Yes, people without empathy exist. Stop pretending they don't!

People love to ask 'Without empathy, how do we exist' and pretend that if someone doesn't act nice, they would just go extinct & no longer be around. Some people treat this as sound logic but to me, studying a bit of basic bit of psychology makes this laughable at best and immature ignorance at worst.

For one, it feels as if people who lack empathy are something people just love to conveniently forget actually exist and are not a part of some kind of fantasy novel or flight of fantasy. Even in the modern world we exist in where you can rehabilitate people who lack empathy and make some of them decent people, we still have plenty of people with untreated mental illnesses associated with lacking compassion and understanding that are walking around among us.

Antisocial Personality Disorder, or ASPD for short, is a mental illness that, according to the National Institutes of Health, is characterized by "a deeply ingrained and rigid dysfunctional thought process that focuses on social irresponsibility with exploitive, delinquent, and criminal behavior with no remorse." While many people get treatment for this particular condition in our modern day and age, peer-reviewed studies show that people with untreated ASPD make up about three percent of the population, meaning one out of thirty-three people might have far less empathy than a normal person due to this condition.

On top of that, you have another condition that is known as Borderline Personality Disorder, also known as BPD. Science Daily defines this mental illness as a condition "marked by unstable moods, often experience trouble maintaining interpersonal relationships". Up to six percent of the general population & 20 percent of people who are a part of the psychiatric population have this condition and according to a 2015 study from the University of Georgia, those with BPD have lowered brain activity in the regions important for empathy in people.

Then, there is Narcissistic Personality Disorder or NPD. This disorder is characterized by "a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy". It often affects people beginning in their teens and early adulthood & untreated versions of this disorder affect about 6.2% of the general population, which is about one in sixteen people in the population.

There are other mental illnesses that are associated with a lack of empathy that exists out there & far more that goes into these illnesses, but these mental disorders are a good place to start with these conditions, otherwise, this explanation would literally go on all day. The point is that we have plenty of people with conditions associated with a lack of empathy, and they are able to still exist perfectly fine. In fact, the percentages that I have presented are only this low because we live in a world where therapy and medication to treat problems with the brain, something that literally was not present in the past. So in the past and today, we have plenty of people alive who see caring about others or treating other individuals as human beings as more of a suggestion than a rule.

Plus, people who lack empathy have some advantages compared to their more empathetic compatriots. For example, a study found that those with narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder have more success when it comes to dating than others. Meanwhile, another study found that when stressful events take place, someone with empathy is more likely to freeze in fear or hesitate compared to someone with the previously mentioned mental conditions. So, these two advantages might explain how people can lack empathy and still exist.

This does not mean that we should all surrender to people who lack compassion and give up on them, but we shouldn't forget that you can have people who are less likely to care for others and still live perfectly fine lives - heck, sometimes live better lives - compared to empathetic people, showing that a lack of empathy is not an instant death sentence or something that necessarily gets someone removed from society.