• quacky@lemmy.worldOP
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    21 hours ago

    They planned their errand

    That’s the problem if they didn’t consider the limitations. It’s a irrational expectation for the bus to be 100% efficient and always on time. Nothing is 100% efficient. It’d be a faulty expectation to assume that things (other than death, disease, aging, etc.) are certain or guaranteed.

    not also deserve empathy?

    Everyone deserves empathy. All sentient beings, including this hypothetical man.

    Do all these other people not also deserve empathy?

    Again, all people deserve empathy. It seems that you’re making this a binary, “either/or”, dilemma when I believe both the angry transit operator and the smoker are “not ideal”, though I do have a bias toward the anger because that is aesthetically uglier than the smoking.

    • howrar@lemmy.ca
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      8 hours ago

      if they didn’t consider the limitations

      They did, and planned for it to the best of their abilities given the available resources. Being disabled doesn’t mean you stop trying to be a functional human being. The illogical thing to do is to sit at home and do nothing because you’re not 100% certain that things will go well. Because as you said,

      Nothing is 100% efficient [or certain or guaranteed]

      So should we not strive to make things as predictable as possible?

      Everyone deserves empathy. All sentient beings, including this hypothetical man.

      Again, all people deserve empathy

      And yet, your ideal scenarios, you keep favouring one person/group at the expense of another. I don’t know if empathy is the word you actually mean to use. You can empathize with everyone while still favouring specific people, but your examples suggest that you’re using “empathy” to mean the actions you take (or don’t take) to help someone rather than the emotional state. In that case, it’s is indeed a binary either/or. In your examples, what you do to help one person will negatively affect others.