(similar to what other people have said, mostly trying to clarify my own thinking not persuade John) I think a more useful kind of empathy is one meta level up. People have different strengths, weaknesses, background, etc (obviously); their struggles usually aren’t exactly your struggles, so if you just imagine exactly yourself in their position, it generally won’t resonate.
So I find it more helpful to try to empathize with an abstraction of their problem; if I don’t empathize with someone who e.g. has adhd and is often late and makes lots of mistakes on detail-oriented tasks, can I empathize with someone who struggles with something that most people find a lot easier? Probably, there are certainly things I struggle with that others find easy, and that is frustrating and humiliating. Can I empathize with someone who feels like they just can’t get ahold of aspects of their life, no matter how hard they try? Who feels like they really “should” be able to do something and in some sense it’s “easy”, but despite them in some sense putting in a lot of work and creating elaborate systems, they just can’t seem to get those issues under control? Absolutely.
I’m not saying this always works, and in particular it frays when people are weak on things that are closest to my sacred values (e.g. for me, trying in a sincere way to make the world a better place; I feel most disgust and contempt when I feel like people are “not even really trying at all” in that domain). For John, that might be agency around self-improvement. Then I find it helpful to be even more meta, like “how would it feel for something I find beautiful and important to be wholly uninteresting and dry and out-of-reach-feeling? well there are certainly things others find motivating and important and beautiful that I find uninteresting and dry and out of reach… imagine if I were trying to pursue projects loaded on one of those things, it’d feel so boring and exhausting”.
I get the vibe that John thinks more things are more “in people’s control” than I do and a lot of other commenters do (probably related to hightly valuing agency). Like yeah, in theory maybe the people on your team could have foreseen the need and learned more ML earlier, but they probably have a lot of fundamental disadvantages relative to you at that (like worse foresight, maybe less interest in ML, maybe skill at teaching themselves these kinds of topics), like in theory you could be better at flirting but you have a lot of disadvantages relative to e.g. George Clooney such that it’s unlikely you’ll ever reach his effectiveness at doing it.
I’m not saying everyone is equally skilled if you think about it or all skills are equally important or you shouldn’t trying to use keen discernment about people’s skills and abilities or some other nonesense. I’m saying I think empathy is more about trying to look for the first opportunity to find common ground and emotional understanding.
I also don’t think “you should always be more empathetic” or “more empathy is always good”, I’m just trying to explain what I think is a useful definition of empathy and how to do it that carves reality at its joints.
(similar to what other people have said, mostly trying to clarify my own thinking not persuade John) I think a more useful kind of empathy is one meta level up. People have different strengths, weaknesses, background, etc (obviously); their struggles usually aren’t exactly your struggles, so if you just imagine exactly yourself in their position, it generally won’t resonate.
So I find it more helpful to try to empathize with an abstraction of their problem; if I don’t empathize with someone who e.g. has adhd and is often late and makes lots of mistakes on detail-oriented tasks, can I empathize with someone who struggles with something that most people find a lot easier? Probably, there are certainly things I struggle with that others find easy, and that is frustrating and humiliating. Can I empathize with someone who feels like they just can’t get ahold of aspects of their life, no matter how hard they try? Who feels like they really “should” be able to do something and in some sense it’s “easy”, but despite them in some sense putting in a lot of work and creating elaborate systems, they just can’t seem to get those issues under control? Absolutely.
I’m not saying this always works, and in particular it frays when people are weak on things that are closest to my sacred values (e.g. for me, trying in a sincere way to make the world a better place; I feel most disgust and contempt when I feel like people are “not even really trying at all” in that domain). For John, that might be agency around self-improvement. Then I find it helpful to be even more meta, like “how would it feel for something I find beautiful and important to be wholly uninteresting and dry and out-of-reach-feeling? well there are certainly things others find motivating and important and beautiful that I find uninteresting and dry and out of reach… imagine if I were trying to pursue projects loaded on one of those things, it’d feel so boring and exhausting”.
I get the vibe that John thinks more things are more “in people’s control” than I do and a lot of other commenters do (probably related to hightly valuing agency). Like yeah, in theory maybe the people on your team could have foreseen the need and learned more ML earlier, but they probably have a lot of fundamental disadvantages relative to you at that (like worse foresight, maybe less interest in ML, maybe skill at teaching themselves these kinds of topics), like in theory you could be better at flirting but you have a lot of disadvantages relative to e.g. George Clooney such that it’s unlikely you’ll ever reach his effectiveness at doing it.
I’m not saying everyone is equally skilled if you think about it or all skills are equally important or you shouldn’t trying to use keen discernment about people’s skills and abilities or some other nonesense. I’m saying I think empathy is more about trying to look for the first opportunity to find common ground and emotional understanding.
I also don’t think “you should always be more empathetic” or “more empathy is always good”, I’m just trying to explain what I think is a useful definition of empathy and how to do it that carves reality at its joints.