Strong Nuclear Force: How Empathy Emerges From Atoms
To be empathetic is not to be on the right side of history, it’s to be on the right side of reality.
One of the most disturbing trends in the recent anti-human zeitgeist is the war on empathy. People like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Curtis Yarvin, and others in Trump’s orbit systematically promote the boogeyman of “suicidal empathy” as a rationale for empowering the oligarch class with all of our decisions. The entire attack on “woke“ is a barely-veiled effort to recast empathy as weakness.
In this essay, I will show how this is not just wrong morally but subatomically.
Strong Nuclear Force
The lowest layer of matter that we can describe—the particles inside protons and neutrons—is governed by an unimaginably strong force called quantum chromodynamics (QCD) or just the strong force, which binds quarks together. This realm of reality is composed of a near-alien physics and mathematics as yet beyond our ability to completely explain.
However, the strong force’s residual effect, often called the strong nuclear force, is an emergent property that holds protons together despite the fact that they are positively charged and, according to electromagnetism, would otherwise fly apart. You can think of the strong nuclear force as velcro for protons and neutrons holding the nucleus together.
This is quite literally at the boundary of our understanding of the universe—representing the smallest emergent interaction we can observe. So why does this matter? Because without QCD nothing would exist, and without the strong nuclear force, the universe would be a diffuse cloud of ionized hydrogen gas. Nothing more complex could form: no molecules, no stars, no chemistry, no biology, no mind—and no morality.
Binding
The process of units binding together to form more complex structures is a fundamental property of the universe.
This isn’t metaphor—it’s the key dynamic that makes everything something. This is not just symmetry; it is the basic shape of reality—including humanity.
Quarks bind to create nucleons.
Nucleons bind to create atoms.
Atoms bind to create molecules.
Molecules bind to create cells.
Cells bind to create people.
People bind to create societies.
Societies bind to create civilization.
When the forces that bind any of these layers of complexity are diminished enough, collapse always follows: atoms decay; cells and people die; societies and civilizations fall. Entropy, chaos, and disorder are literally the absence of binding forces.
“Evil is the absence of empathy” is not just a comment on the psychological makeup of Nazis after WWII, it is a window into the most fundamental conflict in reality: binding vs. unbinding; together, or apart.
Unbinding
Binding is emergent in nature—forces of coherence just happen. Unbinding, however, is different in that it generally starts with a single decoherent unit and propagates outward. Let me give three different examples: free radicals, cancer cells, malignant narcissists.
A free radical is a molecule with an unpaired electron which makes it chemically unstable and extremely reactive. Free radicals can be produced by pollution, radiation, and toxins, and will try to aggressively steal or donate electrons from neighboring molecules which can start a chain reaction. In biological systems this can cause inflammation and altered DNA—how a single molecule can lead to systemic damage.
A cancer cell, which can be created by free radicals, is a formerly functioning unit of an organism which has lost its regulatory system and binding mechanisms, ignores its biological contract with its fellow cells, and replicates uncontrollably—causing damage to adjacent cells and ultimately its host.
A malignant narcissist is a unit of society that has lost its internal cohesion and its binding mechanisms to others. It is a person which lacks the binding force of empathy and can spread this deficit to its fellows, causing damage to society and ultimately civilization.
In each of these cases, an aberrant unit can cause systemic damage, which can in turn lead to damage at higher levels of complexity. One bad electron can kill you. One malignant narcissist can destroy the world.
But why does it matter if nature behaves this way? What use is it to us?
Good and Evil
Observably, American society—and civilization more generally—are undergoing a period of decoherence—a systemic breakdown in governance that is damaging the geopolitical well-being of the nation and the world. But what is the defining characteristic of it all? Lack of empathy. The absence of binding. “The cruelty is the point.”
When Elon Musk destroys USAID, Donald Trump deprives people of insurance, or Stephen Miller sends ICE to terrorize cities, they are demonstrating and propagating the unbinding of America. When Pete Hegseth destroys Venezuelan fishing boats, or Vladimir Putin sends drones on human safari in Kherson, they are unbinding the world from one another.
This is not a moral judgement but a fact—the accelerating movement toward less connection is recognized by its own propaganda: “globalism” is a conspiracy; a “multipolar” world is ideal; empathy is “suicidal.” These are all arguments for apartness—a desire to deprive us of the ubiquitous emergent force that governs the universe, the strong force that binds us together.
But nature has a funny way of asserting her authority as the final arbiter. While I am an atheist, this doesn’t mean I am not spiritual, or that I don’t see good and evil. In fact, it couldn’t be any clearer at this point. Good does not mean liberal; it does not mean nice; it does not mean weak—it means following the basic direction of nature, to build ever more complex versions of reality, to bring things together, not blow them apart.
To be a free radical, or a cancer cell, is to destroy through aberration and imitation—to destroy the complex in favor of the simple by destroying binding forces. On their own planes of reality, you could say they are evil.
A functioning atom or a functioning society does not ignore disorder, it embraces it—just enough to keep the system in balance. Without the strong nuclear force we would be hydrogen gas. Without the strong nuclear force of empathy, humanity would be an incoherent mass of savages.
No matter what they tell you, always remember: To be empathetic is not to be on the right side of history, it’s to be on the right side of reality.
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Your section “Binding” reminded me that Nikola Tesla once said, “Though free to think & act, we are held together, like stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them.”
As an engineer I liked how you used nuclear physics to make this point.
I agree, good is not political. It's upheld through truth and accountability. Disinformation can and will be defeated.