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This question is not stupid, it's obvious. Everyone knows this is not normal, including you.
The only thing you get out of this is either shock value entertainment or some sort of self serving narcissistic engagement (which btw fits with the psycho profile you like to paint of yourself).
As I type this I realise I should block you just so I don't accidentally lend you my attention in the future. I leave my comment in case other commenters find it useful.
Ah yes, this again.
You have been told the answer before. What do you think will be different this time?
Okay pal, your previous account @Grimreaper@sopuli.xyz literally asked something along the lines of "AITA for not caring if my friend's child dies?"
Why are you asking this again lmao
This saga is getting more and more funny lol
Its like the Lemmy jester at this point
They're probably not going to answer that. But like I said in defence of their previous account (assuming, it's the same person), they do spark discussion and anyone is free to ignore or block them.
What I see a lot of is people spamming the same article, with the article headline copies and pasted into the subject line and the alt text (so we see it 3x per post), to multiple communities. But you tap their name and all they do is post. They do not engage in discussion. It's basic karma farming techniques that worked on Reddit, only Lemmy doesn't have a karma system. Your overall/community score does not raise the value of your posts. So the deal on Reddit was, you did that for a while, then you sold the account and bad actors would use the karma gained to post scams to make their money back. That doesn't work on Lemmy, so those people are just... I dunno. Littering?
This user/those users may ask questions that aren't the smartest, but they do create conversation. I think they're a net positive to the site. Even if their questions are made in bad faith, seeing people come together and post good answers makes Lemmy better, IMO. It's like Cunningham's Law states, the best way to get a good answer online isn't to ask the question, but to confidently post the wrong answer. If you ask the question, people who aren't sure won't risk sticking their neck out and having someone come along and gainsay [1] them. However, if you state the wrong answer, those same people will take the time to get the correct answer (it's the same instinct, for one Internet user to gainsay another). Asking questions in bad faith achieves the same result.
[1] Gainsay is an old, antiquated word that I really think needs to come back, especially in regards to online discourse (or any discourse, really). To gainsay someone is to speak out against them for your own gain. Like you can disagree, you can correct, but if you're doing either in a way to make yourself look better than them, you're gainsaying them. Simple word that is almost too obvious in its meaning, yet so specific and IMO we don't have a better word for it. Trolling covers it, but it covers a lot more.
"Gainsay" is antiquated? Huh.
Yes, it's largely fallen out of favour in the common vernacular, as in, people generally don't use it.
There used to be a site (one of the popular dictionaries) that would show you how commonly a word has been used in publications (and, I suppose, online now) over time, but I can't find it now. It would be interesting to see how less common words rank.
FWIW, I did find a dictionary entry that said it merely means to declare something untrue, with no mention of saying it to gain social status over the person, but that's how I learned it. Not sure where I picked it up, but if I learned it from a movie or a book, it was being used in that way.
Fair enough. Thank you.
It's not aligned to what most humans expect from others, as most humans expect other people have bare minimum of empathy for the suffering of others. This is pretty universally seen as virtuous. Your behavior goes against what vast majority of people consider virtuous and which most people naturally do. So, it's not considered normal.
Good news is that you don't actually have to have empathy (which is a difference of neurobiology), but if you want to live a decent life in a world where most people expect a level of mutual care, you can cultivate compassion:
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/compassion/definition#what-is-compassion
Compassion doesn't require you to feel empathy. Though the link there defines it as "suffering together" (and is slightly awkward in general about separating feeling with and feeling for), the actual behavior it invites is orienting towards wishing other people wellness and happiness, and taking action based on that wish. Actually, literally feeling what other people feel is not needed (and research is beginning to see this as preferable to just empathy, which is often limited by our in-tribe biases etc.).
It’s worth noting that Buddhist Loving-Kindness meditation is becoming increasingly popular among care providers. Western neuroimaging now measurably shows that this specific practice protects against the exhaustion of empathy while cultivating the mental resilience needed to keep showing up for others.
Also worth checking out:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-backed-compassion/202504/the-empathy-compassion-gap
And of course you'd practice self-compassion in addition to compassion towards others. One cannot work without the other.
Mate you're a billionaire in the making
No
Psychopathy maybe?
Good thing you're looking into this.
No, not normal. If you enjoy it, something is wrong. If you just aren't upset by it, but care, you might make a good emergency room doctor.
How do you feel if it's someone you care about, or yourself?
Lack of empathy is not normal, no. It's a trait of socio/psychopaths.
Or depression (?)
Someone with depression would probably think, "I should care, I have cared about a similar situation before, why don't I care?" They'd be aware that something isn't as it "should" be. Whereas OP is "I don't care. Society (represented by this movie) seems to tell me I should care. Huh?"
No, it's not normal. It's quite possible that it means you're a sociopath.
There's a lot of bad shit happening in the world, and none of us care about all of it as we do about what's closest to home. Maybe some do, but they'd be miserable all the time. No one likes being miserable, so we tune some of it out. The easy answer is "well it's on the other side of the planet so it doesn't affect me." And while most people will agree, a complete lack of empathy makes a person a psychopath, most people also don't have empathy for everyone in the world. We all have a filter. Do I agree with what the west is doing to Iran? No, but my heart doesn't break for them like it might if it were in the next country over. Does that make me a monster? Maybe, to the Iranians, but empathy has to have reasonable limits, because sanity definitely has limits.
Now, if it's right outside your door (or in your home) and it doesn't affect you, I think that's different. But also, everybody mourns differently. I never cried for my father when he passed almost 23 years ago. I do think of him almost every day though. Like our favourite author (Stephen King) said, you do not forget the face of your father (paraphrased from the Dark Tower series). The face meaning, what he taught you. And, like my father before me, I am an Atheist, and we both believe that life is finite, and it is to be enjoyed while we have it, and being upset about someone who lived, not living anymore, is selfish, and unfair to the billions or trillions who were never born. Darwin said it better than I could. Anyway, he didn't view death as a sadness, but rather life as happiness, and I'm the same. I remember the good. I remember the bad, and I try to learn from it. No one ever called me psycho to my face. Maybe some of them thought it, but I don't think I am.
How is it the British say it? "Keep calm and carry on"? Yeah, that's me as well.
There's a chance you care if you look deeply and subtly enough.
You may also be surrounded by lecturing idiots who make caring about folks lame, insufferable, or like losing a battle. A normal (subconscious) response to such a thing would be to pull back and not care, to get others' nagging out of you.
That or, sometimes brains have to do bizarre, desperate things to be able to process something as awful as others' pain like that. Those things would naturally have to be strong to have any effect, and may themselves have their own draw, which isn't the same as liking the pain, it's liking a coping mechanism.
Hell, maybe the movie just kinda sucked.