On the politics side here on ET, one painfully notices something. A big part of the problem is that many of the lads simply can’t understand things outside their direct personal experience. That’s not unique to the right, but to be right-wing often means a particular kind of imaginative poverty... the inability to stir empathy for someone not already in your tribe or on your radar. The left’s occasional overreach into performative empathy without grounding in practical reality, bugs the shit out of them. I think empathy needs both imagination and experience. Sometimes we get one without the other so have a bad take on something. I've had moments in life that felt strange, almost mystical. Times where I felt an overwhelming urge to do something, go somewhere, or help someone on the street as I pass in a tuktuk*. Sometimes I listened and nothing came of it. Other times I didn’t, and it lingers with me. I remember once being on the train from San Francisco to Denver. We stopped in a little mountain town for an hour, and I felt powerfully drawn to get off. I didn’t. I had just changed my flight home and had family obligations in New Orleans first. But I’ve always wondered what was waiting there. Probably nothing. Or maybe something pivotal... But probably nothing. Pattern-seeking is hardwired into us, and the leap from "this feels meaningful" to "this is meaningful" is seductive. That’s the thing. Sometimes empathy is that quiet nudge. And sometimes people build entire worldviews by refusing to listen to it. I understand how people ascribe a feeling of a guiding hand as supernatural, even smart people, but having a good memory and sense of statistical chance a bit more objective that most humans, I at best experience a synchronicity, never real religous experience. Probably need a bit of epilapsy to feel that. * What psychologists call "intuitive prosociality", those gut feelings that push us toward altruistic acts, even when logic doesn’t fully justify it. Research from folks like David Rand at MIT shows people often act on these intuitive nudges in split-second decisions, but when they overthink, they default to self-interest.