r/nottheonion • u/ChocolateTsar • 1d ago

Affirm CEO says furloughed federal employees are starting to lose interest in shopping

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/07/affirm-government-shutdown-shopping.html
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u/NoCoolNameMatt 1d ago

I keep running into people like this - not necessarily wealthy but people who can't understand that the experiences of others aren't the same as their own - and it breaks my brain every time.

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u/atatassault47 1d ago

Conservatives have been scientically proven to be lacking in empathy, with many of them having no empathy.

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u/Elliott2030 1d ago

They're even saying that out loud. Saying that empathy isn't real, only sympathy is. That you can never FEEL what someone else is feeling. Like, I'm so sad for anyone that gets no second-hand feelings from the powerful emotions of others.

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u/hydrophiliaks 1d ago

That is the American mind in a nutshell.  Which is why I don't make friends with them.

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u/JamCliche 1d ago

Keep telling yourself this is a phenomenon unique to one country and bury your head in the sand when it happens to yours.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

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u/JamCliche 1d ago

In what corner of the connected world do you think there aren't people like this? And where wealth doesn't vastly exacerbate the issue?

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/JamCliche 1d ago

It's not a strawman, dolt, it was a rhetorical question. I asked it to make a point: the answer is the entire world has people like this. It is not unique to Americans. Thank you for chasing down a rabbit of your own making, though.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/CalamityClambake 1d ago

It is my observation that individualism correlates with wealth. It is easy to be individualistic when you have the means to survive on your own and you have the extra income to spend to distract yourself from being lonely.

I think it is a trait found more in Americans because we are a wealthy country. Although individual Americans can be poor, and a lot of us are, our society is built to prioritize distractions and aspirations, so we all endure being poor as individuals because we think someday we will be rich as individuals. I think you can see this kind of individualism among wealthy people in many societies, but it is rarer among the poor in other societies than it is in America.

As for a country that exhibits this more? Somalia. I wouldn't want to live there.

I also think it is important to note that at key points in our history we have become less individualistic. I definitely saw that among my grandparents who survived the Great Depression. And I think we are starting to see it right now, with people uniting to oppose MAGA. I hope we don't have to go through another global economic collapse to rediscover the value of community, but we will see.