who act like they don't care when they do care, and there are people pretending to care and/or over-acting.
I try to look past this superficial stuff and pick out very specific markers within their decision making process.

I am overly empathetic. If a person is upset or sad and is near me I feel upset or sad but I don't know what to say or what to do and it overwhelms me and I just can't be around that. So I appear stone hearted because of that. My friend told me a while ago that someone had cancer and I instantly felt so sad for the person and their family that I almost cried.

This story is just interesting because of the odds.

All NT means is non-autistic. There's zillions of developmentally disabled NT/non-autistic people.

Anyways, stories like that have no emotional effect on me.

If you want to understand why Asperger's has a bad rep on the internet, this topic is a good place to start.

No, NT stands for neurotypical; having the typical neurological wiring. Even if there was no way I could be autistic, I would not be neurotypical because my epilepsy comes from having atypical neurology.

That's why there's a forum on the front page welcoming all neurodiverse people.

Yes, psychopaths have an interest in "normalising" psychopathic behaviour in society, and they are ideally equipped to achieving their goals. Neurotypicals intuitively copy behaviour that they perceive as socially acceptable. The ability to copy intuitively says nothing about the ability to empathise in the sense of feeling an emotional connection. Confusing the copying mechanism with empathy is "normal" behaviour.

I often find interesting material in the comments on news sites. Like the following comment to this article
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2 ... d-wide-web (bold parts are my annotations):

Human nature is what infected it While it was fairly new, it had the liberating feeling of the relatively altruistic individuals that were involved with progressing it (that's autistic cultural mutation/innovation). Its mainstream now, so inevitably infected by our societal traits (that's the neurotypical cultural lockstep pattern at work). Insatiable commercial interests, the control freakery of the ruling classes (all the hierarchical constructs that psychopaths need to feel dominant), the howling existentialism of the rest of us (again the neurotypical lockstep/social acceptance pattern at work). Its a big old mirror of what we're collectively like.