Thread by @AlexandraErin

I keep seeing people expressing things about how hard it is to have empathy for unvaccinated adults in the US, and we as a society really need to learn that for a species of highly specialized social animals (which we are), taking care of each other is in our own self-interest.

https://twitter.com/Wolfrum/status/1416561152142848003

If half the adults in this country were to die over the course of a year, we'd be screwed. You'd be screwed. Even if it was nobody you knew. Even if it was "the worst half" in every measure you care about. However self-sufficient you think you are, you'd find out how you're not.

"It's hard to have empathy when it's survival of the fittest."

Yeah, Darwin? Where do you think empathy came from? Is that like some flaw that crept in to the human species as we got better at surviving? No. It's a useful trait for the survival of a social species.

"I struggle to feel empathy for..."

Okay, stop and ask yourself why empathy exists.

Do you recoil from the idea of empathizing with what you see as slackers in unskilled dead-end jobs "flipping burgers" who want a living wage for it?

Well, do you like the burger availability?

See, the reflexive inclination to feel empathy towards your fellow social animals is conducive to you being able to get a burger made to suit your specifications minutes after you decide you want one, without you having to master the skills involved or own the equipment yourself.

Empathy exists because we are all better off when we're all taken care of. Without that, we can't take full advantage of our greatest strengths as a species: communication, specialization, adaptability.

Now, I struggle to empathize with anyone. It's not really my core strength.

But I don't have to empathize with anyone to know I'd be better off if they had a living wage, especially but not exclusively if they provide a service I want or need. And I don't have to empathize with anyone to know I'm personally better off if a plague doesn't rip through them

Because each family a contagious illness is ripping through increases the odds that the illness will affect me, there is not a family in this country I despise enough to wish plague upon, in the same way I wouldn't wish an enemy's house to burn down if I lived in wildfire country

Ah, eugenics has entered the chat. I hope anybody who replies to me with hopes that "people with 'anti-social genes'" will die off and better the species knows they're going to be blocked. You are a Nazi. You are a whole Nazi.

Okay, so a lot of people have replied to this thread to defend their lack of empathy to me. I apologize. I should have been more clear in my point. I do not care about empathy. It's irrelevant. I'm not haranguing you to get some. I'm explaining why it's irrelevant here.

I made this thread specifically in response to people who say things like "You expect me to have empathy for those jerks?" in response to things like "We don't actually want the anti-vaxers to die."

Go ahead and think they're jerks. Go ahead and save your empathy by not wasting it on them. Is your empathy a rare and valuable collectible? I don't know. And I don't care. My point is, you don't have to empathize with anyone you don't want to, because the equation doesn't change

Unless you've got god-like cosmic powers or something, whether you personally wish for some group of strangers to die or not doesn't really affect anything.

But to the extent that we as a society can decide what to do about anti-vaxers? "Just let them die" is the wrong choice.

Feel how you're gonna feel about them, because you're going to feel that way anyway. I'm not the feelings police, and that's not what I'm talking about.

We're talking about when the pandemic ends and how much damage it causes. Empathy isn't required to want it sooner and cleaner