I think people assume empathy is a positive thing. It's less of a benevolent feeling towards someone else and more of a skill, of how you learn someone else's p

I think people assume empathy is a positive thing. It's less of a benevolent feeling towards someone else and more of a skill, of how you learn someone else's perspective and internalize it to imagine how they feel. You can use that to positive effect to understand how to collaborate or help them work through pain. But you can also use that to negative effect, as click-bait authors, con-artists and interrogators demonstrate.