Reply #21: I think its lack of empathy that's a huge problem... [View All]

for some people, whether its an actual physical problem with their brain, or some type of psychological trauma, it seems to lead to all sorts of pathologies in which they simply cannot empathize with any other living thing. As such they would be the only truly pure selfish individual, without a capability for feeling guilt, they can take out their rage and anger in a violent manner against other living things, and not feel consequences for such actions.

Normal people simply don't act that way, we are social creatures, and as such, empathy is essential to develop in order to interact with ourselves and other species in a productive manner. Hell, this was necessary for our species to develop civilization in the first place, otherwise it wouldn't have lasted as long as it has.

This is a big reason why I hope we can catch such anti-social and violent behavior as early as possible, for, while the jury is still out as to whether empathy is an innate instinct or a learned behavior, we should assume its a combination of both. Indeed, psychopathic behavior such as I described is fortunately rare, for obvious reasons, but we should concentrate our resources on those we can most help, so to prevent the behavior from escalating later in life.