this post was submitted on 17 May 2024
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Most people will stop doing something if you show them how it hurts others. Not so the wealthy and powerful.
Being rich actually causes neurological changes, reducing your capacity for empathy and making your brain look more like someone born with psychopathy. 'Power Corrupts' is a biological fact. To be powerful is to be more capable of evil.
Does being rich cause neurological changes, or do those with those neurological traits by and large try to become wealthy?
Just curious the actual science there. I agree to be that rich shows a lack of empathy one way or another.
It's easier to believe that the evil want power and that is also true, but the science says that power makes you evil.
https://www.npr.org/2013/08/10/210686255/a-sense-of-power-can-do-a-number-on-your-brain
https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/news/how-power-erodes-empathy-and-steps-we-can-take-rebuild-it
https://hbr.org/2015/04/becoming-powerful-makes-you-less-empathetic
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-empathy/201909/power-blocks-empathy
https://www.livescience.com/1128-mere-thought-money-people-selfish.html
https://blog.ted.com/6-studies-of-money-and-the-mind/
Libertarian Socialists have been saying this for a century now.
I don't get much into doctrinal differences, but I feel like this is pretty core to a lot of anarchist thought. I vaguely recall a quote from engels, something about anarchists believing you need to abolish heirarchy in order to abolish injustice, vs socialists believing vice versa. I think neuroscience shows that power differentials will always create human misery.