Empathy without discrimination is a form of self abuse. It is a form of inviting predators into your life, with a big jarful of marinade on your balls, and then hoping things go well.
Empathy is a significant weakness. Particularly around non-empathetic people. If you have a really cruel and mean and sociopathic person in your life, and you show great empathy towards that person, that person will exploit you. They will play upon your sympathies and your empathy, they will play upon your kindness, they will milk every last drop of human kindness out of you. It’s like being around drug addicts. If you have sympathy for a drug addict to the point where you are enabling them (or alcoholics) they will play you, and they will manipulate you and they will lie to you. Empathy is a huge weakness around certain kinds of people. If you want empathy to be a strength rather than a weakness, then you have to have people around you who are also empathetic. But wandering out into the world spraying empathy is marking yourself with air strike laser paint to call in everyone in who can come and exploit you. You’re telling them:
“Hey I’m sensitive. You can push my buttons.”
Be honest, empathy is a wonderful, wonderful binding glue of human intimacy – if – you are around the right people. But you need to be able to seal that empathy up pretty quickly when you are around predatory, selfish, taking people.
Empathy is something that is for the love only, it is for lovers and for children, extended family and, empathy is for people who have empathy. Empathy must be hidden away and kept very safe from people who are exploitative.
– Paraphrased from Stefan Molyneux, Empathy as Weakness: Predator vs. Prey
Patrick Watts 