Comment by neom

Conditioning is a powerful thing. I'm autistic, but my mother refuses to accept it, every 5/10 years she comes up with a new reason I'm not autistic, the latest one is that it's "hip to have autism now", hah. I think she thinks it's a failing of her parenting maybe, who knows, but the older I get, the more I realize lack of empathy does not arise spontaneously, but from repeated conditioning to mistrust empathy itself. When my mother wanted to be a special needs teacher, my grandmother couldn't understand why she wanted to look after "spastics".

My former best friend, despite having $100MM++ is paranoia about kindness, he theoretically should be liberate to express generosity, but his father taught him anyone being kind or receiving kindness is about someone taking from him. His father’s voice has become his own internal voice creating huge amounts of mistrust and suspicion, ultimately robbing him of any connection unless he paid for it directly, so zero meaningful connection.