Ask HN: Are there things more important than 'humanity', such as empathy?

5 pointsposted 12 hours ago
by dfps

Item id: 50029056

5 Comments

KenPainter

12 hours ago

Kurt Vonnegut said, "damnit you've got to be kind."

Courtesy, compassion, empathy, kindness.

Forget the hypothetical cases from ethics classes. Look around at the people who cross your path and start there.

em-bee

4 hours ago

i think what matters is goodwill towards every human. empathy is part of that, but it goes beyond

ZhiyuZhang

7 hours ago

Objectivity. Objective facts are the cornerstone of everything.

hanstyle

10 hours ago

Human nature is just complicated.

smt88

11 hours ago

I think you’ve constructed a false dichotomy.

Part of a machine convincing us it’s human is displaying empathy, rather than being coldly logical.

One of the reasons people think Claude is sentient (I’m not one of them) is that it responds in very empathetic, emotional ways, especially when it makes a mistake.