Since it's been removed I pulled the post here:
"sorry for repost but the last title was too political so it got taken down
im currently 17 and pretty much all my life i have demanded economic prosperity and for politics to not waste their time on social issues that dont really matter.
but ever since i took my first tab, i have begun considering leftist ideology, such as free healthcare, reformation to education, taxing the rich, affordable housing, and putting a focus on environmental clense.
this current mindset i am being uncontrollably pushed towards is really scary, as i am becoming the type of person i wouldve bullied online a year ago
what do should i give up lsd so i can try and manage this political shift of mine or embrace the change"
It's not even a matter of "brainwashing" it's just strictly speaking not useful to "have empathy" (which here really just means having values, and ideally taking actions which are principally pro-social in nature), unless you're a very specific kind of - I don't know to describe it other than "high social value" - person.
If you have power within, and are able to have all of your material needs & creature-comforts met within the market, you've won so there's no fucking reason beyond the sanctity of your "Immortal Soul" to care about what the fuck happens to anyone below you; and there's plenty of TV preachers who will tell you that your prosperity is itself a sign of divine favor.
If you are an ugly autistic loser who lives with their parents at 30 (I'm talking about myself here for anyone who wants to get mad at me for saying that); then you also have no real reason to exercise empathy beyond that which is necessary to getting your ass kicked; because everyone already sees you as fundamentally inferior to themselves and so any attempted pro-social action you take will never actually be reciprocated upon, and just as well the expectation that it ever would be can only be taken as evidence of one's own toxic entitlement.
same :sadness: feels very bad man
I'm not gonna argue with your experiences, but I'm fairly certain human beings are social creatures. Meaning we literally survive more easily in groups of people we get along with. The survival of one increases the survival of the whole group, even someone who can't do manual labor can still contribute to the group in some way shape or form. I don't like defaulting to "human nature" arguments, but we literally evolved to work together. And not as isolated subjects of an Alpha Chief or whatever, but as a community.
Empathy is our ability to do this. It's our ability to be a part of a group of other people and not immediately kill each other like we're betta fish or something.
And despite our society being run by and for those with the least empathy, the average human being would still push a magic "Help Others" button if they felt like it wouldn't hurt themselves. People will take care of themselves first, but they also do care about other people by default, until it's beaten out of them by a society run by the worst of us.
I guess what I'm really getting at here, is that I don't really believe that I'm ever actually going to get to be a part of any "group", any community, in which I can be a genuinely valued member.
I am never really going to be able to benefit from any of what you are talking about; precisely because there is no such thing as a "Magic Help-Others Button" that can be pressed at no cost to oneself. Anyone who would choose to associate with me would have to do so knowing that they would then need to go out of their way to accommodate my social & developmental deficits were they to do so; and so how could they ever really value me as much as someone for whom they did not have to do those things? Maybe if I were exceptionally talented in some other way, but I'm not; I can't really do anything other than menial labor.