Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Rambo
It's very easy for someone to *selectively* not have empathy for certain groups of people. It's very hard for a normal person to lack in empathy to the extent that Makishima does, since so far it seems like his lack of empathy seems to extend to nearly the entire human race. The most we've seen from him on that matter is him having some measure of a reaction from Choe and suggesting that the hunter guy should retreat after Kougami got the dominator. Whatever he felt about those two being killed, it wasn't exactly the emotional response of seeing a friend die.
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Like I mentioned, I see empathy as a function of perceived similarity. You can only empathize with something if you can identify with it as "one of your own". As we already know, Makishima sees normal people as no more than sheep, and that mode of thinking seems to me a result an esoteric ideal that he holds very dearly. So regardless of any biological factors, I believe that a large part of his lack of empathy is cognitively based.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Rambo
See, that's the thing most other people have problems with. The selection process doesn't just pick sociopaths with lack of empathy...it selects for sociopaths who lack empathy who are actively engaging in criminal activity.
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But see, I'm just not convinced that this is truly the case. Nowhere has it been stated explicitly that this was the case. So far, we've had Makishima and Touma, but is such an incidental relation really representative of the members of the collective? Perhaps we'll just have to agree to disagree on this, but I really am not seeing it.